A bad day

It took me three days to muster the courage to write about the very unfortunate incident that I was involved in on the metro when I was on my way to the train station from the hostel in Barcelona, on my way to Malaga. But I think I’ve finally come to terms with it. I lost my iPhone. Actually I didn’t lose, it was taken right from under my nose by a drunk Spanish thief, a professional, I never saw it coming. Here’s what happened. I woke up at the hostel at 6 and was out the door by 7, my train was going to take off at 8:30, and I had to take the metro across town to the train station. I was playing it safe time wise by leaving at 7. Barcelona is well known as a party city, world renowned actually. It is one of those cities whose bars and clubs are open, especially on weekends, to well after the sun has risen the next day. And it was Saturday morning, so when I hopped the metro at 7, I was not surprised that there were other drunk people around me on their way home after a night out. But the car I chose to take a seat in was quiet. There was one man, an older man who looked like he was on his way to do some construction work, sleeping, and me, sitting across of him. That’s it, at least in my section of the car. The next station one man got in, an overweight man, probably mid thirties, who sat down on the opposite side of the same bench as me. He shouted something in Spanish to the sleeping worker across from him, who barely roused from sleep, slightly acknowledging whatever he had said. Then the man next to me slid across the bench, right next to me. It was a little weird but I didn’t pay much attention to it, I just stared at the floor. But I could smell him. He reeked of alcohol. Then without warning, he nudges me, tries to say something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand, and I try to ignore him, thinking he was some drunk bum looking for someone to annoy. But he kept at it. He kept touching and nudging me, trying to get a response. I hardly knew what was happening. I said something, I don’t remember what, nothing too friendly though, and I got up, taking my bags with me to move to the next car over. But he followed me, tried to grab my stuff as if he was helping me, and was so close to me that I could feel his breath. I said all sorts of foul things but I was pretty hands off. Eventually I kept going, made some distance, and took a seat. He followed, playing the same charade until the next stop where he got off. I was relieved to be rid of that wreck, to be able to ride in peace. I just sat there, trying to absorb what had just occurred. About two stops later, it had dawned on me to check my pockets, I always check my pockets every time I’m bumped in a crowd. I felt my front left pocket and suddenly realized my iPhone was gone. I always keep spare change in my right pocket, my luggage keys in my back right pocket, and my iPhone in my front left. Everything else I keep around my neck. I would keep my iPhone there too but I use it too frequently. I need easy access to it. And 7 in the morning on an empty metro car was the last place I expected to be robbed. But there it is. I was so distracted by his in your face, annoying tactics that I had no idea that he had found my iPhone. I couldn’t believe it. To his credit, he’s a good thief. But it hurts all the same.

I spent the whole morning just dazed and angry about what had happened. I took the train anyway. I wasn’t getting my iPhone back. I stared out the window of the train and didn’t do anything. Usually I catch up on posts. Not this time. I just stared. On the upside to all this, my staring out the window and not being busied with writing or music listening or sleeping allowed me to see the absolute beauty of the countryside that we had passed. Malaga is at the very southern end Spain, along the Costa del Sol, a long stretch of beaches. I thought maybe we would take a route that followed the coast through Valencia, but instead, we took an inland route, through the heart of Spanish cattle country. We passed almost no inhabited places. Just rolling green countryside, occasionally passing cattle ranches filled with los toros grandes. The beauty of the journey helped me slowly awake from my funk. We pulled into Malaga about six hours after we had left. The air was warm and the sun was shining, a nice change from Barcelona, but I ran into an early problem, my first as a result of the lost iPhone. Usually when I book a hostel, I immediately look up the address on google maps, take a photo of the neighborhood that I can later use as a map to navigate by, bringing it up without the need for internet access later, and do the same for the train station. It is a fail proof way to find your way from the train station to the hostel. But since my iPhone and prepared maps were missing, I was shooting purely based on memory of looking at the map the night before. I had a vague idea of how to walk to the area I would need to go from the station. But I couldn’t remember the name of the street, or even the hostel, and after giving it my best shot, I couldn’t find it. What I did find, luckily, was a McDonald’s, who in Europe always offer free, easy to connect to WIFI, which I made use of and then looked up my booking in an email with the address, found it in google maps, and found the hostel. I was in the right area, but I just missed the place somehow. Oh well. It worked out.

After checking in, my first thought was to get online and figure out what one has to do when getting there iPhone stolen. I was just hopping online when a British guy walked in, Steve from near London, we exchanged pleasantries, and I eventually explained to him what I was trying to do. He immediately rolled off a list of things that I should do as if he were an Apple employee. With his help, I was able to remotely lock my phone, making the data stored on it inaccessible, and I was able to leave a contact message in the event some good samaritan finds it, even though I knew the guy that stole it probably didn’t plan on sending it back, even if he couldn’t use it. I felt more at ease with the whole situation. I knew I wouldn’t get it back, but at least my information and data were safe. He was probably going to wipe it anyway.

A shot of the Med from the beach in Malaga, a lone container ship trudging along

I thanked Steve for helping me out. It would have taken me a long time to figure out how to do that on my own, and we eventually set out to explore Malaga a little together. Steve is a young train employee, for Southwest trains, in London. He is training to become the driver and soon will be qualified. But being an employee of a European train company gives him huge discounts on personal train tickets all over Europe. He had a five day vacation and in that time he flew to Barcelona for one day, took a train to Madrid and then back to Barca, and then to Malaga for the day and he was taking the train back to Barca again before flying home. So, three cities and four long train rides in five days. And each ride was something like six euros where it would have cost others roughly 80. A pretty intense little trip. I was starving. In my anger and frustration, I had forgotten to eat anything and it was already early evening. We stopped at a cafe where we both ordered a beer and I ordered a cheese baguette, or queso viejo (old cheese). It was simple but really good. And then we went down to the beach to enjoy the last few hours of sunlight. We were far enough south now that the sun doesn’t really set and the sky doesn’t really get dark until around 9. Steve was just hoping for a brief glimpse of good weather. He had come to Spain at just the wrong time for sun. This was his first sunny, warm day and he was from London where it’s always raining anyway. He needed a little beach time. But we were finally rewarded with two full hours of glorious sun. The beach was crowded with young sunbathers, stretched as far as the eye could see. We found a spot in the fray and sat, enjoying the moment.

The beach in Malaga, the Sunday after the busy Saturday on the beach

I didn't have a lot of Malaga photos

After getting our fill (Steve was satisfied with his two hours, he had met his annual quota, he joked) we packed up and walked back to the hostel. I attempted to write some emails and do some travel research but I failed, I instantly fell asleep. We both napped for a couple of hours in the dorm room and then awoke, feeling much more refreshed. It was around 9:30 in the evening, just about dinner time in Spain, and we went back out towards the beach. This time, we took a stroll down to the near end of the beach where there is a marina and a lengthy pier lined with shops and restaurants. We found a reasonably priced tapas restaurant and ordered several plates of various items. Tapas, for those who aren’t familiar with the concept, is a type of meal where two or more people order several small plates of food and share them as a group. We ordered six plates and the best one, which Steve couldn’t eat, was a plate of scuttle fish cooked in some tangy sauce. It was excellent. The Spanish are pretty well known for their seafood and this dish proved that. We wrapped up our meal and headed back to the hostel, and back to bed.

Steve had taken the early train back to Barcelona and I slept in a little. The hostel offered free breakfast, toast and cereal, and free coffee. I took my fill and just spent the day dodging rain clouds. To be honest, at this stage of the game, I’m no longer really interested in sightseeing, I’ve all but given up on the guidebooks. I came for the beach and the quiet, a quiet finish to an exhausting few months. But Malaga isn’t exactly a quiet retreat town, it’s a bustling tourist city and holiday destination for all of Europe. And it was rainy. So I spent the entire day in and out of the hostel. I made the walk to the beach when I thought they’re might be some sun, and then made the walk back to the hostel when it started to rain again. This repeated all afternoon. I did explore the old town a little, but unfortunately most of the shops were closed. The restaurants and bars remained open however and I found a little restaurant that was airing the Malaga - Getafe La Liga soccer match. They were playing at home in a stadium pretty close to where the old town is. And they’re a pretty good team. They won that match 2-0. But that was the most interesting part of my day. I went back to the hostel feeling a bit defeated. I used the computer awhile and took another nap.

This plaza brought to you by Cruzcampo, an Andalusian beer

The old town was dead on Sunday, all shops were closed

The sky did eventually clear up a little however, but at around 10 in the evening. I went for a really nice walk along the beach. The streets were quiet and the beach was deserted. Apart from a few late night joggers, I was the only person around. I just walked for as long as I could along the beach and turned back. It was a brief but much needed moment of peace and solitude I needed to get my spirits back up. I slept in until check out, and then made my way to the bus station to hop a bus that was going to take me somewhere that I hoped was a bit more off the map. I was aiming for Tarifa, the southernmost town in all of Europe, at the very bottom of Spain, even further south than the rock of Gibraltar. If I’m not going to find sun and warmth here, than I guess I’ll just keep going to Africa.