Helping Scam Artists Put Food on the Table

This is not an easy journal entry to write. I have hesitated in whether I want to write about our day in Barcelona or if I should just act like it never happened. Seriously I have been sitting in front this screen hoping LA, that’s what Lauren goes by, keeps interrupting me to show me cities with names she considers humorous from the European map.

I consider myself a fairly good traveler and aware of the pitfalls tourists fall into. In fact, I probably am very prideful when it comes to those things. For confidence’s sake I am going to write yesterday off to being jetlagged and not getting enough sleep. I was still fairly tired all day and I was even able to take a nap around 6:00 in the evening.

So LA and I make a late start on the day and head out around noon. We are 5 blocks away from the Sant Cugat train station which takes us down to La Plaza Catalunya. This is the tourist mecca of Barcelona. There are tons of people down there and a lot going on. We walk around for a bit and take everything in. There is a fountain and sculptures and plenty of history surrounding the structures. We took the obligatory picture in front of the fountain, sculptures, and in the middle of hungry pigeons.

The day took an unexpected turn as we head down Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a pedestrian median where artists come to sell their goods. We occasionally would walk by the guys that dressed up and painted themselves in random characters like angels, lions, and evil green trolls that gave the finger to people taking pictures of him. Well, there are also groups of men playing a game where if you can locate the red ball under one of three boxes you get a few euros. I would say there were 20 people standing around. So we watch for a few minutes and see how the game goes and I figure it is some kind of scam. After a couple minutes he asks us to tell him where the red ball is. I hand him some euros and point and of course it’s not under the cup we swore it was in. So at first I feel like I am stupid for not following the red ball. I watch this guy work and notice that every guy there is working for him. It’s so obvious now, how did I not pick up on it earlier? How did I lose focus and put down my guard? In any case it happened and with my pride hit like that it ruined the rest of the day for me.

Did I mention before that I asked LA what she was nervous about and she said she didn’t want to get robbed. And my response to that was, “That will never happen. We will be smarter than that.” What’s that famous saying? What is it that pride comes before? I really didn’t think I would be that stupid American. And it had nothing to do with the money. It was the fact that I allowed myelf to be swindled by this low life. Anyway as we walked down Las Ramblas we saw lots of these games and many people playing. They make a lot of money doing this.

It took me the entire day and a night’s rest to get over that. I don’t deal with falling down and other people knowing about it.

After I put food on the criminals table we walked into Marcut de la Bosqueria. This is an open air market that sold mainly fresh fruit and meats. There were little bars all around where you could get seafood and a drink. LA got good footage of the beef tongues and goat heads on sale.

It was a lot of walking which was probably best for us since we were still getting over the flights. We ended up back at the apartment and rested while waiting on Natalia to come home from work to grab dinner. It was great seeing Barcelona and we will bring back pictures and memories from it, but as is the case with most of my traveling, we will remember the people and Natalia above all because of her willingness to show us her city and the amazing hospitality she showed us.