I can’t really explain why this has taken so long to get around to writing (part one was written back in March), but back then I had left it on a knife edge, promising tales of doom and misery. Well, the wait is over.

The main reason for the trip was to attend Mobile World Congress – the world’s premier conference for the mobile industry. It was my third visit to MWC and I had it well planned for the first time. The event is massive and takes a few goes to get used to, but I was all over it.

The Sunday promised to be busy, with several leading manufacturers (including Sony and Huawei) launching new mobile phones. The Huawei event was way in the north east of Barcelona, just off the beach about as far up as you can go and still be in the city. It was a beautiful day, so with total ignorance on my side I gave myself about an hour and set off to walk it.

The first half was a lovely walk – the people of Barca were out on the beach in force, which is pretty rare in my experience, so I just pootled along soaking up the atmosphere. Until I realised I was nowhere near where I needed to be with about 15 minutes to go.

I made it, about five minutes late, a sweaty mess of a man – and then had a similar jog to make it to Sony in time. On the plus side, this was followed by a meet up with an old colleague for free wine and tapas courtesy of Huawei in a really nice, busy little restaurant. I had the dubious honour of being last to leave, which may help explain why I have no idea what the place was called…

Monday was a blur of stand demos and video recording, while the evening was more of the same at a press event for some of the smaller companies. Tuesday followed the same course during the day (pictured is the amazing Huawei horse sculpture made of mobile phones), leaving me just a few more videos to do Wednesday and the task of getting a load of the content live. But before then, there was the small matter of drinks at the wonderful W Barcelona hotel.

It was a great night in good company, drinking fine wine, noshing fancy nibbles and sticking my banana in the chocolate fountain (fondoo! Tsk tsk tsk for shame). But it was on the way home things started to go wrong. It was around midnight on a lovely warm night, I was slightly oiled and thoroughly at one with the world. Then my phone rings and I’m informed by Gonzalo from Inside BCN that my apartment had been ransacked.

He was robbed

I’ve been burgled several times, back when I was a student, and it was a horrible experience. The feeling that someone was in your place, going through your stuff; it’s hard to put into words, but it’s a weird feeling of being violated – and that impending doom feeling that makes you realise how easy it is and that it could happen again at any time.

I guess we spend a lot of our time supressing those kinds of feelings – we’d go nuts if we couldn’t. But for a few days, weeks, maybe months after being burgled it’s hard not to think about it. Losing sleep is a big part of it, alongside paranoia – and I can’t tell you how much that’s ramped up when the door to your apartment has literally been smashed off its hinges with a sledge hammer, you’re in a foreign country on your own and where you don’t speak the language.

I wish I’d taken a picture of the door – it was a pretty unbelievable site. But then there were other things on my mind. Thankfully the guys who owned the apartment were really helpful and understanding, while I’d had my phone, MP3 player, passport and wallet on me which saved a lot of hassle. On the downside my work laptop, netbook and video camera were all gone – along with all my work up to that point. My suitcase had also gone, along with things such as my keys, some spare cash etc.

To compound matters, as I said, this is the biggest mobile congress in the world. That means every apartment and hotel for miles (I’m not joking – we’re talking late bookers having to travel in from miles away each day) is booked solid, so where the hell was I going to stay?

After a few fruitless calls to hotels and apartments, and it now being well past 1am, it became clear there was going to be nowhere to stay. By now I’d put my remaining belongings into a selection of carrier and bin bags and arranged to go to the police station (with a translator from the apartment company) to give a statement in the morning. It was at this point apartment manager Dani stepped in and did the decent thing – he offered to put me up in the spare room of his own house.

We stayed up for another hour or so, shooting the breeze in his lovely apartment about football, robbery, travelling, robbery, England, robbery, Spain’s economic problems, robbery – you just can’t get your mind off if it once it happens. Eventually I did manage to get a bit of sleep, which was aided by the fact they had another apartment that was going to be free in the morning that I could move my stuff into.

Not the Wednesday I’d planned

Wednesday was meant to be the day I uploaded my videos to YouTube and generally put all my hard work online. Instead, it started with dumping my bag lady luggage into the new apartment, before heading off to the local nick.

Paula was great company and I’m not sure what I would’ve done without her. We had a nice walk to the police station, where she patiently passed on all the information between us. We were there for a couple of hours I guess, which would’ve been torturous on my own.

Once we were done there Paula took me to an electronics store where I grabbed a new video camera, while back at the Inside BCN offices they lent me a little netbook to do at least a little work on. I then had to go and find a new suitcase, before rushing back to the Congress to desperately try and reshoot all the video I’d lost.

I managed to get it all done by the end of Thursday, although it was all with stand workers – where the earlier ones had been with ‘proper’ suit staff that would’ve added a lot of cred to the vids. But hey, I did the best I could in a shitty situation and some of the videos have had a lot of hits since, so it was worth the effort.

The new apartment was amazing too – absolutely huge and in a great spot, a stone’s throw from where I’d stayed a few years earlier. While this would normally have been great, the size just made me nervous and the central location meant it was very noisy – and every sound was a potential burglar. Yes, lame I know, but I think most people would’ve felt the same way.

On the positive side, Dani promised me a few free days at one of their apartments when I came back to Barcelona another time – an offer I’ll certainly be taking him up on. While the experience really shook me, it hasn’t dulled my enthusiasm for the place. The odds of getting stung a second time are slim, so I’ll take my chances.