You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick my friend's pocket!

I like to consider myself a decent independent traveler. There have been short increments of time where I have had to get from Point A to Point B by myself in order to meet up with a friend without a trusty Gandalf or Samwise by my side. I usually don't feel nervous because I get to practice my solo traveling skills on the streets of NYC, where you never know if the person next to you is a business woman, a nun, or perhaps a convicted felon evading the law. Most likely it is the former, but you just never know! I take the approach of treating everyone like they are a convicted felon, so as not to be disappointed when the cute little old lady randomly whips out a machete or something.

This tactic of mean muggin' and blatant distrust has been helpful in times of need, though I sometimes feel that my hashtag super single life is due to this default demeanor toward strangers...

...

So when we were planning our trip to Barcelona, amidst our research, we found that it happens to be the Pickpocket capital of the world. NBD. We stashed that little tidbit of information in the forefront of our minds, but did not let it deter us from getting excited about our trip. We felt more at ease because we were traveling with a bonafide squad, so there would be many friendly eyes looking after our purses, bags, and such.

Even so, we came up with some easy adjustments to prevent burglaries such as keeping our bags in front of us, like a mix of a backpack and fannypack.

Fashionable? No.

Helpful? Yas.

For most of the trip, we didn't see any signs of foul play. No pickpockets, no swindlers, no nothin'. It left us thinking,

How could this place be the capital of pickpocketing?!

I was expecting a more intense version of the Hunger Games or something of that nature, for pete's sake!

a depiction of what I imagined people would do with my bag

Well, soon enough, we did end up experiencing pickpocketing twice - though luckily from afar and unsuccessfully.

On the tour bus to Montserrat / vineyard (now rated top 10 Wine Tours in the world... just saying), we were passing through the city, taking in all the sites we wouldn't manage to see in 3 days.

Antoni Gaudí's home was one of the more mythical-looking places that attracted many visitors who are required to look up in order to see his true masterpiece of architecture .

As we drove by, my friend gasped in shock.

I assumed it was from looking at the awe-inspiring facade.

Wrong. Instead, the gasp was because she had witnessed someone reach into a tourist's bag and come out with a wallet! Like. Right in front of her.

By the time she told me, I could only see the profile of the culprit, but he looked like a tourist himself - which, I guess, is the whole idea.

He also looked like he was pushing 70. I would hope by that age, you have come to realize what is moral and what is not... but apparently not!

There is nothing we could have done since the bus kept on moving, but the poor predicament that victim must have been in later, when he realized his wallet was missing, loomed heavy on our hearts.

Later, on one of the rainbow buses back in the city, we met a family where the mother had lost her purse. Stolen right out of her child's stroller from the same location.

The audacity!

A kid's stroller!!!!

We felt lucky to have dodged such unfairness....

Keeping all of this in mind, we were on our way out to a bar that we probably should have avoided like the plague. It seemed super fun: 100+ different types of shots! Some were lit on fire! Some you had to dress up to take it! The place was even recommended by a co-worker, who fondly reminisced of her time there when she went in college! So we thought, why not?

All signs pointed to yes... however, there was a glaring Yelp review or two that read: be careful for pickpockets and awful bartenders who don't care about anything or anyone.

After a grueling three minutes of debate, we threw caution to the wind and cabbed it over to the establishment. We decided this would also be a great night to break out the "fake" bachelorette gear and hope that free shots would come our way (hey, don't hate us because you ain't us).

Well, we soon discovered that wearing the gear was probably the WORST idea. Apparently that bar is known to hate American tourists. I guess 'cause we're loud people, generally speaking... but not the 5 of us! We are sweet and kind and sure, partially liars with our bachelorette attire, but listen, there are definitely worse people out there!

Anyway, the bar was crowded. Actually, crowded is an understatement. If you were to take the line outside an Apple store when a next generation iPhone comes out, and put those people in a bar slightly larger than a broom closet... there you would have the perfect comparison to this bar. No one wanted to let us through and one of us didn't really want to be there. It was kind of a hot mess.

Since we traveled by cab across town to get there, we figured we'd at least have one round and go.

As two of the five went up to the counter, the remainder of us pressed ourselves as flat as we could against the wall so as to let all the 21-and-unders through to the back (remember, it's a broom closet). All three of us had our bags held tight and in front of us as we watched fire spring up from the wooden bar and then disappear.

Out of the corner of my eye, I happened to catch a group of guys in the early 20s passing through. It was so crowded that when one of them kind of fell into my friend, I didn't immediately think anything of it. He just tripped over one of the 563 legs that were there in his way (yes, it's an odd number because he can't trip over his own leg that is being tripped, can he?)

Had he recovered a little faster, maybe I wouldn't have seen it at all, but as he righted himself, I saw him try, with one of his hands, to unzip my friend's purse. Like literally, stopped his "fall" and opened her purse, which she was clutching tightly - thank the lord baby Jesus. She yelled at him like the amazing Italian girl she is while I looked around like a stupid guppy hoping that the Barcelona Police were right there in that bar, ready to come out and arrest him. Or at least give that boy a stern talking to.

But no one came and we were left with the obvious decision to leave.

And leave we did.

The friend whose purse had been almost pickpocketed, was ironically the one who did not want to be there in the first place.... so she was irate.

We all were.

What boiled my blood even more was that as we left, people scoffed at us. They didn't care.

I feel like it's not so much to ask for a little like... Are you guys ok?

But whatever. They don't like Americans.

Point taken.

So in the end, there were valuable lessons to be learned from this experience.

1. Don't wear bachelorette gear abroad. Or at least in Barcelona.

They don't care.

2. Travel in numbers.

10 eyes are better than 1 ... or two depending on your situation.

3. Always be aware of your surroundings.

Don't be taken in by the sights without checking who is around you, first.

4. Keep your purse/ bag/ fanny pack visible or lock it up with a small suitcase lock.

Super inconvenient, but at least you'll have your phone at the end of the night to leave a bad Yelp review.

And finally,

5. Trust that bad Yelp review.

For the most part, they are probably telling the truth ... unless they have some epic unknown

grudge against the bar...

...Then don't listen.

Until next time,

skål xx