Obladi Oblada, Life Goes On...

I carry my purse around like a child; Arms folded over, hugged into my chest. Even so, when a man on the Barcelona metro knocked into me he managed to take me for one of my most valuable posessions.
My first thought was this guy was rude for practically tackling me and not apologizing. It wasn´t until the next morning, trying to buy my ticket for San Sebastian that I realized not only had I been right about this guy being rude, he was also a theif!
I was no longer the owner of a passport.

I never had heard what a problem Spain, and in particular Barcelona has with pick pocketers. Appartently, Tripadvisor.com bestowed upon them the title of Most Talented in the world. Even Visa won´t let their cards be used there without some sort of tracking chip because of the high theft rate.
Guess what kind of card I´m traveling with?
Guess what doesn´t have a tracking chip in it?
Last question on pop-quiz, concentrate... Guess who was stuck for two days with no money?

Despite all the mishaps (because believe you me, there were plenty other than the aforementioned) Barcelona was a lovely place to visit. I had quite a fiesta my second night there--going to a bar and then a nightclub with some Aussies and Canucks from my hostel. But...that´s more of an in-person story.
I also took a walking tour to explore the most famous Gaudi buildings. The guide wasn´t so impressive, but the buildings were quite spectacular!
Also in those few days I learned I am a fan of Octopus. It came in a traditional rice and fish dish called Paella.
Admittedly, when the server first brought it over I almost wouldn´t touch it, let alone eat it because the prawns they put in it (and I´m not a fan of those anyway) came with their eyeballs still attached. Looking at them freaked me out so badly I had the mind to hurl and then cry simulataneously and likely would´ve if not for fear of being rude, so I (what I would like to believe was straight-faced and daintily) removed the offensive items from my plate and dug in! It was so good!

Being without money I became quite creative and figured out ways to entertain myself. I walked the famous La Rambla boulevard one afternoon and watched the street performers, people watched while making up their life stories in my head. I learned how to make Sangria and dare to say (at the risk of sounding self flattering) I´m quite good at it!

  

So, after taking a few days to resolve both the money and passport issue, I decided it was time to head out of Barca. It was a beautiful city, but...I wanted to get onto the next thing where these issues would be a thing of the past.
As soon as I laid my un-manicured hands on my temporary passport I skedaddled to the train station.
"One way to San Sebastian!" I proclaimed.
The cashier smiled at me, shook his head. "No San Sebastian. The train is full..."
I thought quickly and tried to exercise my memory of the map I´d looked at the previous night. What was close to San Sebastian?
"Bueno," I shrugged, "One ticket to Bilbao." 
The cashier chuckled nervously. "That´s full also until tomorrow night."
"Valencia?"
No.
"Granada?"
"I´m sorry. It´s a holiday weekend."
I was pretty sure this guy was messing with me. Here I was in the second biggest city in Spain and none of these trains had space? I glanced at the woman in the cashier window next to him for validation. She nodded at me, "Si. Holiday weekend."
Turns out the only train that had availability was to Madrid. So, already at the train station with all my bags, I booked the expensive but cozy fast rain to Madrid.


And....I love it here! It´s rainy, but the air is so fresh! It´s a really nice relief from the memory of Cairo just a few days ago where the air is so polluted that I found myself looking at cars with moonroofs thinking "why?" I think a better special feature would be an oxygen mask.


Here are a couple pictures of what I´ve seen here so far: