Since I get so many "How’s life in Gibraltar?" emails I thought I would do a rambling, stream of consciousness, post about how things have been going.
Twilight Zone
Last night I checked my mail and was surprised to find something other than my phone bill. See, I have almost all of my mail delivered to the office and my landlord receives all the utility bills so the only thing that comes to my apartment is the phone bill.
I opened the envelope and it was a religious tract. Huh? I checked the envelope and it had been mailed from the US (US postal stamps). Double huh? No return address.
The strangest part was that when I looked at the address it was sent to it was sent to a version of the address I don’t even use. Gibraltar is small. Very small. There are only 30,000 or so people here so there isn’t even a postal code. Many times a proper address isn’t your street but what complex you live in. For instance, if I addressed something to Apt 202, Block 5, Eurotowers it would probably get delivered no problem even though Eurotowers isn’t the name of the street, it’s the name of the apartment complex (block 5 simply indicates which building within the apartment complex). In fact, I could probably leave out the Block 5 part and the postman would still know where to deliver the mail.
What was strange is that there are a few different ways to refer to my address. Most of the time I use Marina Square. I could also use Marina Bay. However the proper name listed on the building itself if The Square. This mysterious mail was sent to The Square which I’ve never used on any other piece of mail.
So someone in the US sent me a religious tract to an address I’ve never personally used before. Hmmmm . .
The Weather
It’s been horribly hot here the last few weeks. I don’t mind dry hot but this has been sticky, wet, hot. Ugh. It reminds me of the "cool season" in Bangkok or India. Temps are low 90’s (high 30’s C) with humidity somewhere in the 40% range.
It wasn’t this hot last summer. I also don’t remember it being this humid. I think we’ve been missing a cool breeze which usually keeps things bearable.
Getting Licensed
After nearly two years of being here I decided to get a driver’s license. I was able to use my US license but getting the international permit was a small hassle. Plus there are some not so obvious upsides. First off is the license is good until you’re 70. Without giving too much away, that affords me a few decades before renewal.
Another benefit is the confusion factor when I go back to the US at some point (or on vacation). If I get pulled over I can use my overseas license and hope they can’t be bothered to do the extra paperwork for a minor ticket. 🙂
The first step was the theory part of the test. It’s a verbal test and I read the driving manual once before taking it. It was fairly easy.
Next was the practical portion. I decided to take a few lessons just to get the groove of what would be tested and what standards I would have to adhere to. My main challenges would be to get rid of my bad habits, such as driving with only one hand on the wheel, and learning to reverse uphill while parallel parking in a manual drive car.
Once I felt comfortable I had everything worked out I booked an appointment. I showed up for the appointment and the instructor took me on the route I had become intimate with. To my surprise when were supposed to turn right and do the reverse parking thing he told me to go left through the town and then to return to the MOT (DMV in the US).
I thought I had done something to fail and he had decided to end the test early rather than waste my time. When we arrived back at the MOT he said "Well, I don’t think there’s any reason to draw this out." I started to panic a bit but then he continued "You obviously know how to drive. You passed." Woo hoo!
Smuggling
I was having a pint with a guy I’ve known awhile and he was telling me about the "good old days" in Gibraltar when smuggling was the biggest business in the country. I’m not sure if this is true or some sort of urban myth here in Gib but supposedly Gibraltar was the second biggest market in Europe for Marlboro at one time.
In Europe, much like the US, they tax cigarettes pretty heavily. I haven’t smoked in awhile but the last time I was in London when I was smoking a pack of smokes from the vending machine in a pub was running north of £5 ($10 USD) and they only came in packs of 16 (might have been 18, I don’t remember). Ten bucks a pack for smokes and when they can’t gouge you any more on the price they start taking cigarettes out of the pack as an extra tax.
Here in Gib the last time I bought a pack of cigarettes in a machine I believe it cost me £1.60 ($3.20 USD). That’s fully marked up. For the entrepreneurially inclined start doing the math on how much money there is in buying cigarettes from the source in bulk and selling them anywhere else in Europe.
Up until about a decade ago that’s exactly what many Gibraltarians did. As fast as they could unload the cargo ships the cigarettes were going onto speed boats and landing at various spots in Spain where someone would be waiting to pick them up and distribute them across Spain and the rest of Europe.
The guy I was talking to said his normal take on a load of ten boxes (large boxes, not cartons) was about £1500 ($3000 USD) and he could make several trips in a night. Meanwhile there were probably ten or more other guys all doing the same thing.
It was big business and everyone was making a little something off of it so the police often looked the other way or even helped.
Then a new government came in and decided to crack down on smuggling. They passed a law banning speedboats and confiscated boats from many of the top smugglers. They arrested so many people that they had to use the army barracks to house all of the prisoners.
Nowadays smuggling still goes on but the easy money days are over. Many of the smugglers cashed out and went legitimate. Others still smuggle but it’s gone much more underground. You constantly see Spanish folks buying 5 or 10 cartons of cigarettes in the little tiendas and immediately breaking up the cartons and stashing the packs
It’s actually difficult to buy taxed cigarettes in some places near Gibraltar. Only a fool would pay for fully marked up cigarettes so many vendors don’t even bother. Instead you have to know who sells smuggled cigs.
I was staying the weekend at a friend’s house up the coast in Spain and needed to get some smokes. We went down to the little market and I looked around and didn’t see any cigarettes available. I asked the lady at the counter and she asked what kind I would like. She pulled out a plastic bag from under the counter and sorted through the pacs and told me she didn’t have any Marlboro Lights but she had some Camel Lights. I took the Camels and she fished into another bag for the change.
Such is life in this part of the world. 🙂