ROBBED!

I had a blast in Barcelona with my 3 favorite people to get robbed with - Julie, Krista, and Scott. We were really careful about not getting pickpocketed, but the apartment we rented ended up getting robbed. After a delightful shopping expedition, Julie and Krista came back to an apartment that was kind of a mess and missing valuable items. Scott and I were sipping sangria on the beach when we got the call. After finishing off the pitcher, we headed back to survey the damage. There were no signs of forced entry and the door wouldn't open without a key, so we're pretty sure it was just a giant scam.

We called the police and I was able to use my Spanish skills to get them to the apartment to investigate and then finish filing the report the next morning at the police station. They pretty much told us there's no way we'll get anything back, but it didn't feel right to not report it. Because of our morning flight time, we ended up at the police station by 7:30 a.m. Can't think of a better way to spend our last morning in Barcelona! Julie was ecstatic about it.

Lessons Learned About Barcelona Robbers

1. Timing is everything. - We were scheduled to check out of our apartment pretty early Monday morning, so of course we got robbed Sunday afternoon. When we called the guy we rented the apartment from (Francisco), he informed us that the police station is closed on Sundays and that he'd help us get in contact with them when he came to check us out in the morning. He showed up to check us out 20 minutes late - I don't think he was planning on actually helping us report a robbery. Also, the cops who came to survey the place on Sunday night informed us that the police station is open 24 hours a day, every day. Luckily, we didn't believe Francisco and were able to call the cops without his help.

2. Thieves like new clothes! - Krista bought a blouse that was a great fit for a decent price at H&M the day before we were robbed. Apparently, it was a perfect fit for our thief - the bag with blouse and receipt was taken. On second thought, maybe they just returned it and made some extra Euros.

3. Thieves search for valuables everywhere. - Through clothes, in wallets, makeup bags or tampon bags, even in Bibles - just in case you use your Bible as a wallet. Everything in the apartment that belonged to us was rifled through.

4. Thieves don't have time to distinguish between valuable and worthless. - This is why Krista and I ended up missing Moroccan dirhams. If the thief isn't planning a trip to Morocco any time soon, there is absolutely no reason for her/him to have taken my awesome change purse full of dirham coins and the dirham notes in Krista's wallet. The Moroccan dirham is not an exportable currency and is not easily exchanged. Maybe I'll see our thief walking around the medina trying to figure out what to spend that money on.
All in all, no one got hurt and none of us are going to starve. We just all learned that we need to be more careful and less trusting when we travel. It was pretty easy to get careless about certain things, due to the sheer amount of travelling that we've been doing lately. This was a good wake up call - now I know to always ask for a safe, no matter how secure the lodging seems. It also reminded me how nice it is to travel with people who are flexible and will still genuinely smile for a picture taken at a police station early in the morning. Can't beat that!