How To (Not) Enjoy The Festival of Sant Joan in Barcelona

This Flashback Friday is from summer 2011.

My sister Hillary and I backpacked for six weeks after her semester in Barcelona, traveling all around Spain and the Balkans (with a couple of trips to Istanbul and Zurich). As I planned it, the pièce de résistance of our trip would be the Festival of Sant Joan in Barcelona, a midsummer firework celebration on the beach that would happen two days before we went back to America. We were there for the celebrations, but we couldn’t enjoy it, due to something that happened that morning.

That morning, June 23, 2011, Hillary’s purse was stolen.

Hillary, with her purse.

We were sitting outside in the Passeig de Gracia neighborhood, having café con leche and xuxos (or, as I prefer to call them, choo-choos), our bags tucked under our feet. A guy walked past us… and dropped his wallet. We stared at the wallet for a second, and then tried to shout at the man to turn around. When he didn’t, Hillary jumped up, grabbed the wallet, and brought it back to him. He seemed to be thanking her excessively, which I thought was strange.

I watched Hillary walk back to our table… and then she said, “Where is my bag?” Before I could even process the fact that her purse had vanished from under my eyes, she was gone—Hillary ran across the street, leaving me sitting alone in shock.

And then she came back—with her purse.

Hillary chased down the man who stole her purse and grabbed it back from him.

Okay, before I continue with this story, it needs to be said—that is a really, really dumb thing to do. Sure, it was daylight and it was a busy street, but still, Hillary had no way of knowing who she was chasing or what would happen. She ran across a busy street which, luckily, had its cars stopped at a red light. It worked out for her, but it very easily could have backfired.

After the initial adrenaline surge and elation at having the purse back, Hillary and I both broke down. We spent the rest of the day wandering around in a strange state of paranoia, exhaustion, and disbelief. We clutched our purses to our chests as though someone was going to snatch them away again. We were physically worn out. But we are determined girls, and we still wanted to go to the Festival of Sant Joan.

The partying starts early—fireworks and sparklers are lit all over the city before the sun even goes down. People buy cava and beer and stream towards the Barceloneta beach. There are performances, giant burning sculptures, and massive amounts of fireworks. In typical Barcelona fashion, it is excessive and wild and raucous.

Hillary and I were a mess.

We were completely tense. Every fireworks explosion made us jump. The crowds pressing against us as we walked to the beach were agony. The beach itself looked like a pickpocket’s playground. What surely seemed to the rest of the city like a giant exploding party, seemed to us like a war zone.

We were too nervous to have our cameras out, so I have only a few pictures of the quieter sections of Barceloneta.

So we watched kids light sparklers from a safe position above the beach, and finally threw in the towel and headed back to our (completely empty) hostel.

Barcelona has a reputation for purse-thieves and pickpockets, but it can happen anywhere. It happened to me, almost a year and a half later. I was foolish; I felt safe in Cambridge, and I was at a venue where I had booked music… but feeling comfortable didn’t stop my purse from being nicked when I stepped away for a minute. I wasn’t as lucky as Hillary: most of the contents of my bag were dumped in a Central Square post office box, but I still lost money, make-up, and my iPod. I thought I’d learned the lesson of that midsummer Barcelona night, yet I still let my guard down.

So what’s the takeaway here? Whether you’re in Barcelona or Istanbul or your regular bar in your neighborhood, you should be aware of your belongings. The Festival of Sant Joan should be excellent fun, and I hope to go back someday to truly enjoy the midsummer madness. For now, though, my memories of that Barcelona night are tainted by tightly wound nerves and the hangover of a stolen bag.