Barcelona

We arrive in Barcelona and catch the metro to our hostel. Everyone is packed into the cars, our backs to the wall to avoid assaulting people with our backpacks (and to discourage pickpockets), and the train has just begun to move when there is a great commotion in the next car and someone pulls the emergency brake. We jolt to a stop and there is furious banging on the glass door and a man shouting in Spanish (he is quite likely a tourist, although it seems everyone in Barcelona is at least bilingual so the fact that he's not swearing in catellan is not an indication that he doesn't speak it), and for a second I'm under the impression someone's been caught in the sliding doors. Then another passenger explains to us that a pickpocket stole the man's bag. He is reacting as though someone just kidnapped his child. Authorities come to the outside of the metro and after a belaboured conversation the train starts moving again. The man is NOT okay with this and pulls the emergency brake again, losing any sympathy anyone might have had for him. He threatens to break the glass doors down if they won't let him off the train (be now the pickpocket, his bag, and its contents are long gone, and its unclear what he hopes to accomplish by getting off here versus at the next metro stop). After some more conversation with the authorities, the man collapses on the ground in tears. A very unimpressed metro guard comes down the cars of the metro and finally leads the distraught man and his entirely disinterested wife to the staff exit doors, which he unlocks to let them out.

The train stalls once more for no apparent reason and then we are finally making our way to Catalunya. Once off the train we break out the map and try to track down our hostel, which is like raising a Tourist flag and inviting everyone to come offer you directions. Hold onto your bags, they tell us. The pickpockets are terrible here.

Yes, we say. Thank you. We know.