We got a real dose of “Wow…this is what’s really going on…”  the other morning when we stopped at our local café for a morning cuppa.  We were sitting at the inside counter bantering with the barista when a slightly scruffy guy came in and started looking at a newspaper sitting on the ledge next to us.  We didn’t think anything of it, but he soon closed the paper and began to walk out.  Before he made it to the door, the manager – who had been sitting just opposite us at the other end of the counter – jumped up, grabbed the guy by the shirt and started yelling at him in what didn’t sound like polite Spanish. Mind you, the manager is this really kind, mild mannered guy in our experience – very gracious and welcoming every time we see him.  This moment he was really mad.   It soon became clear that the customer had walk by and grabbed a sandwich from the basket that sits on the counter for display and purchase and was walking out without paying.  Not cool.   Then commenced a really ugly exchange of the scruffy guy gobbling bites of the sandwich, spitting them at the manager, throwing pieces of it at the window outside the café, and a banter of what were surely expletives.  At one point the thief literally got down on the ground and did what looked like mock “salaam” motions as if he was bowing to the manager.    Finally the guy left, shouting back the whole way.  Visibly shaken, the manager came back in shaking his head and looking very embarrassed and – I guess disgusted.

Maybe I am reading too much into this exchange, but combining this with the number of beggars near the main tourist attractions, and a regular request from roving musicians and obvious indigents who ask for handouts at our tables, I fear that Barcelona is in no way immune from the economic crisis we all know is happening here.  I can only hope that with time things will improve and the strain of have and have nots here (as with anywhere) will not continue to rend the fabric of what I think is a loving and giving spirited people.