Thursday, October 15, 2009

Daily Dose of Drama

It's been a while since I wrote about any sort of transportation-related debacle, and I have in fact gotten pretty good at maneuvering my way through Barcelona's three interconnected subway lines. This story is not intended to showcase my own difficulties, but rather to illustrate Spain at its best.


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Using our best spur-of-the-moment planning skills, my friend Dana and I decided to go to Bilbao for the weekend. We're going to navigate our way through yet another anarchist state and gain the ability to pretentiously say we've been to the Guggenheim.


A component of our perfectly orchestrated plan is an overnight bus back to Barcelona on Sunday night. Using the company's website, we picked out the bus that fit exactly what we wanted and tried to buy tickets. It was sold out. We found another that would world equally as well; it had one seat left. Obviously that doesn't work either. Starting over, we told the website search engine we needed a bus reservation for two people. The bus we wanted popped back up — and now it had five seats available. We refreshed and there were seven. We were confused.


We have the fortunate luck of living across the street from Estación Nord, the main bus terminal, so we ran over there. It was about 9 pm, so only two windows were open and there was a line spilling into the hallway. Dana got on line while I checked out the ticket machine. Much to my surprise, there were now 20 seats available on the bus, and the machine was all set to sell me a ticket. Pleased with how flawlessly I'd executed the situation, I stuck my credit card in. Unreadable. Minor glitch, but this is a problem I've had in Spain, so I wasn't surprised. I had enough cash on me so I put a 20 euro bill in. Here's where my issues began. The machine didn't register having received the money, nor would it return my money. For a few minutes, Dana and I just stood there and pushed buttons, not entirely sure what to do next.


I walked to the front of the line. One clerk waved me away; the other told me he couldn't help me. Dana got back on line, figuring she could buy tickets and ask for help in a more orderly way, while I stood guard over the machine and tried to stick various pieces of paper into the money slot.


Two security guards walked past and I stopped them, now slightly agitated and yelling in Spanish. One took my key from me and starting poking the money slot; the other walked over to the desk, came back, and informed me that the clerk knew nothing and did not have a key to the machine. Unable to offer me any other answers, they walked away.


While they had been attempting to help me, a middle-aged Spanish woman looking to buy tickets of her own had come over to ask them a question. After the security guards left me, she walked over and asked what had happened (I was now violently pushed the "return money" button). Outraged, she grabbed my arm and told me to come with her as she stormed to the front of the line and began yelling at the clerk on my behalf. Not surprisingly, he didn't respond this time either. She brought me back to my machine, told me stay put, and set off on a mission. (At this point, Dana is still on line and has only been cut by three or so people with emergency ticket needs)


My new friend came back with another bus company representative in tow. While my machine and I stood there, she began yelling at him for me. Finally, he turned to me and told me to follow him to another counter. He handed my a form to report my incident and said if I came back the next day, I could try and reclaim my money. Dana, tickets in hand, came over to help me as we tried to explain what had happened in comprehensible Spanish. Here's a translation of what we came up with:


"I put 20 euro in the machine and it took it. It wouldn't tell me it had it, nor would it return it. As a result, I don't have money or a ticket."


Dana wanted me to add, "ALSA has robbed me," but I refrained.


This morning, promptly at 9 am, I returned as I was told to. I went up to the counter with my copy of the form and presented it to another clerk, who I had to explain my saga to. "The machine has your money?" he asked me. "Si" "Well then why did you fill out a form?" "Because I want my money back." (long pause) "And they told me to yesterday." He looked at me for a minute. "But why did you fill out a form? Now we have to involve another department." I wasn't really sure what to say to that, plus he walked away with my form in hand. Picking up the copy I had left in the office yesterday, he proceeded to the shredder and inserted both. I never really had much proof of the whole incident and now he was destroying the closest thing I had. Ok...


He walked back over, opened the cash register, handed me a 20 and closed the window. And my friends, that is how we do business en España.

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