Have you ever felt that sometimes strange, and wacky things happen just to you? That everyone else has "normal" things happen to them, but, oh no...not you. It's as if you are a magnet for the strange and weird. Well, that's the feeling that my cousin and I felt, as we were vacationing in Spain in the city of Granada.
We had arrived there by train, and after settling into our hotel, decided to explore this very beautiful city. So there we were checking out the famous Granada Cathedral of the Incarnation. This is a very imposing building that took nearly 180 years for it to be fully built. It was started around 1523, and was not finished until around the year 1704. There are many different architectural elements reflected in the Cathedral, which make it very impressive, and unique looking.
So there we were, just coming out from touring the inside of the Cathedral, and commenting that we certainly had taken many pictures, when we see this colorfully dressed woman approach us. Before we knew what had happened, she had grabbed my cousin's right arm by the wrist. My cousin tried to break free, but this woman had a strong grip on her. When I yelled at her -- to stop this! what the heck are you doing! She just told us in a solemn voice that she was a gypsy and it was her duty to read my cousin's hand to tell my cousin her fortune.
Now, we had been warned by the hotel staff about the gypsies that were roaming around the Cathedral, ready to pounce on you. But we didn't think that they would be so pushy. So my cousin told this woman, that -- no thank you, she didn't want her fortune to be read, and made a fist with her hand. The woman got really angry and threatened to put a curse or jinx on us.
I immediately sensed that this situation was not going to end unless we gave her money. So I took out a few euros, and said --look my good woman...this is all you're getting from us, but if you don't let go of my cousin's arm, you are getting zero! She looked at me, and says -- first you give me the money! Not being a fool, I said, no... let her go or we call the police and you wind up losing everything.
At that she relented and let go her vise-like grip of my cousin's wrist, and said --fine! give me the money and you don't get a fortune told.....your loss! I told her we couldn't care less, just to go away and leave us alone.She took the coins, and promptly ran, muttering all kinds of nasty things about us. After that, we were a bit more careful as to who we let get near us.
