El Ladrón

Madrid, Spain

Just got into Madrid. I still have my wallet. Good news.

So I landed at Madrid-Barajas Airport, which was almost as cool as Barcelona´s airport. I made my way to the metro station without too much difficulty and hopped on the train. Then I switched trains. As I was switching to the third and final train I had to take to get to my hostel, I rode an escalator up to the track. It was crowded, which wasn´t unusual. Not paying much attention, I realized I felt something strange happening in my front left pocket. In the course of about half a second, I reached for my pocket as the guy behind me pulled his arm back away from me. It was evident that, had I not been a little more observant, a friendly Spaniard was intending to lighten my load by one wallet.

Now, I did my research. There is pretty much nothing of any value in my wallet. It contains my Cal Lutheran ID Card, about € 10 and a few receipts. Everything important(passport, large bills, credit cards) is tucked away in a pouch under my shirt than hangs around my neck, and it´s worked out very well. But still, it was a jarring experience. I´ve never really had anything stolen from me before.

So... back to the story. As I reach for my pocket and cover it with my hand, I turn around and look at two guys and a girl who seem to be together. They´re young and seem to look a bit less "put together" than most of the other Spaniards using the metro. And I had absolutely no idea what to do. Do I yell at them? Do I pretend it didn´t happen? I thought about calling for help or police, but I didn´t know if these guys were about to get physical. Or if they had anything on them, other than the wallets of other unsuspecting victims. I got off the escalator, still staring at them and a bit bewildered, and they got off too. They then got right back on the escalator going the opposite direction, perhaps looking for a less observant tourist, but staring back at me the whole time.

Other than that, though, Spain is awesome. Of the countries I´ve visited, if I were to move to Europe, this would be where I´d want to go.