Barcelona: The Good, The Bag, and One Ugly Thief

It all started with a dream. It was our last night in Barcelona and while everyone else in our hostel was roasting (it was apparently pretty hot in our room, but I slept right through it), I was dreaming about Barcelona gypsies brutally robbing me blind. Luckily, I’m only about 50 percent prophetic.

The weekend thus far had been highly successful, we spent it ogling at the beautiful architecture, walking miles from plaza to plaza, and soaking in our fair share of Vitamin D at the beach. My favorite thing had been the Sagrada Familia, a church Gaudi designed that has been under construction for over a hundred years and the beach was a close second place. We’d enjoyed a fair share of sangria and a couple helpings of tapas and I was ready to go. But Barcelona had different plans for me.

Sunday morning after my scary dream and a decent continental breakfast, we left our hostel and started the trek to the bus station where we intended to board a bus that would take us the hour drive to the airport in Girona. On the way, we had some extra time so we stopped at the Parc del Arc de Triumph to take some pictures and relax. My friend Hanna and I left our bags with some friends while we went to go take some pictures. After Hanna had gotten her picture in front of the ballerina-esque statue, we were walking back towards the group and I couldn’t spot my bag. I assured myself it couldn’t have gone anywhere and was probably just behind Lauren.

We quickly came to realize that was not the case. My poor friends had undergone an entire gypsy plan of attack without even knowing it. While distracted by a man asking for money, a co-hort must have snuck up from behind and taken my bag. It could have been anyone’s, but it was mine. Since we were on our way to the airport, I had everything in there. I mean EVERYTHING. iPhone, iPod, Passport, Driver’s License, Credit Card, UK phone, etc.. etc… approximately $2,000 worth of stuff. It didn’t take me long to realize that I would not be allowed to board the plane in three hours with zero forms of identification.
After a few frantic phone calls, the police arrived and in some horrible, broken, Spanglish (on all our parts) and a couple rounds of charades, they understood the situation and had sent Hanna (my new designated caretaker, thank God for her) and I to the Police station. There we filed a police report with the best looking Spanish cop I’d ever seen. The entire station was friendly and helpful. They told us to go to the airport with our police report and a faxed copy of my passport and we should be able to board. The day prior to our day of departure, this would have worked; however, RyanAir’s policies had changed and after an hour long bus ride to the airport we found ourselves returning to Barcelona and re-checking into our hostel, defeated.

In the morning, we woke up early and got to the US consulate right after they opened. I’ve never been so happy to see an American Flag. Within two hours I had an emergency passport in hand and was ready to go home. Sadly, the flight we had intended to take had over tripled in price overnight and the earliest one the next day was 9:15 PM. We returned back to our hostel and checked in for a third time. We spend the rest of the day shopping for essentials to make it through our last 32 hours of Spain, AKA sangria, chocolate, and clean clothes.

Our final day we slept as late as possible trying to eat up the time before we could leave. We did a walking tour of the Gothic quarter led by an entertaining polish woman who gave us lots of insights into the history and culture of the area. Then we visited Gaudi’s park, which was nothing like we expected. Sadly, we didn’t get to spend much time there, but we did get some amazing overlooks of the whole city. We hopped on the bus—for the fourth time—and headed to the airport with more than enough time to catch our flight. We killed our last two hours in Spain with a bottle of Sangria and then got on a plane to go home. I’ve never been more excited to see the cars going the opposite way on the street as I was when we were landing in London and I just about tackled everyone when I got back to the house. Barcelona was beautiful, and tricky, but I was just so glad to home. Well, home away from home.

Look at my pictures from the whole Barcelona (Mis)Adventure here and get to see some more of the good parts of my trip!