Day 124: Madrid, Spain

Laying about on an obnoxious Hawaiian print sarong in the park, we were so thoroughly engrossed in our novels that we failed to notice when a young woman came running over to us. Startled, we looked questioningly at her as she hurriedly told us someone had just stolen Saben’s bag.

Making haste, we made our way quickly but cautiously behind and then around the thief as he stood stupidly, wearing the bag and appearing to be looking for someone. Saben wasted no time in getting his bag back, just taking it off the guy’s neck while the thief tried to tell us that it was his friend’s bag and blah blah blah. He didn’t even put up a fight but just wouldn’t shut his mouth. Not caring if he spoke English, Saben issued a series of rather intimidating physical threats accompanied by a firm grip on the thief’s shirt collar holding him on his tip-toes while Lin checked the contents of the bag.

Happy thoughts

Luckily, this thief was a real idiot and hadn’t even gotten into the bag yet. We found out from the jogging girl that he had an accomplice of sorts, who he was apparently waiting on when we got to him and was presumably the same person he was cursing at fiercely in French as they exited the park. The jogger girl said she had seen him inching closer and closer behind us until he finally grabbed the bag without the slightest sound and walked off with it. Of course it was our own fault for not keeping a better eye on our stuff but we never would’ve imagined being robbed (almost!) while we sat right next to our bag (literally inches from our back on the sarong). Surely, we thought, we would hear or see someone coming near our blanket! Well, apparently not! But today we were lucky that a girl was honest and vigilant enough to tell us that someone robbed us. A big thank you to her!!

With a near 3rd robbery under our belts, we took it as a security reminder. After a certain amount of time, people get lazy and it’s those tiny slip ups that open a wide door for thieves. And certainly not every time we will be so lucky. It was again thanks to our lucky llamas (One more time and we’ll have to get llama tattoos…) safely stowed in Saben’s good karma grey bag that saved us from utter ruin and devastation.

Thinking all was right in the world we wondered over to the duck pond to ponder life, the universe, and a couple of other things.

Obviously lost Swans in the duck pond

As we got ready to leave Saben’s (brand new) camera takes a nose dive from his bag pocket into the pond! In an instant Saben had it out of the water and out of the case drying it off but things didn’t look good. After a very thorough cleaning he turned it on only to produce one very unhappy photograph before it crapped out.

Broken...

Saben hadn’t lost all hope so we headed back to the hostel (which oddly enough has hairdryers) and Saben took it apart and gave it an intense drying. 10 minutes later it worked like nothing had happened! Big sigh of relief and a very on edge day…

Unbroken!