Then she bumped into purses, stole a credit card, writing Chris Michaels, no it wasn´t hard
Yes, after only just over 2 weeks on the road, I got robbed.
"Fortunately", it was only my wallet that was stolen and not either of my backpacks or my passport, but I cannot say that I am pleased. Now, with only the 260 that was wired me from Citibank, no credit cards and no ATM I am in Barcelona in a bit of a fix. Also wisely, I paid for last night and tonight´s hostel stay in advance so I don´t owe any extra money on that. Last night was a bit of a disaster after I realized that my wallet was gone and I frantically made phone calls to the credit card company, to the bank, and of course to Mom and Dad.
To look on the bright side: I only had about 40 Euros in my wallet. Because I had no money, I didn´t spend the probably 20-30 euros that I would have been planning on spending that night, and I was given 10 euros by two nice girls from Oregon I met in the hostel (and who were actually WITH me when my stuff was snatched). With their 10, I was able to buy myself a decent breakfast and coffee this morning, which was enough to hold me over until I got the money from Western Union.
Before the theft, I had a nice day!
First of all, I changed hostels. The hostel at which I stayed the first night had no room for last night, so I wandered around Caller Ferran until I found something at Pension Fernando, which turned out to be both slightly nicer and slightly cheaper, which when combined comes out to "a lot better". I paid for my two nights in advance, and went back to the old hostel to inform Tony that there was room for him too.
I then headed out by myself to explore Barcelona. I do enjoy my time alone in these cities, as long as I have some substantial time with other people for at least part of the day.
I took the metro to the train station (oh yes, my metro card was another of my stolen items) and purchased for 1 Euro 50 (with my Eurail pass) a trip to Nice which should be leaving tomorrow. I will only take it if my credit card arrives. If my card does not arrive, I guess it is another night in Barcelona (already one too many I think). I suspect that my exchange with the ticket vendor had a bit of an Abbott and Costello sense to it as I attempted to clarify whether he meant "mañana" as in "tomorrow" or as in that I would be arriving in the "morning." Hopefully he meant the latter.
Despues, I took the metro to another part of town where I wandered until I found a little restaurant. I ate some delicious chicken and sangria while I wrote a postcard (probably won´t be sent for a few days, because I don´t plan on wasting my precious funds on stamps) and then cautiously poked around some extremely old buildings until I found the Picasso museum, where entry was free that day.
I like Picasso, I do! Despite his unnatural fame, I genuinely think he deserves it. His art from any particular time period tends to look more or less the same (especially much of the cubism) but from one artistic period to another his style varies almost as much as from one artist to another. The Picasso museum was strange to me because rather than containing a complete chronology of his work, some major periods were completely absent, while some more unusual ones were well represented. For instance, there was nothing from the cubist period, and none of those great death masks from his final years. There were rooms full of early work that he made during his teenage years (before the Blue Period) that were mostly representational. The Museum also featured several rooms worth of Picasso´s take on Velazquez´s Las Meninas. I had not even know that Picasso had performed such a project. Picasso dissected Las Meninas and in his bright and broad late 1960´s style painted amusing and somewhat grosteque versions of most of the characters in the original Velazquez. I enjoyed them, but I still was upset not to see more of the death paintings. Those are my favorite.
After Picasso, I viewed the Santa Maria cathedral. I think it derives its fame from having the greatest distance between support columns in Europe. So it stretches the limit of load bearing. Afterwards I ate a gelato. Strawberry. So good. Maybe even more enjoyable than looking at the cathedral.
Next, took the metro to see Gaudi´s La Sagrada Familia. I didn´t pay much attention to the plaques on the wall explaining it, but it seems to me to be an unusually large and gaudy cathedral designed by Gaudi in the 19th century which with the assistance of many architects over the century is still under construction. Thus, there is scaffolding on both the inside and the outside. This unfinished state doesn´t stop crowds of tourist from wandering through, admiring the stained glass windows, intricately curvy facade and tiled towers.
Instead of paying the 2 Euros to take an elevator to the top, I followed another long line of fit tourists along a narrow, narrow staircase. After about 330 stairs, we overlooked the city of Barcelona. I was stunned, while I caught my breath. Clearly not for the claustrophobic, but I think this journey is a must for anybody visiting Barcelona who is neither afraid of heights or closed spaces. I took pictures. Maybe I´ll post them someday.
I checked my internet for an hour, made it back to the hostel, took a shower and met two girls in my room who later invited me to join them for Paella Valenciana and sangria. The former of which I had not yet tried and the latter of which I had tried much. They wanted to stop again at the internet cafe (where I now am) to check their email to find the name of a restaurant, and I, always a fan of checking email agreed.
While we sat along the row of computers, separated by small dividers, somebody must have snatched my wallet from the table right in front of me. I did notice somebody try to grab my backpack, but I stopped him. It is possible that this was a distraction that was used to take the wallet.
Obviously, I had to cancel on the dinner, and spent the next few hours dealing with the problem.
I spent the final few hours of the evening joking and laughing with the others in my hostel room (after I had done everything that I could do for myself) and went to sleep fairly early. It was good to laugh a bit. Much better than crying would have been.
"Fortunately", it was only my wallet that was stolen and not either of my backpacks or my passport, but I cannot say that I am pleased. Now, with only the 260 that was wired me from Citibank, no credit cards and no ATM I am in Barcelona in a bit of a fix. Also wisely, I paid for last night and tonight´s hostel stay in advance so I don´t owe any extra money on that. Last night was a bit of a disaster after I realized that my wallet was gone and I frantically made phone calls to the credit card company, to the bank, and of course to Mom and Dad.
To look on the bright side: I only had about 40 Euros in my wallet. Because I had no money, I didn´t spend the probably 20-30 euros that I would have been planning on spending that night, and I was given 10 euros by two nice girls from Oregon I met in the hostel (and who were actually WITH me when my stuff was snatched). With their 10, I was able to buy myself a decent breakfast and coffee this morning, which was enough to hold me over until I got the money from Western Union.
Before the theft, I had a nice day!
First of all, I changed hostels. The hostel at which I stayed the first night had no room for last night, so I wandered around Caller Ferran until I found something at Pension Fernando, which turned out to be both slightly nicer and slightly cheaper, which when combined comes out to "a lot better". I paid for my two nights in advance, and went back to the old hostel to inform Tony that there was room for him too.
I then headed out by myself to explore Barcelona. I do enjoy my time alone in these cities, as long as I have some substantial time with other people for at least part of the day.
I took the metro to the train station (oh yes, my metro card was another of my stolen items) and purchased for 1 Euro 50 (with my Eurail pass) a trip to Nice which should be leaving tomorrow. I will only take it if my credit card arrives. If my card does not arrive, I guess it is another night in Barcelona (already one too many I think). I suspect that my exchange with the ticket vendor had a bit of an Abbott and Costello sense to it as I attempted to clarify whether he meant "mañana" as in "tomorrow" or as in that I would be arriving in the "morning." Hopefully he meant the latter.
Despues, I took the metro to another part of town where I wandered until I found a little restaurant. I ate some delicious chicken and sangria while I wrote a postcard (probably won´t be sent for a few days, because I don´t plan on wasting my precious funds on stamps) and then cautiously poked around some extremely old buildings until I found the Picasso museum, where entry was free that day.
I like Picasso, I do! Despite his unnatural fame, I genuinely think he deserves it. His art from any particular time period tends to look more or less the same (especially much of the cubism) but from one artistic period to another his style varies almost as much as from one artist to another. The Picasso museum was strange to me because rather than containing a complete chronology of his work, some major periods were completely absent, while some more unusual ones were well represented. For instance, there was nothing from the cubist period, and none of those great death masks from his final years. There were rooms full of early work that he made during his teenage years (before the Blue Period) that were mostly representational. The Museum also featured several rooms worth of Picasso´s take on Velazquez´s Las Meninas. I had not even know that Picasso had performed such a project. Picasso dissected Las Meninas and in his bright and broad late 1960´s style painted amusing and somewhat grosteque versions of most of the characters in the original Velazquez. I enjoyed them, but I still was upset not to see more of the death paintings. Those are my favorite.
After Picasso, I viewed the Santa Maria cathedral. I think it derives its fame from having the greatest distance between support columns in Europe. So it stretches the limit of load bearing. Afterwards I ate a gelato. Strawberry. So good. Maybe even more enjoyable than looking at the cathedral.
Next, took the metro to see Gaudi´s La Sagrada Familia. I didn´t pay much attention to the plaques on the wall explaining it, but it seems to me to be an unusually large and gaudy cathedral designed by Gaudi in the 19th century which with the assistance of many architects over the century is still under construction. Thus, there is scaffolding on both the inside and the outside. This unfinished state doesn´t stop crowds of tourist from wandering through, admiring the stained glass windows, intricately curvy facade and tiled towers.
Instead of paying the 2 Euros to take an elevator to the top, I followed another long line of fit tourists along a narrow, narrow staircase. After about 330 stairs, we overlooked the city of Barcelona. I was stunned, while I caught my breath. Clearly not for the claustrophobic, but I think this journey is a must for anybody visiting Barcelona who is neither afraid of heights or closed spaces. I took pictures. Maybe I´ll post them someday.
I checked my internet for an hour, made it back to the hostel, took a shower and met two girls in my room who later invited me to join them for Paella Valenciana and sangria. The former of which I had not yet tried and the latter of which I had tried much. They wanted to stop again at the internet cafe (where I now am) to check their email to find the name of a restaurant, and I, always a fan of checking email agreed.
While we sat along the row of computers, separated by small dividers, somebody must have snatched my wallet from the table right in front of me. I did notice somebody try to grab my backpack, but I stopped him. It is possible that this was a distraction that was used to take the wallet.
Obviously, I had to cancel on the dinner, and spent the next few hours dealing with the problem.
I spent the final few hours of the evening joking and laughing with the others in my hostel room (after I had done everything that I could do for myself) and went to sleep fairly early. It was good to laugh a bit. Much better than crying would have been.
posted by Jed at 2:01 AM
1 Comments:
It may not place a gray cloud, but it has forced me to be more the "budget traveller" I had planned on being. I have been much better at saving money when I am limited by what is actually in my hand. On the other hand, whether or not my credit card arrives today will have great bearing on how the rest goes.
Post a Comment
<< Home