Our Lady of Africa in Spain

When traveling, timing is everything. By chance I ended up in Ceuta at the start of a festival weekend. Ceuta is an odd city, owned by Spain but located in northern Morocco, not far from Tangier. After some bureaucratic hassles getting across the grim, disorganized border on foot (following a British couple with empty roll-along luggage who were crossing over from Morocco for an afternoon alcohol run made the going somewhat easier), I entered an entirely different world from Morocco, where Spanish is by far the predominant language, where drivers actually yield at the pedestrian crossings, where the McDonald's building is a part of the ancient city wall (and a Big Mac costs 10 dollars), and where, strangely enough, as soon as you step over the border you automatically lose 2 hours. The weekend festivities were in honor of Ceuta's patron saint, "Our Lady of Africa in Spain," and the town was packed. All downtown hotels were full, but fortunately I found a room outside of town back near the Moroccan border where, not surprisingly, many Moroccans live (as evidenced by the small mosque located in that part of town).