One with Europe!

In 2010, we, an excited bunch of 7 friends, set out on our first Euro holiday. We were all wired up and restless to reach Barcelona from Mumbai and could hardly wait while in transit at Istanbul. I vividly remember how I didn't want to go on the trip, after all I was traveling with 3 couples and that made me the 7th wheel in the equation. Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let it bother me and decided I would focus on having fun. However, my plan was short lived. Within the first hour of being in the hustle and bustle of Barcelona at the very busy station called Placa de Catalunya disaster had struck. At first when we arrived at the station, we all were a bit confused but a man came up to us saying that he would like to take us to our hotel. Most of us thought it was a great idea and wanted to be escorted to our hotel. But one of my friends, who had recently watched the movie "Taken", whose plot is based around a kidnapping on a Euro trip was very reluctant. Anyways, we got on the subway while the man chatted away and were on the train for just one stop which lasted about 3 minutes. The second I got of the train, I happened to look down at my cross bag. To my astonishment, the zipper was open and the contents missing. The contents unfortunately were my sister's as well as my passport. I remember calling out to my sister, trying to tell her what had happened but feeling short of breath at the same time. What were we going to tell our parents? We all decided to take a minute to evaluate what had just transpired. We asked a passerby where we could find the closest police station in order to write a complaint and hopefully get our passports back by some miracle. Our escort on the other hand, kept insisting that he take us to the hotel so that we could leave our luggage and relax for a bit before going to lodge a complaint. We were insistent and decided to go to the police station at Placa de Catalunya, the subway had its very own police station due to the number of frequent robberies that took place there. We lodged a complaint and were hopeful that our passports would be returned. After 4 days, when this didn't happen we decided to go issue new ones at the Indian Embassy in Madrid. They were efficient and we received our passport albeit sans visas in 2 hours. We were proud that we handled an "adult" problem with such elan. In retrospect, we are now convinced that our escort had a sinister plan and how the Universe intervened in our time of need.