That dark thing sticking out into the ocean (about halfway up from the bottom of the photo) is half the runway at Gibraltar International Airport. As you can see, the visible half was built on reclaimed land, but that’s not the strange part.

This is the strange part:

The international border between Spain and Gibraltar is on the Spanish side of the runway. After they check your passport and wave you through, you enter Gibraltar by walking or drive directly across the runway.

They close the gate when a plane is ready to take off or land, and traffic and pedestrians queue up. When it’s clear again, they open the gates, and masses of vehicles and pedestrians scurry across the runway and into Gibraltar.

It’s very odd when you realize that you’re in the middle of the runway at an international airport.

If you are willing to ignore the European Parliament, wild apes can only be found in one place in Europe — on the Rock of Gibraltar.

In Africa, Barbary macaque populations are rapidly declining due to hunting and deforestation, but the number of Barbary monkeys in Gibraltar is growing.

Three hundred of the little buggers now live in five troops on the Upper Rock area of the Gibraltar Nature Reserve, where they attempt to steal anything that isn’t nailed down.

One of the cute little guys tried to snatch a paper bag out of my hand as he ran past us. If I han’t had a good grip, he’d now be back home taking photos of the wife and kids with my cell phone and Jamie’s selfie stick.

I’m a history nut and if I didn’t hate the phrase “bucket list,” I would have been able to check one item off of mine today when we visited the Rock of Gibraltar.

Maybe I’m also an elitist snob, because I would bet all my buddy Dan’s money that most people don’t know there’s a real Rock of Gibraltar. They probably think it’s nothing more than a drawing of a make believe mountain on the Prudential insurance logo.

In reality, Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory that hangs down off the tip of Spain like a swollen appendix. But although the appendix is a worthless organ in humans, Gibraltar has always been very important in human history.

Possession of the Rock has always allowed the British navy to control who entered the Mediterranean Sea and who left. In other words, it’s one of the most strategically important spots in the world. And has been for hundreds of years.

But if you didn’t know any of this, you may be wondering how the British came to own an appendix inconveniently hanging off the underbelly of Spain.

According to Histork-UK.com: “Gibraltar was captured by the British Fleet in 1704 during the war of the Spanish Succession. On 4th August 1704, an Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of Admiral George Rooke took Gibraltar from the Spanish.”

And much to Spain’s dismay, they’ve kept it ever since and have no intention to ever give it back. The Spaniards occasionally stick their tongues out at the British and make noises about taking it back by force, but they soon lose interest and go back to watching soccer on TV.

Again, according to Histork-UK.com, “In 1968 a Referendum was taken on whether the people of Gibraltar wanted to remain with Britain or with Spain. 12,762 voted to stay with Britain and ONLY 44 voted for Spanish sovereignty.”

Sure, that may seem lop-sided, but the Spanish still think they’ll end up on top when the final votes come in from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

For twenty years, Dan, my longtime business partner and I argued about everything. All day, every day.

Don’t get me wrong. We agreed on most of the important things in life, but we disagreed about all the unimportant stuff. Like who’s better — the Beatles or the Stones. Or which one of us was better at Jeopardy. Stuff like that. And when you spend eight or ten hours a day with someone, the little things sometimes get blown out of proportion.

For years we had an ongoing argument about who could do the best Mexican accent. He offended me by saying I did a horrible Mexican accent. I told him it was absolutely authentic because I had learned it growing up with my buddies Freddie Gomez, Johnnie Rodriguez, and Herman Sierra.

He thought his Mexican accent was spectacular and couldn’t understand how I thought otherwise.

One day I realized what the problem was. My affected accent was authentic Mexican, but Dan’s was actually Puerto Rican because he had grown up in New York City. The only Mexican accents he’d ever heard were on the old “Cisco Kid” TV show.

Which brings us to today.

Jamie and I hailed a taxi and headed for the beach. Our driver, Giuseppe, was a very funny young Spaniard who told us he speaks fluent Spanish and French, a bit of Italian and a bit of English. After we complimented him on his English, he asked how much Spanish we speak.

Having mastered all the dirty Mexican words on the playground and having grown up in the middle of Southern California’s rich Mexican culture, I assumed my Spanish was more than passable.

Giuseppe begged to differ.

He tried to teach me to say a few Spanish words correctly. He failed.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he said after each of my attempts.

So I’d try again.

“You put the emphasis in all the wrong places,” he laughed.

So I tried again.

“You make it sound like it’s Italian,” he said in disgust.

So I tried again.

“Your Spanish sounds like bad English,” he sighed.

And with that, I gave up. My apologies to Freddie, Johnnie, and Herman. And Giuseppe, too.

I may have made it sound like Italian or bad English, but at least I didn’t make it sound Puerto Rican like Dan would have.

When I was a teenager, I spent about 18 hours a day listening to KMEN 129, a great radio station in my hometown. I still remember the two request line phone numbers: Turner 8-1290 in San Bernardino and Overland 6-1291 in Riverside.

I worshipped — absolutely worshipped — the morning DJ, a guy named “Huckleberry” Chuck Clemans. He was very creative, incredibly funny, and occasionally put me on the air to do something silly. He inspired me to do something creative with my life.

Here it is 50 years later and I’m still pals with Chuck. He sent me an email the other day telling me how much he loves JimandJamie.com, but requested that I post more food items.

Happy to do it, Chuck. You took a lot of my requests when I called Turner 8-1290 as a goofy teenager, so I’m happy to take your request now.

“And now here’s food item number one going out to Chuck in San Diego.”

Jamie read that Valencia is the place to get the world’s best paella. So we took a taxi down to the beach and found two side-by-side restaurants that both claimed to make Valencia’s finest paella.

One of them was empty. The other one had a line out the door. We went along with the popular vote and waited to be seated.

The paella was everything that was promised. The traditional spicy combination of rice, chicken and rabbit was wonderful. Without knowing it was the thing to do, we both began picking at the crispy rice stuck to the inside edge of the pan. The waiter came over and nodded his head and in very broken English told us we were doing it right because the crispy rice is the very best part of paella.

Of course, you can’t have paella at the beach without washing it down with sangria. In this case, a big pitcher of orange sangria.

All in all, a great way to spend a day at the beach.

UPDATE: I am mortified. In the photo of me and the pan of paella, I am wearing a T-shirt from KMEN’s duel-to-the-death competitor, KFXM. Horrible faux pas that I should be wearing that particular shirt in the story I write about Chuck Clemans. My apologies, Chuck.

UPDATE #2: Chuck sent along this photo of himself with 14-year old Jim, the third place winner in the KMEN Cake Baking Contest, with his Huckleberry Lookalike lemon cake. Looks like that boy should fatten up by eating some of that cake.

Jamie loves markets. She can sniff them out like some kind of human bloodhound.

Open air markets, indoor markets, or some combination of both, it just doesn’t matter. If it’s a market, she’s there.

But she really wanted to visit the Mercado Central, which is located in Ciutat Vella, Valencia’s historic city center. And no wonder. It’s a pretty special place.

Historians say there has been a market on this site since way back in the 14th century. It’s one of the oldest markets still operating in Europe, and this version opened its elaborately decorated doors way back in 1928.

The stunning 8,160 square meter building is home to 900 vendors selling whatever you’re hungry for.

While Jamie scoured its aisles in search of who knows what, I sat across the plaza sipping a hot cup of English Breakfast tea filled to the brim with cream and sugar.

We were both happy.

I think there is nothing more delicious than orange juice, especially the juice of Valencia oranges. It is the true nectar of the gods. So one of the reasons I was excited to visit Spain was to have the opportunity to sip orange juice made from Valencia oranges in Valencia.

Filled with eager anticipation, I sat down at a little cafe just outside the Mercado Central in old town Valencia. We ordered and a few minutes later the waiter delivered two glasses of the golden elixir to our table.

I sipped slowly and swirled it around in my mouth like a wine connoisseur tasting a rare Chardonnay.

It was everything I’d ever hoped for. Sweet. Pulpy. Delicious.

Then I thought to myself, Maybe I should look for some interesting facts about Valencia oranges that I can slip into this post.

Google, here I come.

I did, in fact, learn some very interesting things about Valencia oranges, but in this case it might be more appropriate to call them very surprising things. Maybe even embarrassing things. For example:

It was first hybridized by pioneer American agronomist and land developer William Wolfskill in the mid-19th century on his farm in Santa Ana in Southern California…

Wolfskill…named it for Valencia, Spain, which had a reputation for its sweet orange trees.

Before his death in 1866, Wolfskill sold his patented Valencia hybrid to the Irvine Ranch owners, who planted nearly half their lands to its cultivation. The success of this crop in Southern California led to the naming of Valencia, California.

So let’s summarize:

We just traveled halfway around the world to Spain because I wanted to sip the juice of Valencia oranges in Valencia only to find out that those oranges were developed back home in Orange County, California, where I lived and worked the majority of my adult life.

This, my friends, is why research should be done before you travel.

One minute the streets of Barcelona’s El Born district were packed with young couples, families, street performers and about a thousand of the city’s dog owners taking their pets out on evening constitutionals.

The next minute it started to rain and the streets were deserted.

It happened that fast. (Imagine my fingers snapping.)

So we’re walking down the street in Barcelona when Jamie says, “Hey, that looks just like the Arc de Triomphe.” I’ve never been to Paris, but I’ve seen plenty of photos of the famous Paris monument.

I had to look it up on Wikipedia, my source for all official and absolutely accurate information.

In Paris, “The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.”

In Barcelona, “The Arc de Triomf … was built by architect Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas as the main access gate for the 1888 Barcelona World Fair.”

In other words, the French built theirs to honor the dead. The Spanish built theirs to make a few bucks.

Both noble ideals.

Bob Colombatto, my first boss in the advertising business, hired me over the phone without ever meeting me. He was shocked when I showed up for my first day of work.

“Jim Lee deYong? I was really expecting a Chinese guy,” he said.

I couldn’t help but think of Collie when we ran across this restaurant in Barcelona’s El Born district.