barcelona, spain

From Carcassonne we woke up at 6:30 to get on the first possible train to Narbonne, where we would connect to Barcelona. Ok, it wasn't the EARLIEST possible train, that was at like 5:00, but that was a little too early for our liking! From Narbonne to Barcelona required another mandatory seat reservation, and because the ticket office in Carcassonne was closed when we had arrived the night before, we weren't able to make the reservation. Well, we tried in the morning and surprise surprise, it was full again. We thought about just getting on the train anyways and hope that some other people missed the train or didn't show up; reservations only cost like 1.50 and people probably miss them all the time.. Just for fun we asked about upgrading to first class, and we found out it would only cost 10 Euros! It was totally worth it to us for the time we would save because if we had missed that train, the next one would arrive in Barcelon 7 hours later than we wanted to get there! What a treat first class was! We had more leg room than we knew what to do with, and the seats even reclined..hehe. When we got to Barcelona the first thing we did was make our reservations for our next stop, to Madrid two days from then. We needed that train for sure and coulnd't take any chances this time! We booked a double room at Pension Palacio (cheaper than a hostel, with more security!) with a guy at the train station, dropped our bags and emptied our daypacks of any valuables and headed out to see the city.

Barcelona is the city we have been the most nervous about in terms of security and pickpocketing. All the guidebooks warn about it in seemingly every paragraph, and Rick Steves says you are more likely to be pickpocketed in Barcelona than in any other city in Europe. As soon as we got on the train TO Barcelona, we were on total alert, and reworked our warning code words for each other. Before we had one word, now we had upgraded it to three words for three levels of sketchiness, lol.

While we were walking down La Rambla, this huge pedestrain only boulevard lined with street performers, souvenir stands, and shops, we saw something that completely shocked us. We were standing, watching a street performer, and there was an outdoor cafe right beside us with a group of teenagers sitting down. They all had their backpacks at their feet, and were also watching the performer. This guy walked right in front of me, and stood between me the group sitting down. He eyed their bags and let out a couple of whistles. A few seconds later, his friend came over to join him. By now a larger crowd had formed around this performer, and the guy had his camera phone out and was taking pictures of the performer just like everyone else was. He kept looking at his friend and the bags though, and looking at me. By then we knew what was going on, but I really couldn't believe it. I wanted to keep watching to see if they would actually go through with it and steal the bags, but on the other hand didn't want to see these people have their bags stolen! I stepped forward, so the bags were practically right under MY feet, and just stayed really casual, talking and laughing with Mike about the performer. They kept looking at me and I looked right back, and after a few more minutes they left. I leaned over at told the people what we thought had just happened, then left. We we kind of worried that they might come after our bags now! We couldn't believe that we had been there for only a couple of hours and had already witnessed the thievery first hand. You can read about it all you want, but it really became real once we had seen it! It was a bit of a wake up call and reminder to always be on guard. The crime there isn't violent though, it's just thieves who prey on opportunity. There are SO many tourists for them to pick from. If you are careless with your things they will target you. We walked around for the rest of the evening, and headed home before it got too dark.

The next day, and our last day in Barcelona, we took a bus tour. It was alright, but kind of hard to hear the audio guide over the wind (we sat on top) and sirens and construction throughout the city. The bus does a 2 1/2 hour loop around the city, making a bunch of different stops where you can get off and on whenever and how many times you want. We got off at this huge church that has been under construction for over 100 years, Sagrada Familia. It was a project started by Antonio Gaudi, but he died before it was completed. It has a completely unique style and is unlike any other church I've ever seen. It was really cool! Architechts are still working on it's completion, and it is paid for completely by public support. It was one church admission fee that we really didn't mind paying because we could see what the money was going towards, they were even working on it as we were there! After the bus tour we walked back down La Rambla in the other direction towards our place, and stopped at the market for some food.

We made it through Barcelona with all of our belongings in tact, and the next day we were off to Madrid!