Of course I’d heard that you have to watch out for pickpockets in Spain, but after a month of living in Sevilla, I’d started to let my guard down. Bad idea.
Last week as I was basking in the sun between classes with my friend Karlee, a tourist came up to ask us directions. I know this is one of the typical pickpocket scenarios of which all the guidebooks tell you to be cautious, but I get so excited about being mistaken for a Spaniard that whenever anyone asks me directions, I jump at the chance.
The young man approached Karlee with a map and asked in bad Spanish “¿Dónde está este?” pointing to a large area on the map. Karlee looked confused, so I leaned over to try to help. He pointed again, a little more directly, but neither of us could tell where he wanted to go. Finally, he said “Plaza España,” which is only a four minute walk from where we were sitting. We told him that, and he sauntered contentedly away. We’d just returned from Barcelona, where we’d been warned over and over again about pickpockets, so I thought Karlee was feeling leftover paranoia when she said that the man seemed sketchy to her.
We went to our next class, and I was looking forward to relaxing at home that night before a party our program was throwing for us to make Spanish friends. However, when I got home and checked my email, I had a nasty surprise waiting for me. I was waiting for an email about a doctor’s appointment, so when I opened an email in Spanish, I automatically assumed it was about my appointment. I was a little confused when it told me to call the doctor and his wife at home, and that I would have to go to their house that night. What kind of medicine do they practice in Spain? Finally I gave up and copied and pasted the email into Google Translate. I’m a stellar Spanish major.
When I read the horrible English that Google spewed out, I yelped. It told me that a couple had found my wallet earlier and were awaiting my call. I double checked some words with Word Reference just to make sure Google wasn’t misleading me, then dumped out everything in my purse. No wallet appeared among my notebooks, chocolate bar wrappers and six tubes of Burt’s Bees.
I immediately called the number in the email, totally disregarding my usual abhorrence of talking on the phone in Spanish (it’s so much harder to understand people when you can’t see their facial expressions, and I do most of my communicating with extravagant hand motions). Señor Alonso picked up and spoke very slowly, telling me that I could come over now. He sounded like the guardian angel in Grease, except that my mistake was dropping my wallet, not dropping out of beauty school.
My roommate Christine refused to let me go to the house alone, convinced that Señor Alonso was using my wallet as a lure to get me there to take advantage of me. I’d looked up directions to his house on Google maps, and it was only a few blocks from our apartment, so I figured it should be easy to find.
When we got to where his apartment should have been, all we found were a deserted warehouse and a bar. I asked a woman walking her dog if she knew where his building was. She gave us the twice over (Spanish people know the pickpocketing tricks), then pointed us back where we’d come from, until she yelled back at us to tell us it was in the opposite direction. Without much confidence, we continued on for 10 minutes, until we asked a man where the street of Señor Alonso’s building, but he had no idea.
We asked directions again, and although we didn’t understand exactly where we were heading, since it involved going down an alley then turning right then left then around two roundabouts then another left to get there (or something just as confusing as that), we finally found the Alonso’s apartment. I buzzed up, and we walked upstairs. I expected him to simply hand me my wallet and close the door, but we were greeted by an adorable couple who kissed us both in greeting and insisted that we come inside to make sure nothing was missing from my wallet.
Christine’s worries about Señor Alonso were completely misplaced, as we both had about five inches on him, and he seemed extra cautious about not startling us as he stood back, letting his plump wife hover over me, alternating between rubbing my back and talking about pickpockets. They took turns narrating (well, really talking over each other and repeating each other) about how they found the wallet and my cards discarded on a street nearby the fountain where the tourist asked for directions. The street is on my way home, so I thought it was possible that I’d dropped it, until I discovered that all of my cash was missing. I hope the tourist enjoyed my eight Euros—never rob a college student, we don’t have any cash to carry even if we wanted to!
The Alonsos cautioned me about pickpockets in Sevilla (I’d learned my lesson!) and then proceeded to tell me about their children and their children’s spouses, showing me pictures of their son and his pretty American wife (she didn’t speak Spanish for a while apparently, which is probably why the Alonsos were so easy to talk to). I saw pictures of their grandkids, and their daughter who is studying international relations in Italy (although I thought she should be a model; she was gorgeous).
My one-minute wallet recovery turned into a 45-minute stay in the Alonso’s house, learning about their lives. When Christine and I finally started heading out, they told me that if I ever needed anything in Sevilla to contact them, as I had their phone number and address. I didn’t even need to go to our program’s Spanish party, as I’d already met the nicest Spanish people in Sevilla. Well, the lure of free Tinto de Verano sucked me in to the party, but my older couple still charmed me much more than any of the Spanish university students. And I kept my purse closed and clutched next to me the entire night.
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