Our day yesterday started out very nicely: after the previous day’s rain, we woke up to sunshine, and Gerbeaud and I took advantage of it. We spent a few minutes on our little terrace and watched the people hurrying off to work and school. The tram was right there next to us, but the windows were very good. Inside the room you couldn’t hear the outside noise at all.

Around 9:15 I took everything down to the car, handed in the key at reception, buckled the dogs’ safety belts, and we set off toward Barcelona.

At 11:53 I called our friend José, who lives in Barcelona, to tell him I thought I’d get to the accommodation around 4 PM; the owner only gets home at half past five because she’s working. That will give me time to take the dogs on a nice walk. We agreed he’d come to pick me up for dinner between 18:30 and 19:00. It was  exactly 7 years ago that we last saw each other. David and I visited them in February 2019.

I’m cruising along the highway at 120, when at 12:04 a car pulls up next to me with the window down and the driver gestures that something is wrong with my car, that I should pull over and check it. He just keeps talking and talking. I slow down, he cuts in front of me, and we pull over in a widened spot. He comes to the car and motions me back to the left rear wheel. We crouch down and he rattles off in Spanish (or Catalan) and points to my wheel and the plastic behind it, saying the plastic “pampampam” on the wheel and that it’s very dangerous, all the while gesturing up and down with his hand. I tell him in English that sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about; I don’t see any problem here by the wheel. But he just keeps talking, tells me that we should check the other back wheel as well. And he plays the same ceremony at my right rear wheel too. I still don’t see anything, and I’m not thinking anything bad. I should go to a service shop and show it. I assume that’s what “servicio” means.

Then he gets into the driver’s seat of his silver-colored car parked in front of me. I’m just fastening my seat belt when his car’s front right door opens. I see another man toss my bag and my belt bag onto the ground and laugh with a wide grin. Then they drive off.

I won’t hide it: a desperate scream bursts out of me. I jump out of the car, run over, grabb my bag and my belt bag, get back into the car, and feverishly start searching through them. In the belt bag was David’s old wallet, with about 320 euros in it. They took that. But they left the spare car key in it. My big handbag/backpack: from my big wallet they took about 55,000 HUF. I don’t know what the hell they’re going to do with Hugarian Forints. But they didn’t find my little black wallet where I usually keep euros when we travel. There were 430 euros in it, and it’s all still there. Well, it seems that chaos in a woman’s bag can be useful. All my bank cards are there, my documents, our passports. And they didn’t hurt us. As my friend Cathie would say: “Zizi, calm down, it’s only money. You’re okay, and that’s all that matters.” The dogs were sitting in the back seat and didn’t bark. I taught them that if someone comes up to the car, you don’t start barking like crazy. Maybe I need to rethink that now?

At 12:12 I call José to tell him what happened. I tell him not to worry, I’m fine. We’re still having dinner together, but I’m going to need a whiskey because of this big scare, so he should be prepared.

When the guy was shouting at me that something was wrong with my car, I only saw him, so his accomplice either sat in front and ducked down, or hid in the back of the car. I was under the impression that he was alone and wanted to help. They’re very crafty. One distracts you, the other robs you. I’m really congratulating myself for not moving the money from the small wallet in my big bag into my big wallet—though just the day before I’d thought that now I should move it, because I can find the big one more easily than the small one. I always search for the little one for ages in the big mess, but in this situation it turned out to be perfect.

Then, while driving, I thought I should stop at a police station by the highway and tell them what happened. So I stopped at a gas station, took the dogs out for a little walk, put them back in the car, and went into the station. I asked the cashier if she spoke English. No. But there was a man there who spoke a few words and told me that at the next exit there’s the airport and there’s a police station there too.

I took the exit off the highway and by the roundabout I saw a police car parked. Not “real” police, I think they were more like monitoring for infractions. Anyway, I stopped the car and went over to them. I knocked; the officer rolled down the window. I asked if he spoke English. No. OK, I thought, then I’ll do pantomime. I pointed at my bag and said: “highway, money, wussssshh.” Then he translates my pantomime into Spanish for his colleague and says to me that they will go ahead of me and lead me to the police statioj. At that moment a real police car arrives. My officer stops it and explains to him what happened to me. He comes back and pantomimes to me that I should follow the “real” police officer; he’ll take me to the station and I can file a report. They were really nice. One was a tall, handsome guy who spoke English very well; the other only a few words, but they were very kind and empathetic. They escorted me into the station, sat me down, and started asking what happened, how it happened. What really stuck with me was that I didn’t note the license plate number itself, but I noticed that on the thieves’ car, next to the plate where the country code usually is, it wasn’t “E” (which is Spain—España), but FIN. I remembered this also because I thought it was a Finnish car (a few years ago they switched from Suomi to Finnland), and I thought, great, Scandinavian, he’ll surely speak English. But noooo, he was firing Spanish at me like a machine-gun. That’s why it really burned into my brain. And it wasn’t on a blue background like EU plates usually are (blue strip with stars on top, country code below), but “FIN” in black letters on a white background. I told the police that too. Then they put a folder in front of me full of color photos of different men, asking if I recognized the robber. I look through, flip the pages, and on the fifth page I see the guy's face. I said it was him, 100%. They immediately relayed it on the hot line to the other police guys along with special codes. Then my interview continued. They said unfortunately this happens every day; they look for victims based on a very well-developed choreography. Usually there are two of them: one keeps you busy, the other empties your stuff. I’m insanely lucky they didn’t take my whole bag. It seems it was good that I stood there confused about what in the holy mother of God he was babbling on about, when in my opinion my wheels were fine. That gave the other guy time to go through my bags. I look for the good in everything. And they reassured me this is common; I shouldn’t beat myself up about how I could be so stupid/gullible/reckless. There are lots of victims and  unfortunately they (the police) cannot be everywhere. The English-speaking officer had to leave at 14:00 because his shift ended. I stayed with the other very likeable officer who spoke a few words of English. We were together for about 20 minutes; he put a bunch of papers in front of me in Spanish and English that I had to sign. Then he wanted to staple the English-language copy they prepared for me, but the stapler was empty. He says it's always empty when he wants to use it. ALWAYS! Murphy’s law. We had a good laugh about that—apparently it’s an international expression. At the end we shook hands and he said, “In Spain, always lock your car doors! Even if you’re sitting in it.” I said okay, and thank you for everything. They were very decent, kind people. I’m taking this as an “experience,” a learning process. It didn’t deter me from my plan at all; it could have been much worse.

At 18:12 José called to say he’d set off for me from Barcelona; he thought it would take him 20 minutes. That would mean he should arrived around 18:32. Then he called to say the traffic was so bad that he thought it would be a 30-minute delay. I told him okay, don’t worry about it. But if he wanted, it would be OK if we met on Friday; I don’t want him sitting in the car for hours because of me. No way, he’s coming, I shouldn’t worry about it. I warned him that there are insanely steep hills here with hairpin turns — didn’t he want to meet down in the town? That’s no obstacle for him, he said. At quarter to seven I went out, thinking he could arrive any moment now. At half past seven still nothing. At 19:33 I ring his mobile. He doesn’t pick up.  Then suddenly a car  slowly approaches, its headlights blinding me: it can only be José! And it was. He got out, we jumped into each other’s arms. I tell him, I called you, you didn’t pick up. He says his phone died. I can’t believe it! But meanwhile he realized his car’s built-in GPS works as a phone as well, he’d just never used it before. He had to figure out quickly, how it works. I told him, then it’s good thing I came, this way he knows how to handle it. We had a good laugh.

We head down the hill. He wrote down the names of four restaurants; we agree we’d go to the closest one. We park, walk to the restaurant. José happily boasts to me that it’s a Basque restaurant and we’re going to eat very well here. We go in, sit down, A very cheerful waitress comes: what would we like to drink? I definitely want to start with a whiskey to drown my sense of loss over the stolen money. José also orders one for himself. For about two minutes we mope together, then we move on to other, more exciting topics about our lives. Then we finish our drinks and want to order hot food. It turns out that the chef has a doctor’s appointment and is still sitting in the waiting room. Damn!! I can hear my stomach growling loudly. What can we eat? Cold things: Spanish ham, salami, cheese, olives, smoked fish, bread. We ask for some of everything plus a glass each of good red wine.  Everything arrives, it looks very appetizing, the wine is smooth, we’re happy. We talk about David, my future plans, José bombards me with questions. One bomb question goes so well that in the middle of his big explanation he spills the red wine on himself. I’ll be honest: by then it didn’t take much for me to pee myself laughing. WHAT MORE CAN GO WRONG TODAY??!! Fortunately, José didn’t take it too tragically either; he laughed with me while trying to blot the red wine off his pants, his sweater, and the tablecloth. The waitress brought a mop bucket with an angelic smile on her face. "Don’t worry, it’s not an everyday thing, but it’s a frequent case — we’re prepared."
An hour later the poor chef was still missing, so we took a painful farewell from the place. My stomach had tightened so much in the last year that I was full from what we ate.

We got into the car; I thought the way home wouldn’t take long, since I’d done it during the day and José had done it in the evening darkness—what could happen? I took the key to my apartment out of my bag and put it on the seat next to my butt; it’ll be in a good place there. My umbrella was there too—no reason to panic. Well, we drove around for about an hour as if we had nothing else to do. Each of us set the address on our GPS, because we were pretty sure that only people whose brains are controlled by Artificial Intelligence are allowed to move into this labyrinth. We set off. For a while everything is fine, then mine says one thing and José’s says the opposite. Fine, then let’s just follow his. But his said “left” instead of “right” so many times that sometimes we used mine too. I think the squirrels laughed themselves to death, watching how many times we went past the same place and still always turned the wrong way, until in the end they just waved like, “well, still don’t have the right direction? AMATEURS!”

So I confess, blushing, that we messed around for more than an hour trying to find where the hell I live. Meanwhile, here in Spain the speed bumps are much bigger than in Hungary, and since José was also looking at the GPS map while driving, in the dark he often didn’t notice them and we hit them so hard , I though my head was going to roll off. I told him if we go over one more like that, our heads will permanently unscrew from our necks. It's incredible how calmly and cheerfully he handled the whole situation. I told him maybe it would be better if they didn’t come for me the next day, but we met somewhere in Sitges. No way!!  He wants to see this whole area in daylight too! He wouldn’t miss it for all the treasure in the world. What a character at 82?! I assume you all must have figured out that in the end we found the house where I live in the labyrinth, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this now. But the day’s hardships didn’t end here. Nooooo... something else happened here too.

We say goodbye, I take my umbrella, get out of the car, José drives off, since it’s already 10:45 PM and he still has to get home to Barcelona. Let's hope, he’ll find the way home!

So, José drives off, I open my car, put the umbrella inside and rummage in my bag for the apartment key. I can’t find it. Under the streetlamp I dump my bag, lay out everything on the ground. No key. I’m searching, rummaging in the middle of the road at 10:45 PM, and I swear my blood runs cold. “No, this can’t be, this is too much, this is more than too much—where the hell is my key? WHERE THE HELL IS THE KEEEEY????” And then the image appears before me of me getting into the car and, thinking it's going to be a simple, short ride home, taking out the apartment key and putting it next to me on the seat.... JOSÉ!!!!! I left my key in your car! But José is already far away; he doesn’t see that between the two seats there’s a key laughing at the fact that it doesn’t belong there, enjoying the kilometers running under it and not just hanging loose in a keyhole. Unbelievable. Can this happen? So much, so many “events” in one day? Is it possible? How? Who makes these up and where?

There’s nothing I can do: at 10:50 p.m. I have to call my host to tell her I screwed up. That their labyrinth got the better of us and we took our eyes off the necessity of the key for a moment. I’m sorry, I have to get in, otherwise tomorrow it will take us all day to clean up after the dogs. Annick answers the phone sleepily. This is the only evening she could go to bed early. She is one of the main dancers of the carnival starting in Sitges next week. But no, she cannot, because here is Zizi, who, true to her name, chooses to buzz around instead of gripping that bloody key!! She forgives me and sends her husband Sergio, who reassures me in broken English. Don't worry, everything is fine, we have about three more keys. Sleep well, everything will be fine." I’m in a good place, among kind, understanding people. It’s balm for my soul.

I reassure everyone: today the key turned up. And I met more fantastic people. But for today, let this be enough. To be continued.