Humanity

Well, this isn't quite how I expected my post-Barcelona blogging to go, but aside from the sun and fun, there was a bigger lesson learned from this weekend's vacation: Human compassion is disappearing.

That may sound harsh, unwarranted, or dramatic, but most people know that I am typically an advocate for the human race. I have always been a firm believer that people are born good, and life is what corrupts that good nature for some. However, my trip to Barcelona showed me a very inhuman side to the species I've always cared the most about.

Lindsay and I spent Saturday afternoon hiking through Park Güell in Barcelona. Every time we reached a new height, we stopped to take in the views and take advantage of amazing photo ops. Once we reached the very top, we sat on a bench overlooking Barcelona from way above. We were both entirely consumed in the view and our conversation about how lucky we were to be experiencing it. Two foreign girls about our age walked over and interrupted our conversation. "Photo, camera," they kept saying and looking at each other uncomfortably. At first, we thought they wanted us to take their photo with the amazing backdrop. Unfortunately, this was not at all the case.

"That man take your camera," one girl finally stuttered out. I looked down between Lindsay and I, where my new Cannon DSLR camera was literally sitting brushed up to my leg, and now it was not. The girls did their best to describe the man and I bolted off in the direction they saw him go. Based on their description and my gut instincts, I spotted a man in a hat and sunglasses walking intently, and I just had a feeling. Of course, there was no way to know for sure it was the thief, but he confirmed my intuitions when I started catching up and yelling for him to stop. He turned a corner, and when I turned it just thirty seconds after him, he was sprinting off out of the park and into the city. Normally, my rational mind wouldn't have made the decisions I made next, but I had no time to think. I ran after him out of the park, into a poor, residential area of Barcelona. As I ran, I screamed for help, "Policìa! Ayúdame! Help me, anybody!" I had faith in the people nearby, hoping somebody would lend me a minute of their time. Not a single person did. 

The thief turned another corner and when I followed, he was gone. I was trapped in an intersection in a strange area of the city. I was lost, devastated, confused, and hurt. I realized then I had been so focused on my predator, I had no idea how I ended up where I did. After a long fifteen minutes, I finally trudged through an entrance to the park, with tears rolling down my face. At this point, not only did I not know where I came from, I also had no idea where Lindsay went, since she had run off in another direction to look for the predator.

As I walked in confused circles, taking occasional breaks to sit down and cry some more, I was really hoping someone would come to my rescue. Someone would know how to get my camera, or my friend, or how to get me back home to my bed in Pennsylvania. However, shockingly, being robbed by a single man wasn't the worst part of the experience. The absolute lowest point of my day, was the abundance of tourists from all different cultures who turned their heads away from me as I wandered lost in circles, tears streaming down my face. Not a single person stopped to ask, "Are you okay?" or "Do you need help?" I can accept that there are individual bad people in the world, but this experience corrupted my faith in human nature, and that is not as easily replaced as a camera. 

Finally, I found Lindsay and we sat in defeat for quite some time. Eventually, it was time to leave Park Güell and the bad memories behind us. We spent the rest of the day walking through the city, but neither one of us felt the energy we had in the morning. At one point, I realized I was walking into shops and completely ignoring the clerks who greeted me. It just felt like such extreme effort to smile at someone, let alone respond, when I was feeling so disappointed in the world. Then I remembered, this is exactly how I always believed the world works: The Domino Effect. If we are all born good-natured, it takes someone or something to rub its bad-nature off on you. The man who stole the camera rubbed his bad-nature off on me, as well as all the people who ignored me, and here I was passing it off to innocent people by ignoring them.

I stopped Lindsay right then and decided to verbalize all the ways the day could have been worse. The man could have grabbed my passport, stranding me in Spain, or my money and credit cards. He could have taken my entire purse. Or, I could have ended up catching him and he could have hurt me. I could be in a Spanish hospital right now. I could have gotten much more lost to the point I would not have found Lindsay or the park again. Things could have been much worse. Verbalizing these thoughts helped lift my spirits. Turning my attitude around helped scrub off my brush with bad-nature. The next store I walked into, I gave a forced and smile and responded, "Hola."

Today, the trip came to an end after a day of biking and beaching in the sun. We hopped in a cab for the airport with another girl from our hostel. The cab driver charged us 29 euros for the 20 minute trip, not a bad deal at all. Actually, really not a bad deal considering our cab driver on Thursday night charged us 40 dollars for the exact same distance. Wow, I thought, Young American women really are the preferred targets in this city.

But, I still went into the airport and smiled and thanked the people that helped me.

The only picture I snapped on my phone.