Thief!

Yesterday was nuts.  I went to class at 9:30 and on the way home I ran into Dan and Sarah on the subway, so I went to lunch with them.  Then Dan had class, so Sarah and I went to the train station to change her ticket (she loves us and Barcelona so much that she stayed an extra day!), and then to the park to lay down, talk, and read (I just bought The Sun Also Rises, which takes place in Spain).

So we're sitting on this patch of grass in the park.  It's about 3pm and there's a ton of people around, strolling down the surrounding paths, walking their dogs, etc.  After about an hour it started to drizzle so we decided to leave.  I was laying on my leather jacket and purse, kind of using them as a pillow, so I turned and started to get my shit together, and when I turned back - literally, two seconds later - I see Sarah wrestling with some guy for her iPod!  She's yelling "what are you DOING?" and he's like tugging at it, trying to kick her away, and I'm just standing there frozen, shouting "No!" over and over again with a spanish accent.  Finally she just lets go, and he walks - WALKS! - away with it.  I looked around and started gesturing wildly at everyone around us, but no one did anything.  Some blonde woman with a dog just stood and stared.  A scrawny french guy came up to us and told us he would follow him, but didn't want to get hit.  We were both shaking.

This guy seriously came out of nowhere.  He must have heard us speaking English and realized we were tourists, and then hid behind a bush, waiting to pounce.  Sarah said she just looked over and saw him going through her purse.

I kept replaying the scenario in my mind, thinking maybe I should have kicked him or something, but he could have had a knife (a friend of a friend attempted heroics on the metro at 5am and was stabbed in the stomach).  I guess what I probably should have done is just yelled really loud, and the thing is, I was considering shouting something, but I didn't know what to shout or in what language to shout it.  It crossed my mind to say "THIEF!" or "AFTER THAT MAN!" but in my mind it sounded so silly that I kind of giggled to myself.  Funny, how in the middle of getting robbed all I could do was smile and think about how the situation seemed like a giant cliche.  It was like my body rose above the scene and I was watching it from above.

Sarah is okay, she just got a little dirty and a cut on her elbow.  Luckily he only got her iPod, and not her wallet/passport/camera.  We just felt really shocked and violated.  This had never happened to either of us before.  And the weirdest part was, he had absolutely NO shame.  It's not like he discreetly pickpocketed her - he confronted her in the middle of the day, and physically struggled with her face-to-face.  He was strangely calm about the whole thing, never saying a word.

I called my mommy and she told me to file a police report, even though we probably wouldn't get the iPod back, just to put this asshole on the map.  We got back to the Residencia and told Dan what happened, and his male-friend instincts kicked in.  He got really mad and protective and marched down to the police station with us.  It was really far and we were too flustered to look up a route on the metro, so it took us like 30 minutes to get there.  We sat in the lobby for like 20 minutes, and Sarah and I were so exhausted from the rush of adrenaline/fast walking that we both fell deeply asleep in really uncomfortable chairs.  Finally they called our name, and we went into this white room.  A woman took down all the information and typed up an official report.  She also gave me a book of mugshots to see if I could identify the guy (I couldn't).  Sarah said she didn't even see the man's face, she was just watching his hands and her stuff.  It was kind of cool and weird to look at all the mugshots.  Some of the people are really creepy looking, but others seem pretty normal, and a handful were even attractive.  I guess bad people come in all shapes and sizes.

The good part is now I'm much more watchful of my things, and wary of my surroundings.  It could have easily been me.

On a happier note, that night like 25 of us went out to dinner and then to chupitos for Kimmy's birthday, and it was really fun and delicious.  Sarah left this morning.