 And when he pushed me against the wall, my back was to Andromeda the whole time, and that's what kind of steered me the most. So I don't even really know how to start this, but I guess I'll just start talking. So first and foremost, welcome back to the channel. This is not clickbait. This is a true story that happened to us this past week in Barcelona. I've been asked what exactly has happened, like 5,000 times, which is a good thing because I've gotten so much outpouring of love and support from family members and friends and the whole online community, all my YouTube strivers, Instagram strivers, everybody has reached out and been concerned about me and my wife. So I kind of wanted to just do a video documenting the whole story and everything that happened so that everybody knows about it, everybody is aware of it, and maybe it can help people in the future. And I know you saw Andromeda in the thumbnail. She was going to do this video with me, but she had to end up going to work, so now it's just me telling the story. And also I do want to apologize because as if getting robbed in Barcelona wasn't enough, I got sick on the way home as well and I've been sick this whole week and I'm just recovering, but I do sound pretty terrible. All right, let's go ahead and get straight into the story here. So what exactly happened? Right now you may have seen my Spain travel vlog that I posted a few days ago. Link up here is the last video on my channel. And if you watched it, you may have seen that we had a fantastic time, which we did. We essentially spent a week in Spain. We went to the island of Mallorca first and then over to Barcelona to finish out the last few days of our trip. When we landed in Barcelona, we basically checked right into the hotel and got out on the street and started exploring and seeing all the touristy stuff like you saw in that vlog. The first night we were there, we were coming home from dinner and it did seem like some of the streets off of the main Las Ramblas, the main touristy kind of Boulevard area were a little kind of shady at night. And I've gotten all these stories from so many different people, how they got pickpocketed, how they got their jewelry stolen, how they got jumped, all this stuff. And that was always in the back of my mind of this trip. So I was like constantly on lookout for anything that could happen. The first night we were walking back from dinner around like 10 o'clock or so and who passed some, you know, suspicious looking areas and people who were kind of hanging out on the street. But again, I was thinking maybe this is just me overreacting or overthinking about all the stuff people have told me prior to doing on this trip. I was hyper aware if you could say that. So our second night is when this whole incident actually happened. We were out to dinner and drinks until about, I don't know, probably about 9.30. We were walking back, we were just off the path of the main downtown area. We were basically staying in the Gothic Quarter. For any of you all who are familiar with Barcelona or who have been there, the Gothic Quarter is kind of like the main touristy section has a main road, Las Ramblas running through it. And we were basically staying on that area or in that area. And the restaurant we went to and the cocktail bar we went to was kind of in that area as well. But it was just a little bit east from our hotel in that whole area. But it was still in a normal, well populated, well traveled part of town. So we were walking home around 9.30 or so from dinner and we're walking straight back to the hotel because we had an early flight the next morning. I usually pull out Google Maps when I'm walking around and I was following the Google Maps directions from that restaurant to our hotel. It brought us through one unfamiliar area that's a little bit east of the Gothic Quarter area. But again, it's still not out of the question. I was actually over in that part earlier that day at a restaurant and it was fine. But we were walking back arm in arm and we passed a group of probably eight people who were a little bit suspicious. And I'm not judging them by the way they looked or anything like that. It was about how they were acting. The group of people as we walked by, there were a couple of guys who were just staring at everything we were doing, looking us up and down, making eye contact, looking at everything we were wearing, essentially just eyeing us head to toe, head to toe, head to toe, looking at everything as we passed. And again, since I'm kind of hyper aware already this trip, I was making sure I kept an eye on them as we walked past them. Walked a little further, probably about 10 yards or so. And I see two of the guys peel off and start following us. So I made a left at the next corner and wanted to see what they kind of were doing. And as soon as we made a left, I noticed that they kind of cut left or took the shortcut of that turn towards us. And I was like, okay, maybe these guys are trying to follow us or something. And then I see them get on a scooter, like a little two-person scooter, not a Vespa, just like one you can push with your foot. And I see them get on a scooter together. There's two grown men on a scooter. And I watched them drive in front of us and drive past us. And I'm like, okay, don't have to worry about them anymore. I was just being crazy and thinking about the worst case scenario. And then in that split second, they stopped right in front of us. One guy jumped off, went straight to Androna and pushed her on the ground. The other guy went straight to me, but didn't try to fight me. He kind of tackled me into the wall, which I wasn't prepared for at all. My phone flew. And when he pushed me against the wall, my back was to Androna the whole time. And that's what kind of steered me the most. And during this time, he wasn't really trying to fight me, he was just trying to get my watch off my wrist. That's all he cared about. And at the same time that was happening, a couple of other guys kind of circled us about six or so, and were watching this whole thing go down. Again, the scariest part of all this was I couldn't see Androna at all. I didn't even know that she was pushed on the ground until after this whole thing finished. As soon as Androna was on the ground, the other guy went towards me as well. But luckily Androna was like a ride or die that night. Well, she's always a ride or die, but she was just like, no, not allowing them to go towards me, like get the F off my husband, pulling them down, being real scrappy to make sure more guys didn't come my way. This whole time I'm trying to fight this guy off, who's just going for my watch nonstop. But it's crazy because there's a couple of things that kind of stood out in my mind. Again, this happens in like a split second. You're not prepared for it. One, the first thing that came to mind was while he was kind of spearing me or tackling me into the wall, I was like, is this really happening to me? Like, I'm a pretty big guy. I'm six, four, 215 pounds. Why are they choosing to attack me? Do they really want the watch that bad? And it turns out they did. The second thing I thought of in these like literally five seconds that this whole event went down was should I be doing something about it? Should I try to fight them? Should I try to injure this person and self-defense? Or should I just kind of let it happen? And by let it happen, I mean, not risk my life for a watch. And also the other things going through my head were I don't know the self-defense laws in Spain. What if I get in trouble for hurting somebody else who's attacking me? Am I going to go to jail for that? Like I know in the US I probably wouldn't, but I don't know what the laws are in Spain. And it's crazy how these kind of things flash in your mind while all this is going down. But we were kind of scuffling for a few seconds and eventually the rubber strap on my watch snapped and all the guys just took off sprinting down the road. I finally got the first visual of Andrana, which was the scariest thing ever. And she was on the ground. She was yelling at them. She was like completely freaked out. And rightfully so. This was absolutely insane that this happened to us. I don't know why you think these things can't happen to you, but they most certainly can, as you can see here. So after they sprinted off, Andrana lost her shoes in the shuffle and we sprinted the other way towards our hotel as fast as possible. And it was kind of at that point that I realized that my watch was gone and there was likely nothing I could do about it. So we sprinted back to the hotel, Andrana barefooted again. We're kind of amped up our adrenaline's like probably the highest it's ever been. It's really hard to describe. Like I could have been stabbed. I could have been anything and you don't feel anything because your adrenaline's so high and you don't really notice until you kind of calm down what went on. And after probably like 30 minutes or so we started realizing that I was like, Oh, my arm was caught up. Andrana's elbow was injured. She thought she broke her toe, but luckily it was just like a bad sprain and you start your injuries start kind of showing up. But luckily we weren't harmed by any weapon or anything like that, which it could have been way worse. When we got back to the hotel room we called the cops in the concierge actually called the cops for us to speak Spanish to them. And they came to our hotel. We told them the story and then we had to go to the police station in Spain to write the formal police report. That's just the way they do things there. And we told the cops that there was no way we're going back on the streets and that they would have to take us to the station in their car if we wanted to do a police report. And I did want to do a police report because I wanted to get reimbursed for my stolen items and to do so my insurance company would probably need a police report. So the cops were unbelievably nice. The two cops took me and Andrana in the back to their police car to the police station about 15 minutes away. We got a translator we started filling out the police report. And while we were filling out the police report three of the police officers kind of run in and they were like, show me a picture of their phone. They had a picture of my watch on their phone. And they're like, is this your watch? Is this your watch? Is this your watch? And I was like, oh my God, yes. And they're like, prove it to me. And I literally pulled up a picture from earlier that day of me wearing the watch in the same clothes I was in. I was like, this is my watch. Everybody was just a surprise because apparently this happens a lot but they hardly ever recover the stolen items. And the reason that actual stolen items were recovered this time were because the people who stole my watch one of them who had the watch in his pocket was running, sprinting with one shoe on and basically turned the corner and almost ran into a police officer that happened to be walking in that area. The police officer stopped them. They looked suspicious. They one shoe on their disheveled, searched them and found my watch in their pocket. And the watch itself, the actual strap was broken. So someone carrying a broken watch in their pocket that's sprinting around Barcelona with one shoe on is a little suspicious. So luckily the cop radioed into the police station sent a picture to everybody. And once we knew that that was our watch he confiscated the watch and took it to the police station. Problem was that police station was another 15 minutes away. So we basically told the cops that they needed to take us to that police station again because we were too scared to go on the street which we were, we were kind of shaking up from this whole thing. And Andrana was very shaken up by it all and understandably we went to that police station and we stayed there till like 4 30 a.m. almost. Eventually I got my watch back. Here it is broken in all of its glory. This is the part that snapped off. This is the rubber strap I had on it. I know you all have seen me wear this watch. It's very sentimental to me. It was a gift. I honestly can't believe I got it back. Everybody always says every watch tells a story and this one tells two stories. So again, the best thing through all this was that we were safe. Being in another country and having this happen to you is terrible. You feel helpless. You feel like no one can understand you. It's just not a fun experience. And the only thing that I care about though is I'm safe. They can have my watch. I don't care. I was just very fortunate to get it back. I thought it was gone forever but I really honestly can't believe that this happened. And even my translator who translates for people who have this happen to them all the time in Barcelona says this is the first time he's ever seen someone actually get their stolen goods back, especially in the same night. So another thing, you know, a lot of people ask me were like, why didn't I chase after the guys or why didn't I try to fight them because I'm kind of a big guy. I can hold my own. And the reason is, is because again, this is just a watch. It's a good. It's replaceable. Why would I try to sacrifice my life for a watch? It's not worth it. The cop actually asked me. He was like, why didn't you chase after them? And I was like, I didn't know if they had a knife. They were eight plus guys. Was there going to be another guy waiting around the corner? If I beat one guy up or six other guys gonna come and attack me? I don't know. And once I kind of said that he was like, oh, good point. But I do want to say the police officers in Spain, Barcelona specifically were unbelievably nice. Like unbelievably nice. They were unbelievably helpful. I have to admit, I was kind of skeptical at first. Like there's no chance they're going to help me out. This happened so much here. Like they're probably not going to care. I'm just like another statistic, but they didn't treat me as such. They treated me as this was a serious situation and they wanted to help me. And I was so appreciative and grateful for that. All of those guys who helped us were unbelievable. So nice. So thank you to the Barcelona police department. I don't know what precinct you're at, but thank you so much. Another question I kept getting was, would I do anything differently? And again, I kind of touched on this, but I don't think I would have. If I had the option, if they were like, hey, give me your watch, I probably would have just given it to them. If they were like multiple guys like there were, or if they had a knife or something, I wouldn't try to fight them, have the watch. I'll replace it. It's insured, you know? So I don't think I would have done anything differently. Another question I keep getting is, will I go back to Barcelona? You know, I had a good time there and I had a good time in Spain in general. And this luckily happened on my very last night of the trip. It doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth for Spain because I had a good time, but it definitely kind of stains it a little bit and it'll take some time to get that off because it's a tragic event that happened in a place and I'm associating it with Barcelona. So will I go back? Probably, but I probably won't go back to that area again. I don't know, we'll see. And again, I have nothing against Barcelona or people who live in Barcelona because a few bad apples don't make the whole city terrible but it was an unfortunate event and I'm a little traumatized from it. So I don't know if I'll be back anytime soon but it doesn't mean I won't go back. The other question I get is, will I travel again? And the short answer is yes, but I think I'm happy with a few statations coming up and I just want to kind of hang tight and kind of recover a little bit from all this because it was a lot. It sounds crazy, but like it's a lot to have happen to you. And I know Andromeda feels the same. I think it's to kind of think about going out and traveling and not constantly worrying, especially when you're walking in a new city at night. I don't know, it's just much easier just to take a little short break from traveling and luckily we traveled a ton this year. So it's not too bad, but we are planning on going to Croatia at the end of the summer. That'll be our next trip. We're familiar with Croatia, we go there all the time. Andromeda's Croatian, half my family is Croatian now since I'm married and we just feel more comfortable there, but in terms of traveling again, we'll probably take a little break. So again, I just want to, you know, not kind of beat a dead horse here and talked about this. And I know this video is probably already super long, but thank you again for all the love and support you all have given us. All I can say is I'm happy, we're safe, could have been a lot worse. Got the watch back after all that. So I don't really know how to end this, but thanks again for watching. Thanks for all your love and support and I'll see you all in the next video.