How I learned to stop riding the bus at night and survive the ghetto.

Since it is absurdly hot here as I may have mentioned before I went to buy an electric fan with Emmy. The fan is now y new best friend (sorry everyone, youve been replaced) but getting it was quite the adventure.

First we went to El Corte Ingles, the Macy´s or Sears of Spain at 5PM. They didnt have any but they recommended we go to the shopping center a ways away so we did. We walked really far and got there to find that in the entire mall they only had 2 fans - one of which was way too big and the other way too expensive. We were about to give up and go home hot and disappointed (cuento de mi vida) until we remembered that there is a Spanish Walmart! Its called Alcampo and while I am not a fan of big box stores, we needed fans. We were on the complete other side of the city so we bussed it over to Alcampo and got fans! It was fantastic and we also bought food. So we had lots of bags and large boxes with fans and we decided that walking back to the university might lead to our death from exhaustion so we tried to take the bus back and this is where it gets interesting.

We waited for the 20 line which goes up to campus only to, 20 minutes later, realize it didnt run during non school months such as August. So we changed plans and got on the 8 bus which we had seen on campus earlier that day. The bus drove and drove until we started to think that for some reason it didnt go to campus. A guy who had been standing up at every single stop and looking around as if he should get off at each started to talk to me and I asked him if the bus went to campus. Not at night, he responded. Fuck. We got off teh bus and decided to try to navigate our way back to the residencia but the guy on the bus followed us and kept talking. He said he would walk us back and even after our protesting he left us little choice but to follow him since we were completely lost and had just found out from him that the part of the city we were in was the ghetto. ¨There are lots of drugs, gangs, fights, and people will drive up on a moto behind you and stab you if youre not careful,¨ he told us. So scared out of our minds, lost, and weighed down with shopping bags we followed him.

Sketchy act number one was that the guy was standign at every stop on the bus but sketchy act 2 was when he told us that he knew a shortcut and tried to take us down an alleyway. Emmy and I stopped and asked DONDE ESTAMOS EN EL MAPA. MUESTRANOS. Since he didnt point out our location we were once again left no choice but to follow him. This is where i thoguht Emmy was goign to die because as we came out of the alley, Emmy was at the mouth of it and a moto started speedign up behind her. I remember thinking ¨shit, shes going to get stabbed by a guy on a moto like our creep tour guide mentioned. Luckily, Creep knew the guy on a moto and nothing happened.

We continued walking and then Creep tried to sell us hash. We politely declined and e then told us that people mix additives with hash so its cheaper to make and they sell fo rhte same. Those aditives are actually poison so if we werent careful we could smoke poisonous hash and get sick. FORTUNATELY his hash didnt have those but he coudl sell it to us at an incredibly cheap price of 10 euros. Great. Now he was trying to poison us with his cheap hash. Once we got out of the ghetto my nerves calmed a little bit but Creep didnt stop being weird. ¨I have agirlfriend. Her name is so and so. We dont have problems. I dont have problems. We have no problems. We are very goo dtogether. She doesnt have problems. No problem. problemproblemproblem etc...¨ for about 5 minutes straight. Then he told Emmy she looked like a tomato. Smooth.

Anyways, we got back to the base of campus and told him thank you, we could walk from there but he insisted on walking us to the doorstep of the residencia. He said it was on his way anyways and I asked where he lived and he pointed in the opposite direction. Go figure. We talked him out of following us but he insisted I take him phone number. I will promise you all now that Creep is not getting a phone call from me.

Time for class. Hasta luego.