Putas Rumanas; or La Vida Española, Part 2

Fucking gypsies.

That´s right; you people all heard me; I got robbed! ROBBED, I tell you! What a bunch o´crap. Don´t you all worry; I´m okay.

I should back up, and tell you what transpired.

So. We arrived in Segovia yesterday (Friday) midday from Madrid, a mere hour bus ride. My señora, Amparo, picked me up at the bus station and took me to her beautiful flat near the Plaza Mayor from which one can see the Cathedral looming large. It is simply perfect. Amparo is pretty much the nicest Spanish woman ever (but then again, aren´t they all?); she lives alone with one very friendly cat named Boni (like as in pretty); she has one son who is in his twenties and lives in London (or Londres, as they say in español). She works in a travel agency and she is just so nice. And she makes great food. For lunch (el comer) she made a salad with just iceberg lettuce and tomato, but then she added little slivers of watermelon, and then salt and olive oil. It was so awesomely awesome.

Aaaaaaanyway, after we ate, I took a little siesta, having had almost no sleep the night before (it´s almost impossible to sleep without my husband). I woke up with the breeze coming in my window, the cat staring at me from my desk, and all seemed right with the world. So I went out and walked down to the aqueduct where I met up with the rest of the group. My professors gave us a great tour of Segovia, from the Alcázar (the castle where Isabel and Ferdinand lived and the real inspiration for Walt Disney´s princess castle--contrary to the popular legend that his castle was inspired by Neuschwannstein (dunno if I spelled that correctly) in Germany) to the aqueduct. It was extremely hot, but in Spain one just sort of ignores the heat in favor of more alluring foci of attention, like refrescos, and frescoes, and old buildings, and synogogues, and churches, and shops, and chocolate, and coffee (which my señora has in abundance, thanks be to God!), and all that.

After the tour, some of the other chicas on the trip that I am becoming friends with and I decided to take a little break and sit in a café. I split a chocolate ice cream with my friend, Brittney, and we just chilled, about 8 of us.

After the tasty break, we took a stroll past this feria de libros, or open air book fair. I was really jazzed because I thought I might find some cheaper books there (books are expensive in Spain, by and large). I was at the booth of this woman who was selling children´s books, mostly. I was asking her a question when this little girl, no more than 13 years old, kind of sidled up to me and bumped into me, trying to look at some teeny-bopper looking shit in the booth. I looked at her when she brushed me, and she turned away. I continued asking my question to the dueña (shopkeeper).

Aaaaanyway, not more than two minutes later, I had turned away from the booth and we were walking back towards the aqueduct. All of a sudden I noticed that my little purse was sticking out a little bit from the top of my bigger purse, and I suddenly had this drop in my stomach with the sudden knowledge that someone had been in my purse. And I checked to see that my wallet was still there and--big surprise--that little gypsy punk girl had stolen it right out of my zipped purse. She had tried to take the other little purse in there too (containing only incidentals--toiletries and the like), but hadn´t been able to fit it through the little opening she had made when she managed to wheedle my zipper open a little. ¡Puta verdadera! In Segovia they call these girls rumanos; I´m not sure exactly why, but it means gypsy/transient. Anyway, all she got was some Listerine breathmints, about €25 cash, my ATM Fifth-Third card, my driver´s license (which is about to expire anyway), my student ID card from UofL as well as the International one. So I borrowed some money from one of the other girls, went to this internet café, found the number of the bank, called the bank, cancelled the ATM card, went back online to get the PIN number for my other (UofL) card, went to the ATM and got out more cash with my UofL debit card. Fortunately, my passport was back at home with my extra credit cards. The only thing truly lost was my international student ID card. So no more museum discounts. Boo. And I´ll have to get a new UofL student ID, which costs $3 or something. And I had to get a new driver´s license anyway, so whatevs.

Anyway. Thus concludes the tale of my first 9 hours in Segovia. How ironic it is that I spent all week in Madrid (gigantic city with more people, crime, danger, whatever) without any problem, and as soon as I get to Segovia, I get my sorry ass robbed. Sonuvabitch. Furthermore, how many freaking countries have I been to, with nary a problem? I guess it was just my time. It could´ve been worse. I´m glad I didn´t lose my passport. Qué será, será, and all that.

Well. Since then, everything has been uphill. (This is funny if you know Segovia, wherein everything literally is either uphill or downhill--great for the gams and thighs, eh? Not to mention the glutes.) As I said, my señora is really wonderful and is going to try to find Brittney (remember: ice cream friend) and me a cheap hostel that is nice and safe in Barcelona when we go on our long weekend right before my birthday (our free travel weekend is July 19-23). Since she´s a travel agent, Amparo has a nice hook-up in Barcelona who can help us out, hopefully. And she likes me a lot because my Spanish is good and she can tell I´m smart. And I like her because I can tell she is smart, and elegant, and motherly. She gave me an umbrella to use today because it rained! How thoughtful. Which was awesome because it was stiflingly hot earlier. I went out with two other friends, Vanessa (from Cincinnati!) and Andrea, at 10 am and we walked all the way around Segovia like three times. At about noon, noon-thirty we stopped to have a Coke in the Plaza Mayor, and it was SO BRIGHT. And HOT. We returned to our homes in time for lunch at 2:30 (I went home a little early) and right after I got home it started pouring rain. The wind was pretty fierce too, and Amparo was late getting home because she got stuck in a store during the downpour. When we did eat at about 3:15, we had these awesome grilled-cheese-sandwiches-crossed-with-french-toast kind of things. I´m totally making them when I get home.

We will have dinner at 9:30, which is actually kind of early for Spaniards. But Amparo likes to go out for long walks at night, so maybe I´ll go with her tonight. Or maybe I´ll stay in and do the copious amounts of homework that I still have. Hmm...

I miss you all so much. I hope you are doing well. I will try to figure out if I can upload pictures at this internet café, so you can see what Segovia looks like.