It was Christmas morning 2012 and I went down to my hostel lobby to get some breakfast and get my day started. My Aussie friend, Kristyn was down there and she was going to get some coffee and go for a walk. She invited me and I gladly obliged. We decided to go to a local Starbucks (wi-fi was down at the hostel and she wanted a coffee so Starbucks is one of the best places to go to get Wi-Fi abroad) and walk around to see what Barcelona had to offer on Christmas morning.
We were really surprised by the number of shops that were open and people out and about. We walked in and out of a bunch of random alley ways and streets to find ourselves at a unique street sculpture. It’s like a chain link fence tube out of the ground and just stopped about 50 ft in the air. We took our necessary pictures and then pressed on…
A few more streets and alleyways later we found ourselves at the Barcelona Cathedral. We went inside cause it was free to grab a few pics but didn’t stick around too long because there were a lot of people and a Christmas ceremony was in progress. Pictures are allowed in the main area but not in some areas reserved for prayer.
We continued to wander around, chat and take the occasional pic of some cool street art or random things in store fronts and happened to walk past a certain corridor that looked a little bit more important than the rest so we made a detour to see what it was. It actually opened up to Placa Reial which is some sort of famous public square just off of La Rambla.
There was a Christmas flea market or something going on while we were there. People were selling mostly smaller trinkets and old stuff that is one of a kind I noticed. It was all very random stuff. I didn’t even know what a lot of it was. I have a small affection for small containers and I found a sweet stainless steel cigarette case for 3 Euros. I’m not a smoker but it was just so cool and only 3 Euros I decided to buy myself a little Christmas present. I continued to wander around the square and take pics but this vendor didn’t seem to like that I was taking pictures of him and all of his wares. He said something in spanish that sounded unpleasant so I made my way on to some other vendors.
I was thinking that maybe a number of these vendors were selling stolen good but I try not to assume the worst of people. It wasn’t until I posted some pictures to facebook and my Aunt Anna suggested that the blankets on the ground were mostly pickpocket’d goods. After looking back on it I can only assume that it was all pickpocket’d. Little did I know that my iPhone would be stolen right off of my person in front of my eyes in less than 24 hours and would probably end up being sold like this in no time.
After we both had seen all that we wanted to we made our way back toward the hostel with some more wandering on the way there. After a short walk the street opened up to a small square with just a flat dirt area. There were a couple people in there making really big bubbles for tips. It was actually the EXACT SAME COUPLE that I saw doing the same thing on the beach on my last trip to Barcelona a year earlier. I was totally blown away at how small the world really is. If you gave them money then they would ty to make huge bubbles for you to take pics of. I shot about a minute of video and tipped my standard Euro or two per minute of footage.
Overall it was a great way to spend my Christmas morning. I had no worries in the world. Now it was time to go get some brunch or something. Getting food in a foreign country can prove to be quite an interesting endeavor if you don’t speak much Castilian Spanish.
Have you ever been pickpocketed while you were traveling? Tell me the story in the comments below.
