Living in Gibraltar

Living in Gibraltar: The Tiny Rock That Changed Everything

Back in the early 2000s, when I still thought a career in banking might be the path to something other than slow spiritual death, I ended up living in Gibraltar. Not because I wanted to, mind you, but because the Royal Bank of Scotland International had a habit of shipping me off to exotic tax havens to “manage technology” (read: fix everything while pretending I wasn’t completely dead inside).

I’d just finished a stint in Jersey, Channel Islands, which was basically a colder, foggier Gibraltar without the monkeys. And before I knew it, I was being relocated to the sun-drenched southern edge of Spain, to a place I didn’t even know wasn’t an island. (Spoiler: it’s a peninsula.)

The Border That Teaches You Patience… or Alcoholism

Let’s set the scene. Gibraltar is squashed right up against La Línea in Andalucía. There’s a literal runway separating Spain from this 6.7 square kilometre chunk of British stubbornness. You walk across the tarmac to get in. And if you ever want to leave, say, for tapas, you better bring snacks, patience, and possibly an overnight bag.

One Friday after work, a few colleagues and I had the radical idea to walk into Spain for some tapas. You know, like normal people. But the Spanish border patrol had other plans. We waited. And waited. One hour. Two. By the third hour, we’d moved maybe 10 feet, and realised that tapas wasn’t happening. This wasn’t an immigration process, it was a passive-aggressive protest. The Spanish hate that the British still hold Gibraltar, and every so often they throw tantrums with border control. You haven’t really lived until you’ve been held hostage by bureaucracy and national resentment.

So we bailed on the tapas and went back to Casemates Square for drinks, where we could at least get pissed in the comfort of our own occupation.

Gibraltarians, Giblish, and Getting In

Living in Gibraltar is like being trapped in a weird British sitcom set in Spain with occasional monkey cameos. It has the accent of Essex, the heat of Andalucía, and the political mood of a family reunion that no one wanted to attend.

The locals speak Giblish, a hybrid of Spanish and English with a dash of chaos. Think Spanglish, but with more attitude. “Yo voy to the shop, te guta algo?” was something I heard more than once. It means, roughly, “I’m going to the shop, do you want anything?” but it also means you’re now part of a culture where language is its own kind of rebellion.

Andalusians, for reference, don’t pronounce half their consonants. So me gusta becomes me guta, and if you’re not ready for that, you’ll think everyone’s drunk. Which, to be fair, they probably are.

Booze, Burnout, and a Marathon

There isn’t much to do in Gibraltar. There are pubs. And more pubs. Irish, British, sports, basically any excuse to sit outside and drink while yelling about politics or football. The options were: drink myself into a coma, get fat, or run. So I chose all three, alternating.

I hired a personal trainer in Spain who’d meet me at the border at 6am. We’d run through La Línea while the sun came up and the monkeys on the Rock woke up to start stealing snacks. I trained for the London Marathon, five mornings a week, while five evenings a week I trained for an Olympic gold in pint consumption. By Friday, I was fluent in both endurance and regret.

Friends, Isolation, and a Strange Kind of Belonging

Making friends in Gibraltar was weirdly easy and impossibly hard. Expats cling together like drunk koalas because you need each other to survive the small-town expat loop. I made friends at the bank, some of whom I’m still in touch with today. There’s a kind of trauma bond that forms when your Friday nights end in half-remembered slurs and your Mondays begin with awkward apologies by the coffee machine.

Years later, I even got married there. Not during that first stint, but Gibraltar stuck with me. It wedged itself into my story in a way I didn’t understand at the time. What I thought was just a job assignment turned into a chapter that shaped who I was. It became a symbolic turning point I only recognised long after I’d left. This is something I dive into more deeply in Good Luck Getting Rid of Me, which picks up the story years later in a very different kind of war zone.

Life Lessons, Courtesy of a Rock

So what did I really learn while Living in Gibraltar?

That freedom can feel like a trap. That when you live on a rock where you can walk its length before breakfast, introspection isn’t optional. That identity isn’t tied to nationality or language, it’s the space between cultures where you start to question your own.

Also, that if a monkey steals your sandwich, you just let it go. Trust me.

A Rock with a Bloody Good Backstory

Here’s the thing most people miss: Gibraltar isn’t just some quirky British outpost. It has one of the most fascinating, blood-soaked, strategic histories in Europe. The Rock has been fought over by the Moors, the Spanish, and the British for centuries. It’s been sieged over a dozen times. It controls access to the Mediterranean, which basically means whoever holds it gets to decide who floats in and out of southern Europe. During World War II, it was a fortress stuffed with secret tunnels and enough firepower to repel a small army. All this drama, all this history, crammed into a space smaller than most theme parks. And here I was, moaning about the border queues like the world hadn’t already spilt blood over this slab of limestone.

If You’re Thinking Living in Gibraltar

Bring sunscreen, a sense of humour, and a strong liver. Learn patience, or fail spectacularly trying. And know that somewhere between the pubs, the border drama, and the weirdly profound silences on the Rock, you might just find something that stays with you long after you leave.

Like I did.

Also, read my book Monique. Not written in Gibraltar, but definitely shaped by everything I learned while trying to outrun my own boredom across the runway. Cheers.