Ups and Downs of Life in Sitges, Barcelona: Beautiful City, Bad Food, and a Lost Wallet

Yesterday started out just lovely. After getting my morning writing tasks done and having a delicious lunch, I headed down to Sitges with my daughter, Soraya.

We are living in Urbanizacion Vallpineda, a residential area about 2 kilometers from Sitges, and an easy walk downhill. Soraya was the only one who wanted to walk with me today, so my husband stayed at home with Raymi and Tatiana. My daughters are very pleased that our apartment complex has a swimming pool and several children who also live here. Although yesterday was Friday, the neighbor kids did not have school for some reason or another. So, Tatiana and Raymi stayed to play with them while Soraya and I headed out around 4pm towards Sitges.

Sitges has a large pedestrian-only area of the city full of shops, cafes, restaurants, and vendors. Soraya and I walked around looking at the shops and admiring the old stone streets and architecture. This maze of streets leads straight to the beach, and we walked along the beach right to the end. I was impressed with how long Soraya walked with me without complaining.

The beach at Sitges is quite nice, with a mild current and decent sand. It’s not the Caribbean with powder white sand and clear waters, but certainly nice enough. The beach does have stone jetties and you can see a large Cathedral at one end of the beach. Soraya and I had fun walking out onto the jetties and feeling the cool breeze.

After our long walk, Soraya and I headed back through the old city, looking for a place with good tapas. You’d be surprised, but our search for delicious tapas in Sitges has thus far been quite a disaster. I suppose it is time to pull out the guidebook. Yesterday, we tried a place that had a wide variety of small open-face sandwiches, each less impressive than the last. We also tried their fried calamari, which was mediocre. The one decent thing there was the wine at 1 euro 35 cents a glass, a decent Rioja called Paulus. The people at the next table had a plate of shrimp that looked good, but our food was okay at best.

Today, we bypassed a couple of places in the center because they were completely full. I thought it might be a good idea to try a place near the train station, thinking the food might be cheaper as it was not in the center. The food was quite unremarkable. Well, the patatas bravas were decent, but the bacalao en salsa was not. I actually can’t remember the name of either of these places. At any rate, I will be sure to check online reviews before venturing out again, as there must be plenty of good places to eat in Sitges. Our random selection of convenient restaurants does not seem to be the best way to find them. Based on TripAdvisor, La Salseta and El Fresco look promising.

As Soraya and I were eating, I saw the bus pull up. The bus only comes every 30 minutes, so I paid the bill and asked for a take away box. We rushed out of the restaurant and onto the bus. Somehow, between paying for the bus and getting off the bus, I lost my wallet. I am not sure how it happened. Soraya and I sat down in the front seats. I had a plastic bag with chocolates in my purse and took it out for us to try the Toblerone. I imagine that when I did that, my wallet fell out of my bag and onto the seat or the floor. All I know is that when I got home, I looked into my bag and my wallet wasn’t there. It is actually a small clutch which contained my iPhone and my wallet with my driver’s license, both debit cards and a credit card. I freaked out when I realized it was gone. I told my husband, and then ran out of the house back to the bus stop. Of course the bus was long gone.

The next bus that came along was the last bus. I told the driver what happened, and he suggested we ride back downtown to the end of the line to find the other bus. It seems there are only two buses on this line. We made it downtown and the other bus and driver were there. He let me look on the bus, but, no wallet. I guess some lucky passenger found it and chose not to turn it in.

I walked back up the hill home and began the very long process of finding all of the international numbers to call and cancel my cards. It took three hours! But, at the end of it, Citibank and Bank of America agreed to send me new debit cards. Thus, if we are lucky and the people who work at the bank are able to understand the address, which is in Catalan, we will have new cards next week! Capital One said they don’t send credit cards overseas. That is unfortunate, because they are the only credit card company that does not charge a 3 percent surcharge on international purchases.

I am really kicking myself right now for going outside with both of my debit cards when I needed neither of them. I usually am good about leaving those at home! I did need both of them on Wednesday when I had to take lots of euros out of the bank to pay for the apartment. But, I really should have put them away.

I am also disappointed because I lost my driver’s license. My husband seems to have forgotten his at home, so that puts a big damper on our plans to rent a car.

I have sent several Skype messages to my iPhone in the hopes that the person who found it will connect to the Internet and see them. Aside from the unlikely event that tactic will work, I am trying to let bygones be bygones and forget about it. It is bad enough to have lost 80 euros in cash, my iPhone, my cards, and my driver’s license. I don’t have to also lose out on the joy of life! So, I am trying really hard to forget about it and keep moving forward.

Adelante!

P.S.: Sorry this post has no photos. I took some cool pictures with my iPhone before I lost it….