You have never truly experienced living in a big city until you have been pickpocketed or mugged.

At first glance this post may seem to you just a very bad story, but do read on, it has a silver lining.

Last night I witnessed the bad side of Barcelona. I got robbed. Now it wasn’t by weapon point, the coward just grabbed my purse from my hand and starting running. Luckily I didn’t have credit cards, my passport, or my huge assortment of odds and ends that usually follow me everywhere in my “Mary Poppins” bag. I just had a small coin purse. Unfortunately the stuff that was in my purse was my cell phone (brand new and expensive), keys and 70 euros in cash.

The story unfolds…Jason, our friend Joel, and I were heading to a dance club from dinner in Raval. We had almost reached the main road named Paral•lel when a young man approached me from behind, grabbed my purse from my clutches and took off back down the street. The only thing that I managed to yell was “You Bastard!”. I couldn’t think what to say. Jason and Joel seemed confused, wondering why I had just yelled that inane phrase. It seemed like an eternity went by before I spat out that the guy had taken my purse. I think it came out “mmmmaaaa tha gggg took puuuur” and before I knew it I saw my husband and Joel running after the guy. I stood their hopelessly, like a stupid girl who couldn’t do anything for herself. Why hadn’t I turned around a started chasing the guy as soon as he grabbed the purse? Why was I standing all alone in the middle of the street crying like a kid who just got his ice cream stolen? Getting robbed is no fun, add to that a foreign language, it makes for a very uncomfortable situation. Ugh. “Stop Thief! just wouldn’t have worked.

Several minutes later Jason and Joel reappeared looking like two guys that had just ran their hearts out for no avail. I was numb. We walked to the police station while I replayed in my head a million different scenarios. I spun around and kicked the guy in balls as he grabbed my purse, he fell to the ground where I kicked the crap out of him. Jason and Joel tackled him immediately. My purse was actually attached to my wrist and when he pulls he gets a right hook to the jaw instead of the goods. On and on and on. The whole time we were in the police station I barely said a word, Jason and Joel did most of the talking. Jason was incredible, he held my hand and tried very hard to console me. I felt like if he could have he would have switched places with me. Joel sat by us the entire night. He spoke to the cellphone company and explained that my phone had been stolen, and he translated for me with the police officer. All of that instead of a night of clubbing. He is my hero. Three hours later we emerged from the police station. Jason did a last ditch effort to look in trash cans around the neighborhood (needle in a haystack came to mind) before we slowly made our way back home to Gracia.

Oh sweet Gracia where it is safe. As I sat and drank a full bottle of wine (Thank you Sarah & Rob for the fabulous gift!), I tried not to become bitter about the events of the evening, not easy. But Jason reminded me of one thing. One of our most important goals immediately on arriving in Spain was to form a support group of friends that would help us with our adjustment into a new culture. I realized that we were very lucky, we had that support group. Joel for sitting with us in the police station (not to mention him running after the guy). Our friends at the club sending text after text, telling us how sorry they were. I felt a little proud, only two months and we had managed to find some really great people. Without them the story may have gone a lot worse.

The next morning before I had risen from my wine induced sleep, Jason had already replaced the locks on the front door. Together today we replaced my keys, and my wallet. While I write this Jason is trying to find a new cell phone to buy me. It all was replaced, nobody was hurt and really the only bad part is the guilt that cowardly robber walks around with everyday. I will not let him win.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 9:40 pm by Corrie and is filed under Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.