and a London vacation.

‘Nothing good happens after two a.m.’

Most venues, bars, and lounges close around 2 am unless you are at a 24-hour club in Berlin, London, or Miami. Another exception to the rule is Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve never understood why that city stays open until 4 am, but it’s called the weird city for a reason.

I’m here to share what happened to my friend and I two days before Christmas in 2016. What started as a disastrous event turned into a more appreciative outlook on life.

On December 23^rd, 2016, I had a close friend flying over from the United States to visit me in Tenerife, Spain. We were preparing for a trip to London three days after her arrival to ring in the New Year together. I was homesick and questioning my decision to move abroad and needed some familiarity and quality time with a friend. It was her first time in Spain, and I wanted to give her a memorable experience.  

Upon her arrival at the Tenerife South Airport, she experienced generous Canarian hospitality, like that of our hometown in Kentucky. Unable to contact me via cell, she called me on a stranger’s phone using WhatsApp. This same person offered her both a ride and accommodation if she was not able to get ahold of me. In hindsight, maybe the stranger would have been a better deal, HA. Once she figured out the bus route, she arrived a couple hours later at my apartment with a bottle of champagne.  

The night began with reminiscing on songs from our adolescent years and a few drinks to catch up on lost time. Consequently, I let my excitement get the best of me and forgot to eat dinner. A couple hours later, we went to a club in downtown Puerto de la Cruz, Limbo (now shut down), to dance and hangout with a group of friends. To liven up the celebration, we thought it would be fun to tell everyone it was my birthday. I’m a Pisces so only a few months shy. As a result, we stumbled into a cab to go back home. To our disadvantage, my apartment complex was above a karaoke bar. The music was enticing, and the people seemed to be having a wonderful time. It was the time of the night to recommend, “one last drink.” As the old saying goes, “One is too many, and 1,000 is never enough.”  

We enjoyed ourselves dancing and singing at the karaoke bar. While I was standing outside, I met four Canarian guys and introduced them to Niki. I’m not sure who suggested coming up to our apartment for an after-hour hangout, but that was where the night escalated. I’ve always lived between the lines of ‘don’t talk to strangers’ and ‘say yes to strangers.’ I always see the good in people, sometimes to a fault. We continued to laugh, chat, and drink. Niki left to go on a walk to a park outside with one of them. Another guy kept me company as a distraction while the two left took the opportunity to take everything in sight. When she returned, she noticed things were missing. They had stolen over $3,000 worth of our belongings. The most valuable piece of my personal property was my external hard drive that had everything I had ever worked on. We panicked and tried to trace their steps but to no avail. The thieves escaped, but one of them dropped their ID on the ground outside of the foyer.  

Christmas Eve was somber and depressing, our bodies permeated with hanxiety. How would we contact our family? How could we tell what time it is? It makes you realize how dependent you are on your smartphones once they’re gone. Instead of drowning in our sorrows, we made the most of our vacation. We still had our most valuable possessions, our passports! We organized a game plan and walked down to Cybertel (Locutorio Internet) to print our boarding passes, call our parents, and use the internet. Samba works at Cybertel and welcomed us with open arms and a beautiful smile upon arrival.

Niki and I quickly learned traveling, conversations, experiences, and friendships are more valuable than our material goods could have amounted to. We purchased disposable cameras, used physical maps, our fingers to tell time, meeting points, and common sense to live in the present moment and navigate through the following weeks.  

The cops never followed through with my case. The local police station was outdated, slow, and the bureaucratic employees were unhelpful. I was a foreigner (a guiri), a young female, who had had too much to drink and invited strangers into my home. I was a cliché. I fit the stereotype. They gave the four robbers three days to give their testimony, sent the case to a judge, and told me it was going to be archived. Island life. If you know, you know. I’m thankful for my family who helped me replace some of the stolen items and my friends who were there for me throughout the experience. Most importantly, I’m thankful we were left unharmed. Material items will always come and go, but living in the present moment is becoming more of a challenge as we live in a society full of distractions.