In Spain, everybody has a friend who has had their phone stolen in Barcelona. If you’ve spent any time in the city, you’ll probably know someone who’s been harassed walking down Las Ramblas or been followed through El Raval. Petty crime happens in every city, but it does seem to happen quite often in this one.
With fantasies of sandy Mediterranean shores and a cityscape adorned with Gaudí masterpieces, I didn’t complain when my university sent me to study in Catalonia’s capital. Moving abroad alone can be daunting, especially when you’re only told cautionary tales instead of recommendations. But when I arrived in the city, the warm welcome I received drowned out the ominous whispers.
For me, Barcelona became an adventure. Studying at the university meant learning Catalan and, when I fumbled, I was met with encouragement rather than hostility. As I explored tapas bars and quaint bakeries, the locals were happy to help me practice my languages. People wanted more than just small talk and instead plied me with tips on how to appreciate their culture. The city mirrored its inhabitants: lively, inclusive and effortlessly cool.
Weekends were spent hiking in the Pyrenees, watching my new friends practice castells, a Catalan tradition of building human towers, or trekking up to the famous bunkers to watch the city lights. I felt safe as a woman travelling solo, never struggled to find a great meal as a vegetarian and was blown away by the LGBT+ Pride celebrations. As twee as it might sound, life felt like a dream.
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But casting shadows over my rose-tinted view of Barcelona was the city’s unspoken legacy. In just a few months, I’d already heard countless horror stories. A friend had her necklace ripped off by a thief on a passing motorbike. Another was followed home one night and held at knifepoint for his wallet, only to be cornered minutes later by another thief who knocked him unconscious and took his phone.
After countless warnings, I was ultra-paranoid. I never walked home alone after dark. I clutched my phone tight with both hands when taking photos and wore my rucksack on my front. But one can never be prepared for everything.
One day while shopping, I was trying on a pair of shoes. I placed my bag between my legs for safety, but as I stood up to look in the mirror, I felt a shove. Before I could react, a thief – disguised as a fellow shopper (to the extent that he too had been trying on shoes) – had my bag over his arm and was sprinting out of the store. I ran after him, only to see him jump onto a waiting motorbike and speed off.
Being robbed is nauseating — panic rises, but powerlessness drowns you. There was nothing I could do. Even going to the police station was no remedy. When I asked to file a report, the officer barely blinked. “This happens all the time,” he said. Without photo evidence, it was a dead end.
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Understandably, I withdrew for a while. The experience could have been worse, and I am grateful that it wasn’t, but it certainly shattered my romantic perspective of Barcelona.
Over time, slowly, my confidence began to creep back. I couldn’t let fear win. But just as I regained my sense of security, another experience blindsided me.
After a long day at university, my roommates and I went for a drink. Halfway through my second drink in a familiar bar, everything blurred. My friends found me slurring, unable to walk and shouting nonsense as if I’d downed 20 pints. They carried me home. Hours of vomiting followed before I passed out.
Thankfully, I’d barely sipped the spiked drink. The doctor said I’d be okay – drugged, but okay. It was a bad experience. But ironically, it brought me closer to my roommates, restoring my faith in these new friendships. The ease with which the good people I had come to know in Barcelona responded to me following these incidents kept the flame of love I had for the city alive.
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Like any city, Barcelona is so much bigger than its problems. For every bad moment, there were 10 that reminded me why I fell in love with it in the first place. I travelled to incredible places, ate some of the best food of my life and learned to live more freely than ever before. The city’s magic isn’t necessarily in its oversubscribed tourist attractions but in the way it makes you feel: truly alive, like you’ve tumbled into an artist’s paint tray, splashed with colour, movement and life.
Barcelona may have its fair share of crime – and it’s true that foreigners make easy targets – but this is arguably a risk you take in any city. I refuse to let the actions of a minority dictate how I feel about an entire place. The real Barcelona is not the pickpockets, the thieves, or the spikers – it’s the people who cheered me on when I stumbled through Catalan, the roommates who carried me home and the strangers who made a foreign place feel like home.
Barcelona changed me. It pushed me, shook me and made me grow in ways I never expected. And I wouldn’t trade a second of it. In fact: I’d move back tomorrow.
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Source: independent.co.uk
