I found that very interesting Binand! Deepa.
On 4/3/07, Binand Sethumadhavan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 03/04/07, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2007-04-02 at 06:36 +0200, Binand Sethumadhavan wrote: > > Exactly. Use the travel sites for fare comparisons, schedules and > > possible connections, nothing more. Here in Gibraltar, if I take an > > how's life there? In one word, weird :) It is such a small place (slightly more than 6 sq. km.), with more cars than people and more pets than children. The town of La Linea in Spain and Gibraltar are together one metropolitan area; most of the (European) workforce choose to live in Spain and work in Gibraltar due to very high property prices here. Getting in is via flights from London Gatwick (BA) or London Luton (Monarch), and more recently from Madrid (Iberia), though it might make sense to fly in to the far better connected Malaga airport and driving down the last 120km. There are several squabbles with Spain, some of which were addressed in the Cordoba agreement of October 06. So, now we have flights to Madrid, mobile roaming with Spanish carriers, international acceptance of our +350 IDD code (earlier from some countries, you had to dial +34 9567 to get a Gibraltar number) etc. A major unaddressed issue at the moment is Gibraltar's entry into the UEFA (which Spain has been blocking). Most people here speak both English and Spanish equally fluently. GBP and EUR are accepted everywhere (at 1.4 EUR to the GBP) - even ATMs dispense both currencies. Perishables (vegetables, farm produce etc.) apparently are cheaper in Spain but alcohol, tobacco and fuel are cheaper in Gibraltar, so residents on either side of the border shop on both sides. There is hardly any crime - it is probably one of the safest place to live in the world. Geographically, it is quite a strategic place since whoever controls Gibraltar controls access to the Mediterranean Sea and onwards to the Suez Canal. I am not fully conversant with the history of Gibraltar, but apparently it was ceded to the UK by Spain in 1713 in the Treaty of Utrecht, with the condition that Spain will have first claim to the territory if the UK ever de-colonised it. And that is the single biggest point of contention between Gibraltar, Spain and the UK at the moment. Binand Binand
