Epilogue: Land Of The Shady Characters

Yes, I am still talking about Spain.

And yes, despite all the paella, art, and beaches that we enjoyed, there definitely was a shady aspect to both Madrid and Barcelona.

There must not be very many Asians in Spain because when my friends and I went, people kept staring at us. Granted, this might not have seemed strange; after all, we were a group of ten Asians, half of us were holding DSLR cameras, and we kept consulting the tourist map every turn we reached. Even still, what unnerved me was the fact that people seemed to single us out for this very reason. Spain must not get too many Asian immigrants -- I don't think they've had any major Asian interests since the 19th century -- I suppose they've never had the opportunity to get to know Asians.

I mean, this one time late at night when we were going to go out in Barcelona, this group of drunk Spaniards tried to trip me and my friends on our way up out of the subway. This might not seem like much, but it was still pretty sketch.

As for pickpocketing in Spain, we were standing in a subway car, minding our own business, talking about the sights we had just seen when an old Spanish lady sitting near us warned us about a shady looking guy who had been eyeing our cameras, wallets, and bags. She said she had seen him on the subways a lot, pickpocketing people here and there. We thanked her afterwards for the warning, and as we left, she told us that pickpocketers target Asians because they know we are tourists. Our professor back at NYU had warned us before we went abroad that at least one in ten of us were going to get pickpocketed. I laughed it off then, thinking that I wasn't going to be another statistic; but it really did happen.

We had two real pickpocketing incidents:

The first time, a pickpocket lifted my friend's wallet from her purse while we were on the subway. He was trying to take the wallet and slip through the train doors as it closed, but she managed to snatch it back from him, saying, "Give that back!" We were lucky the first time.

The second time we were not so lucky.

In Barcelona, a couple of guys in our group decided to go out. We (me and Jim, mostly) had been waiting for this moment ever since we had gotten to Spain; we even brought our dress shoes from London because we heard the bouncers in Spain didn't let guys in if they didn't have dress shoes. Ruby's friend, Hannah, and Kevin's friend, Connie, who were studying abroad there at the time took us out. However, the night we went out in Barcelona was unnerving as well.

On the way to the meeting point, we were bombarded in the subway by a group of drunk Spanish people yelling "Chino!" Now, I had no idea what this meant so I shrugged it off, but one of our friends did and she knew this was a racial slur against Asians.

Next, my friend and I were waiting to get on train a little ways away from the rest of the group. Once the train came and the doors opened, we started to get pushed into the car by a group of four people. At first, the only thing I thought was 'well this is certainly strange and unwarranted' until I felt a hand feeling up my back pocket. I instantly put my hands in my pockets so that he wouldn't be able to take anything -- I could feel his hand brushing up against mine as he tried to lift my wallet, but fortunately I was able to prevent my wallet getting stolen. My friend on the other hand was not so lucky, and his wallet got taken from his front pocket.

At this point, he had a look on his face that said, "I will beat the shit out of you" to the one woman in the group out of four, so eventually they threw his wallet on the ground and said, "Hey! Your wallet is on the floor there!" I suppose he just went with it, because he knew he had lost 20 euros to those thieves, but at least he was able to get his wallet and his credit cards back...

In conclusion: Spain is a nice place, and I encourage you to go visit, but just be wary of your surroundings and any potential pickpocketers

-Emoinacloset