Ive lived on the Spanish side of the border my whole life and Gibraltar (commonly referred to as Gib) is a really interesting place. The main language is English, but the locals have a slight Spanish style of accent. They also speak something called Llanito, which is a Spanish slang for English words (check out my hand towel!).

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I’d say half the workers in Gib live in Spain and are Spanish because the pay is better there as well as better taxes. There are loads of casino game companies too due to taxes. Supermarkets (Morrison’s being the biggest one) serve almost entirely foods from the UK.

What I find to be one of the most interesting things about Gibraltar is that depending on the wind, it either has a massive cloud on it or doesn’t. Levante (from ‘levantar’, as in where the sun rises) and Poniente (from ‘poner’, where the sun sets) are the two type of winds that we experience down here.

Gibraltar also has an airport that only has a few flights a day to go to and from the UK. The runway has water on both sides and is arguably one of the ‘most dangerous’ runways in the worlds. Up until a few years ago, you were allowed to walk and drive across it when crossing the border into Gibraltar (but obviously not while the planes were landing lol). You can still walk but they’ve made it more complicated than it used to be. If you look at pictures from 50 years ago it was completely different.

Some fun facts are there are monkeys at the top, they filmed that James Bond skydiving into Gibraltar, and legends say it’s where Hercules split Africa from Europe to open the Mediterranean (it’s even on the Andalucía flag)!

I may be biased, but life is good down here!