la policia: a lesson in irony

First off, let me just start by explaining that Spain (or at least Madrid) has four rush hours, instead of just two. First, in the morning, when everyone is going to work. The second, is between 1pm and 2pm, when everyone (school children included) goes home for a few hours to have "la comida" (trans: a big lunch) and a siesta. All the stores and restaurants close. Then, the next rush hour is around 4 or 5 when everyone goes back to doing whatever. The final rush hour is between 7 and 8, when people finally come home from work and/or are going out to eat and run errands and such.

That being said, we had just been on a group visit to the Museo Thyssen in one of the more central parts of town to take a tour of the private art gallery. It was rush hour number 4, and several classmates and I squeezed (literally) onto a jam-packed metro train. It was uncomfortably crowded, and I noticed a dirty, smelly man standing reeeeeeeeally close to me. I had one hand in the air clutching the handle thingy so that I wouldn´t fall over, and the other arm awkwardly positioned across me. The dirty, smelly man continued to stand uncomfortably close to me, but as the train was so crowded, there was really nothing I could do about it. I tried to back up-- DirtySmellyMan followed suit. He had elbowed me in the chest once, which I assumed was an accident (I thought maybe he was drunk, or insane) but then I noticed that his arm was right up against my body and I thought Oh no, this man is trying to molest me on a crowded Metro and I can´t move and I don´t know the right vocabulary to yell out what is happening in Spanish!! I should have tried harder to get away from him at this point, but it´s one of those strange things where you are never really sure what you should do until way after the fact. He was wearing a rumpled orange and white fleece jacket that had obviously seen better days (this should have been my second clue, as it was about 85ºF outside and approximately 9999999ºF on the Metro) and his arm was inside his jacket and dangerously close to me. As we approached the next stop on the route, he moved forward again and I looked down as the doors opened and realized my bag was unzipped, and I´m sure a few choice words escaped my mouth. I looked up in time to see the man staring directly at me (ew, ew, creepy, I´m having chills right now just thinking about it) and shove something (aka my wallet) in his tacky cloth man purse. The doors shut and I was left standing there, walletless, dumbfounded, as several people close by recognized the look on my face and kind of just shook there heads and muttered how awful it was.

To make a long story just a little bit shorter, when I returned to my casa with Ashley, (who had been pressed against a wall on the opposite side of the train and not seen what happened) I called Dad to cancel my credit card (really the only important thing in my wallet) and after comforting me and letting me finish bawling my eyes out, Mavi telephoned Nacho and Benito, the directors/professors of the ASU program. Mavi and I then rode a bus to a local police station, where I had to use Mavi´s somewhat limited knowledge of English, coupled with my spotty Spanish, to file a denuncia, which is basically a police report. Which I now have a copy of as a souveneir! Dad said that the bank put a fraud alert out in case DirtySmellyThief tries to use my card again. As far as cash, there was only about 15€ in the wallet, along with copies of IDs. I honestly think I'm most upset about the fact that he stole my wallet, which I had purchased for the purpose of wearing around my waste so that people COULDN´T steal my money. We had all become just a little too comfortable waving our bags around and not being alert enough as we went through town, and however ironic it is, I suppose it is a lesson I needed to learn. Except now I have to buy a new traveller´s wallet!

Other than yesterday´s stressful adventure, things here are as good as ever, although we did have our first test and assignment due today. Mavi´s oldest daughter Elena came back the other evening to have dinner with us again, and she´s pretty much awesome. She may or may not take Ashley (and me, the spectator) to the driving range sometime next week! We decided not to go to Barcelona this weekend, which is a big relief to me because we have time to explore the city here a little bit further, not to mention catch up on sleep! Tomorrow we have a day trip to Toledo, the original capital of Spain, and are also trying to finalize plans for the long weekend in Andalucia and Sevilla- stressful! But I´m excited about possibly getting to go to a Mediterranean beach!

Well, this has gotten pretty lengthy, so I will wrap things up for now. I don´t know if I will be able to write again until Monday, because the internet places are closed on the weekends. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel on our day and weekend trips, and especially now that ETA has broken their cease-fire agreement. They don´t target regular civilians, but our apartment is adjacent to a couple of government buildings, so just pray that the organization is doing nothing more than making idle threats- or else pray that they will just go bother the French and ask them for independence and leave Spain alone for a good long while!

Hasta luego,
Erin