Next stop in my Toledo tour was The Primate Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo. Like I’ve said before, I love going to Cathedrals, I love vaulted ceilings, which places like this have enough of, they also have stained glass. And pipe organs. But look at all that art, all the details (in gold and marble looks like).
That night was my birthday eve and I went to a bar crawl, I was having a lot of fun, visited several bars, it was about 2AM, I had enough, and decided to go home. I get an Uber, and as I’m waiting for it, I stop at a nearby food place, and in a crowded street, a guy starts harassing me, I tell him no, move away from him, but he walks into me, I push him away, I thought that was the end of it, when I realize I don’t have my phone, I had just used it to pay for the food, so I go back to the food place to check I didn’t leave it, it’s not there, then I realize I had to have put it on my coat pocket and the guy stole it. I tried to see if I saw him and he was gone. I started freaking out, wasn’t sure how I’d go back to the Airbnb, because, my cards were also attached to my phone. A guy on the street told me to calm down but I couldn’t, I was in a foreign city, far from my airbnb, with no knowledge on how I’d get back. So I did the only thing I could think of, which was go back to the bar and try to find the group I was with so I could try to get in touch with my dad, so he could block my phone. The bar crawl guide wasn’t super helpful apart from letting me borrow his phone to talk to my dad (didn’t help me getting back to my airbnb) but three people I met two hours before offered help, one guy even told me to log into my apple account from his phone so we could track mine, and he’d go to get my phone, but in the stress of it I couldn’t remember my password. The girl helped me breathe, told me that everyone’s gone through that, to which I responded I hadn’t, so she said “well, now you have”, which wasn’t funny then, but it is now. After using her phone to get in touch with my dad, he blocked my phone, and deletes everything from it. I always use my GPS to get around a foreign city, I don’t usually remember the address of where I am staying, for some reason, I remembered the address of this Airbnb, I don’t know how, but the why was so I could get back. The third guy got cash and paid for a cab for me to get back. I get back to my Airbnb, and from my watch I text a friend of mine that has an iPhone, he helps me with communication between me and my dad, since my dad doesn’t have an iPhone I can’t call him through the watch. At the Airbnb, and as I’m talking to my friend about what happened, I started having an anxiety attack. I didn’t even eat my food until it was cold. By then I had lost all appetite. I was going to attempt to get my iPhone replaced in Madrid, that morning I was meant to check out, so my friend sends me the address of the closest Apple Store, I walk there that morning with all my shit. I am on high alert and on edge, so much that I snapped at a lady on the street trying to sell me flowers, she got too close and it triggered me. I got to the Apple Store but unfortunately I couldn’t change my phone there as it was from another country (Apple might have changed that policy now), so I went to a phone store nearby and got a new phone, oh, remember I said he stole my cards too? Thankfully I had ONE on me, I never use debit cards on international trips so he just stole my credit cards, which was unfortunate, but I had a debit card, which I used for the remainder of this trip. The fucking phone cost me more than an iPhone replacement and it is the single most shitty phone ever. It was literally easier to open instagram, take a picture, download it than opening the phone app. I swear. Also the quality of pictures was shitty so bear with me the rest of the trip’s pics.
My last stop in Madrid was my dear Santiago Bernabeu, the home of Real Madrid. It was under construction, but it was still pretty majestic.
I got to see the stadium where a lot of my favorite stars had played at, where football history has been made. Unfortunately for me, they we playing away games when I was in Madrid, so I couldn’t see them, I think they had played as locals the week before and they’d be playing there the following week, so in short, bad timing.
That afternoon I took a train to Barcelona, another fast train, a 385 mile trip, roughly 6hrs driving took around 3hrs aboard the train, and it’s weird? It’s going really fast but you barely notice it, even as they travel around 186mph. I don’t have pictures of the interim because all the down time I had waiting at the train station, and on the train I spent setting the fucking phone, and calling credit card companies to cancel my cards, calling Apple to report the phone as stolen, which fun fact, when you’re calling from a Spanish number, it redirects you to a the Spanish brand EVEN if you’re calling the US number, so I had to get them to redirect me several times. All that process was SUPER fun. I think I slept some on the train but not much and even if I had slept the whole way it wasn’t a long trip. Anyway, I get to my Barcelona Airbnb, late, around 9 or 10pm, I think, tired as fuck. I shower and fall asleep as soon as I can, I was supposed to go to a bar crawl in Barcelona that night (birthday night), however I skipped it because, well, hadn’t slept for over 24hrs. And because I’m a masochist bitch, I had scheduled a tour of the Camp Nou the following morning at like 10AM, so I didn’t have lots of time to sleep if I went out.
For my football fans, specially those familiar with Real Madrid’s and Barcelona’s rivalry, I know, okay, I know, however, I was in Barcelona, there was no way I’d miss the stadium, and unlike Santiago Bernabeu they weren’t under construction and had a very thorough museum. If I took a photo of the stadium it’s lost in the shitty android Spanish phone (very sad). They had replicas of Messi’s Ballon D’or, several of them in fact, and I think he donated one of them so it was the real thing. If you keep scrolling, you can see the stadium, in several views, the entrance the players use to enter the field, and there’s a chapel in that tunnel as well.
I stopped at the Barça café and had a little coffee, which, cute.
So okay, this is the key of the Airbnb I stayed at, I had to be taught how to use it because I could lock anyone inside if I locked it a certain way, so essentially when I walked out, I’d just close the door and it was locked.
I asked the Airbnb person for a spot to watch the game Barça was playing that day –I had figured if I couldn’t watch Real Madrid, at least I could see FCB in person, but because I have shit luck, they were also playing an away game… so I figured the next best thing was to go watch them play at a bar, with locals, and indeed was the best thing. I got a mojito, mozzarella sticks, but that wasn’t even the best thing. You know how as an English speaker, the English or Australian accent is hot? Well Spanish accent is that for my ears, you see the girl in front of me, the guy she was with did the most Spanish thing ever and said something along the lines “joder tío” (roughly translated to “fuck dude”), when a player missed a goal, I swear I almost squealed. Barcelona lost that game against Almeria, 1-0, so the fans were not happy. It was unfortunate but regardless the atmosphere was on-point.
Part II consisted of days three and four, so I will finish this trip on a third blog as to not make it overly long and bore you to death. But for your information, the last leg of the trip was excellent it’s soooooo worth it to stay tuned.
As Always,
With Love,
Carolyn