Robbed in Madrid!

Within 10 minutes of arriving in Madrid, our backpack that had our passports and Shuwen’s wallet (and ipod shuffle + other little things) was stolen from us (fortunately, Marc still had his wallet). Madrid certainly lives up to its reputation. Arghhh! Trust that we had to learn this so quickly and the hard way!

Our blurry-eyed looks at 6:30am trying to figure out which Metro line to take probably made us perfect victims. Basically thieves work in pairs here – one distracts (by asking us questions about how to use the ticket machine) and the other sneaks off with possessions. The lost money (not much actually) wasn’t the issue (although calls to cancel credit cards were somewhat frustrating), it was the loss of the passports that really threw us for a spin. Not knowing Spanish made things really difficult. We were fortunate to find a random man who spoke very little English, but understood and empathized with our predicament to help us figure out what to do. After speaking with a police officer near the bus terminal, we were told to take a cab to a particular police station that dealt with issues like this and had access to an English interpreter. This Madrilene even gave us 20 euros to make sure we could make it properly to the police station. It was incredible to us that within 15 mins of being in Madrid we would see both the awful and the gracious sides of the city.

The taxi-driver however did not seem to know where this said police station was located, so we made him drop us off at a hotel and we went to ask the hotel receptionists (we have learned very quickly that hotels are great resources when you do not speak the local language!). We were given directions, some useful phone numbers and finally made it to the appropriate police station. Again, language was a bit of a problem until they were finally able to get through to an English interpreter over the phone, whom Marc spoke to. From that conversation, a Spanish police report was produced. After a number of additional phone calls to cancel credit cards (it’s silly how they all ask what the card number are given that we get to talk to them only after choosing the “lost of stolen credit card” option. Anyway, we believe the credit card situation has been resolved. However, we are still somewhat worried about whether we can get our documentation in time for our scheduled departure to Thessaloniki on Tuesday, especially given that today was a Sunday (everything was closed). After some research we figured out that Marc might be able to get travel documents from the US embassy here. However, Singapore does not have an embassy in Spain (only a consulate in Barcelona, and a one-person resource for Singapore citizens based out of a law firm somewhere in Madrid). So this may be trickier. In particular, she lost her US permanent resident card, which allows here entrance back into the US. So, tomorrow we will hit the US embassy early in the morning, then hope that the US embassy and Singapore authorities will communicate and have things work out for Shuwen. We have sent emails to both the US and Singapore authorities in hope that someone will respond, even though the likelihood is low given the weekend. What a headache and bummer. All of this has certainly dampened our excitement about exploring Madrid.

Still, we feel like we have done what we can (even took passport photos this afternoon – another adventure in and of itself, for the paperwork based on what we have learned online), and need to get over this glitch in our travels so far. So, we left the police station and headed to our hotel to freshen up, and decided to head out to get some food (paella! -- see photo), pick up some toiletries lost with our bag, and see some of Madrid. We managed to see the Prado and the Jardins Botanica this afternoon, so all was not lost.

It has been an exhausting day indeed, so we will head off to sleep early (especially by Spanish standards) and hope for the best for tomorrow. Wish us luck!