Day One: Duh, Losing!

When you have dreams that you are being robbed in the middle of a city street, it means your brain is coding your subconscious fear of losing control or being emasculated, perhaps, if you are man.

When are robbed in the middle of a city street in reality, it just means you are about to have a shitty, shitty, day.

After safely being a tourist for 22 years even in the “bad” part of cities like Baltimore, Sydney and West Palm Beach, within 20 minutes of arriving in Barcelona people tried to take everything I owned.

I have read about how to be careful and not look like a tourist. The reports are inconclusive about my ability to blend in physically as a native Catalan, but nevertheless, when I open my mouth it is obvious I am a tourist, and when you have three pieces of luggage you are hauling slowly down the street there is not much you can do to be discrete.

I am living in the old Gothic District of Barcelona, which is kind of cool, but the streets are very narrow and winding in many places, which makes it ideal to walk around and view the shops, cafes, and well-preserved history…if you have nothing in your pocket except an ipod and six euro, or if you are a thief you is trying to rob American tourists.

The worst thing was that I was literally 5 feet away from my flat in Calle Llibreteria when it happened. I was so close to safely depositing my things.

So I was hauling my crap past Café Farggie when some man comes up to me that I all of the sudden had melted gelati covering my jacket and luggage and shoes and pretty much everything I own.  This should have been a dead giveaway in the first place, perhaps, but I wasn’t really focused on critical thinking skills at that point. I now know that if someone informs you that you have spilled some kind weird shit all over yourself, the thing to do is either kick them in the balls, or run as fast as you can away, or both. So I took off my jacket, the man offered to get me some napkins, and meanwhile, someone else filched my case which had my laptop and passport inside, among other valuable things. I ran after that one, because it was the most important, and had to leave my other two bags outside the café.

Instinctively I did what you are supposed to do, which is run after the guys with the laptop, scream a lot of American swear words, and scream a lot of other useful explicatives “help!”, “get back here!” and “policia!”. About fifteen seconds into my chase the two men who were running ahead of my dropped the bag. I grabbed that one, and ran back to where my other luggage was…gone as well, and then people told me where they had gone, so I tried to run that down for a few blocks.

I am not sure at this point what actually happened, except that people, including Britishers on a bus tour by the old cathedral pointed out where robbers had gone. I can’t tell if they were just slow to act or just incredibly useless but if I saw someone running down the street with a bag, even if it wasn’t mine I would yell for the police or run them down.

But either way, I was in 100% freakout mode, bugging out and desperately stalking the city block for my stuff. I returned to the scene of the crime and noticed an old lady carrying my bag slowly up the street. Once I got closer and saw that it was indeed my clothing bag, I started screaming at the lady and almost knocked her to the ground in my attempt to get it back. She did not speak English or even good Spanish, so in Catalan she confused asked me what was going on, as I took the bag away from her and yelled that it was mine. At least I didn’t use the c word, although for her the c word could have been “cookies” and she still wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Other ladies from the café came to join her and we had a bad, useless conversation where we tried unsuccessfully to bridge the language gap. I sort of figured out finally that this woman had been taking the bag to the police, so I felt like an idiot, apologized profusely, and then tried to figure out if they knew anything about the third bag, which had assorted goodies like my Spanish phone, computer power cord, and NY Times book of Sunday crossword puzzles. We didn’t get very far.

At this point I decided to go to my apartment and give up on the last bag. It was an unfortunately whiney and high-maintenance introduction on my part, although I felt bad because both my flatmates and the owner of the apartment, a lady named Marga, were horrified. A fellow CELTA student from Gibraltar, a middle-aged man named Tony, offered to help me file a police report, which we did. I spent the next hour and half commiserating with my flat mates (in the apartment there is me, Tony from Gibraltar, a guy whose name I forget from Rome, the landlady Marga, and her 137-year old mother). I called my parents and tried to figure out what was missing, since I wasn't actually sure. I also then tried to scrape the melted ice cream shit off everything, which was gross.

Sometime just before the afternoon, we went to the police to see if something had turned up, and somehow, through a miracle of divine justice, the police not only had my third bag, but nothing had been stolen from inside.

I don't know whether to be flattered or relieved that the robbers decided there was nothing in my bag worth stealing. I guess they look inside saw a bunch of clothing they weren't going to wear and books they couldn't read, and felt it wasn't worth the effort. They did miss the phone and camera, both of which must have had some black market value, but I'm not complaining.

So finally, by 1 in the afternoon I was reuinited with every last possession I had brought with me (except for a pack of kleenex) despite having endured more stress than all of the previous year combined, if not more.

I know I should be greatful, and I am, but honestly I was pretty pissed that even though I had to endure none of the consequences of a robbery, I had to feel all of the anxiety.

In fact, having had the things all return to me just made my experience more confusing and surreal. I was too afraid to leave the apartment for five hours, and then when I finally made it back out onto the street, I just felt very detached from reality and wandered aimlessly around the Gothic Quarter and the waterfront for two hours, until at some point I got too hungry and ate an overpriced udon noodle dinner.

Then I got locked out of my apartment and could not get in. I tried turning the key for about forty minutes, then I had to use the bathroom. The locals working around the history museum were not helpful and very unfriendly. Why, even though there wasn't a "bano publico" in the area, couldn't those bastards have just mentioned that ten meters away there was a cafe with a toilet downstairs? Was that too much of a thing to mention for someone? I was even trying to speak Spanish. Eventually I had to ask the police to let me into my own flat, which was humiliating but at least I was able to finally get to my bed, which I very happily fell asleep in at around 8 in the evening. I did not wake up for 12 hours.

In conclusion, day one was a failure to launch from the very first minute. It's never a good thing when the best part of your day is being happy going through customs didn't take as long as you thought it would. Even my breakfast ham sandwich at the airport was bad.

i suppose we all have days like this. THe only problem is, when you know you are having a really bad day, how to do damage control and just let it pass over you without too badly scarring you. I think in that regard, I may have succeeded. By day three, I was already using my camera and being a bad tourist.

Also, I don't care who, if someone spills ice cream on me again while I am here,  am kicking them hard in the groin, running away very quickly, or shanking them with the nearest long stick-like object i can find, even if that is a coffee stirrer. I am ready. Bring it on.

Or don't. Maybe that would be better.