What To Do When You’re Left Pantless In Barcelona

We wish that we could say that the title of this piece was embellished for dramatic purposes or that it was not nearly as embarrassing as that one sentence may make it seem, but its not and we were.

Last September the four members of the MISSADVENTURES team set out to Barcelona, Spain in search of fun, sun, and tons of sangria. And well to stalk Gerard Pique (but that’s a staging.missadventures.cag post or a criminal record for another time).  We arrived super early in the morning, dumped our bags off at the nearest hostel, and set out straight for the beach.  Sigh, the infamous Barcelona shoreline, where people worry less about what they bring there, and more about what they might not bring back. We had all been warned again and AGAIN, that theft was a serious issue in this city especially at this touristy beach. We had all traveled so often! How could it happen to the same people that backpacked Laos or stayed in the sketchiest hostels in the Middle East? The tourists that were stolen from were the stereotypical camera-around-neck, tour-bus kind – not us.  Obviously we were wrong. Not to name names, but in an easy instant, someone’s eyes closed and we lost 3 cameras, 500 Euros, 1 passport, and a pair of pants.

Not even 24 hours in the country and we were the victims of thievery. The first thing we did was cry. A lot in fact, more than all The Hills episodes put together. When that was over survival instinct kicked in. We made a list of what needed to get done in priority sequence.

1. Find Kat some pants: Important to note that this only happened after about an hour of Kat walking around the city dazed without any.
2. Call the credit card and debit card companies: Cancelling them instantly made it so that the thieves couldn’t use them. Kat had photocopies of her cards so it was easy to cancel them on the spot. Multi-tasking we also arranged for a new credit card to be delivered to our hostel. All this was done at the police station.
3. File a police report: Although the chances of being able to get your things back is well ZERO, it’s important to do this in order to claim insurance when you get back, as well as to expedite your passport.
4. Become vigilantes and try to locate the thieves in an unknown city: This step was short lived, as you would imagine, but it involved us chasing a lead to a place that didn’t exist (not recommended).
5. Borrow money from friends for food: Lucky we had not all been stolen from, so we could help each other out. If you are alone, call your credit card company, your mom, or your embassy.  If worse comes to worse figure out what your good at and start busking.
6. Go to the consulate: There they let us use the phone, made sure we had a place to stay, and with a couple easy steps gave Kat a temporary Canadian passport. Kat had a photocopy of her passport on her, we recommend you do the same.

After all that is done you go out and you drink lots of Sangria and laugh it all up, because at the end of the day it could have been a lot worse. Theft happens everywhere, and even the most seasoned traveler can have it happen to them.  Just look at us, we had locks on all our bags, but they just took the whole bag instead.

barcelona, spain