Victims of Theft

Arrived at the Barcelona airport, picked up our luggage and headed off to the train station to go to Placa Cataluyna, where from there we needed to connect to the Metro station to get to the hotel. Mind you our hotel was located on La Ramblas, which was quite ghetto but a happening place for tourists. Ok, we caught the train to Placa Cataluyna and was trying to figure out where to purchase our tickets for the Metro. We stood in a corner near the ticket booth and bought our tickets. I took off my backpack to put my wallet back in and closed it. Two men (about the age of 20-23), approached Kenny and I and asked us something in Spanish and we didn’t understand them, so we were telling them we didn’t understand them, then they ran off. I turned around and my whole backpack was missing. They STOLE our bag. I quickly ran to the direction that I saw them run to, but it was too late, I couldn’t see or find them anywhere. I ran back to the ticket booth guy and told him that someone just stole my bag and asked him if he saw anything and if he knew where the police was, he just shrugged his shoulders and said “no”. I was panicking at this moment. I had everything in that bag and it was gone in 2 seconds. The whole thing happened so fast. Kenny and I were so confused. I lost the following items:
-My wallet which contained all my credit cards and 90 Euros and some US cash.
-Our digital camera with our 512 MB memory card
-My glasses. Luckily I still have contact lenses
-All of our flight tickets for the rest of our trip
-The photocopies of the our important documents
-My passport
-My personal cheques
-My second wallet containing my debit card and some business cards
-Other miscellaneous stuff that is not so important such as lip balm and hand cream

I know what you are all thinking as you read this, why didn’t we separate the items between us. Well most of the time we normally carry our own stuff until we get to the hotel and then we re-organize the items. Because Kenny’s backpack is already stuffed with the laptop, there is no more room to put anything else and we didn’t want to put any of these items in the luggage, so we put it in my backpack. Most of the time we are more aware of our bags, but the thieves caught us at our most confusing moment when we were trying to figure out how to take the Metro. You should see this station though, it is really busy and confusing all the time. You have tourists and locals running around at this station. It is because it is the hub station for the train and the metro.

So continuing the story, Kenny stayed and watched the luggage while I ran upstairs to see if my bag was in the garbage bins hoping that the thieves just took my wallet and threw my bag, but no such luck. So I asked around if anyone saw the two boys, but no one understood me. I finally found the police station and met up with Kenny again and told him that I was going to get the police and bring them back to the crime scene and meet him back there. Got to the police station, and again there was a huge language barrier. They could barely understand me and I could barely understand their questions as every second word was in Spanish. I told them that I had to get Kenny before I can file the report, but the police wouldn’t let me go until I blocked all my credit and debit cards. This process took forever. You would think that in such a case, the customer service would be a lot faster, but no it was the worse. I only had to block 3 credit cards and it took me 2 hours to get it done. I was held on hold more than getting my cards actually cancelled.

After finally getting all that done, I was finally free to get Kenny, where I knew he was worried sick about me. I was relieved to see him still there at the Metro and he was relieved to see me alive. This was the worst moment of our life, not knowing where the other person is. So we went back to the police station, filed the report and that was that.
The whole time I was at the police station getting my cards blocked, there were 5 other incidents where people came in reporting a stolen wallet or purse. It dawned on me how often does theft occur in Barcelona. It seemed like it was the norm there. All the police do is ask you to fill out the police report and to see if you can 100% recognize the thieves. I wonder how many theft cases occur in Barcelona in a day? 10, 20 or maybe more?? It’s just terrible.

So anyone planning on going to visit Barcelona, please please be careful of your bags. Do not let anyone distract you. If they talk to you, just ignore them and walk away. Its not like you can help them anyways since they cant understand you nor can you understand them. We definitely learned a harsh lesson and I think it’s our preparation for Italy. I heard that Italy is even worse. Wish us luck!!