The peak of self-absorption

Fifty euros and two trips to the Vodaphone store later, I have a new cell phone. Not much of a silver lining to the robbery story, but I do like this new phone better than my old one. Always the way, the stuff I'm really bummed about losing wasn't worth anything monetarily (which I think is why I wasn't being that careful with my purse in the first place--I knew there wasn't anything worth stealing in there): two Infant of Prague charms that my mom gave me before I went to Prague last year, my compass, the tuna kuna. And that fucker who robbed me probably won't even get the beauty of the tuna kuna because he probably doesn't speak English. The compass should at least be easy to replace, but it had sentimental value. I had had it for years and it saved me from all kinds of directional mishaps. Everyone I've traveled with has mocked my compass and then eventually benefited from it. I made it part of an interactive photography exhbit at this weird modern art museum in Helsinki. I loved that compass.

Okay I'm a twit and I deserve no sympathy. I admit it. That's not gonna stop me from feeling a little bit sorry for myself for a while. The other problem is I lost my Spanish identity card and if I need that card to get back into Spain from the US I totally fucked. I'm mostly not thinking about that right now.

Whatever. Robberies, like all things that suck, build character. And the trip to the police station was actually kind of fun, if an exercise in futility. The cop who took the report was telling me how horrible George Bush is and how Bill Clinton was a much better president. Then he started giving this other cop a hard time for smoking in the office. I said "But you´re the police, you can't smoke in here, it's illegal!" (Smoking in any office building is illegal in Spain.) And he said "Don´t yell at me, yell at him, I don't smoke!" You probably had to be there, but it was all very entertaining, and very Spain.