@Barcelona Nord Bus Station; 11:30pm, April 2019
That day we were planning to leave the city and get to our next destination on the map but never knew that destiny had something else planned for us. We started our day with a morning walking tour in an area full of architecture designed by world famous guy ‘Gaudi’. I was mesmerized by the outside architecture of these famous building which are century olds in the old town of Barcelona. Obviously, La Sagrada Familia was the highlight of the tour but I had a soft corner for Casa Batllo.
Our tour guide was a former US citizen who fell in love with the city and started doing walking tours for living. He told us that, “Gaudi was a genius. He could easily bring all the influences from the ‘Mother Nature’ into his architecture designs. That tells you how deep you can go within your area of field and make a difference. All of his work till date reflects his sincere dedication and utmost importance to our natural surroundings. He always brought inspiration from plants, forests, ancient beliefs and mythologies that Europeans have been telling every generation.” In the end, our walking tour lasted for almost 2.5 hours and we returned to Sagrada Familia area for our lunch.
After finishing lunch, we straightaway went back to our hostel in Barcelona to start packing. We still had few hours before taking our night bus to Madrid. We were done with packing within an hour and then took a nap for 4-5 hours. Our night bus was about to leave from Barcelona Nord station around 1:30am in the night and was supposed to reach Madrid in the morning. It was a long 7-8 hours journey overnight. Honestly buses in Europe are quite convenient in general for an overnight travel. Barcelona was our second last location before finishing the 2 month long trip with Madrid and Lisbon in the end. By that time, we had already spent 50+ days in Europe and were quite tired with all the travelling.
Having said that, we were travelling with 4 heavy luggages (2 trolleys and 2 backpacks) while 3 light bags (camera, tripod and my GF's purse). Commuting from one place to another was a big deal with so much luggage carried by us and we couldn't even realise how did we pull off such a long trip with so much of stuff. (obviously I end up hurting my back a lot that I found out later; I still have a back pain issue going on!).
We all left the hostel around 10pm (quite early) and took the local train to Barcelona Nord. We reached the station sooner and thought of sitting in waiting room till our departure time. We haven’t had food since afternoon so I told my GF that I would go outside and get something as most of the eating shops at station were closed. I stepped outside of station keeping her behind. I found a nice kebab shop and ordered 3 falafels for takeaway.
It took me almost half an hour to come back to station entrance, as the kebab shop was 15 min walking distance from the station. When I started reaching the waiting room, I could see 2 big Asian fellows were walking behind my GF and keeping a watch on her moves. I got inside the waiting room and reached the bench where she was sitting. I handed over the falafels to her. She gave me a strange look as if I would find a French crepe in middle of the night for her.
While we were peacefully eating our falafals, one of those two Asian guys that I had seen before came back near our bench and started asking that whether we have seen his lost bus ticket. He started pretending that he is searching his ticket below our bench; suddenly other guy came from the back and started picking couple of our luggage bags. I sensed that something was wrong. A nearby traveller started helping the guy to find the lost tickets while my GF was just ignoring everyone and eating her falafel as if no one is around. I realised that we were getting robbed smartly by these guys who must be doing it on daily basis at such late hours and making innocent tourists like us pay them good money.
Well I didn’t know what to do so I just started screaming on top of my lungs and made a big noise. Both the guys who had already picked up the bags dropped the bags where they picked them from and started running.
I was spellbound! Two of us sat there for half an hour wondering what just happened. My GF was about to cry. I was also in shock and just got relived that thankfully nothing got stolen from us. We sat there for another hour and our bus arrived at the station. We quickly rushed to the bus and stand in the first spot for the queue. We waited for another 15 min. for ticket conductor to start the boarding. We did the boarding and put our bags in the baggage section of the bus and took our seats.
Gosh! Somehow we survived that robbery. It was the only such incidence that happened to us while travelling across Europe. Hope you liked this silly travel story and let me know in comments if you had any such similar experience while travelling anywhere. Happy travelling!
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