A mishap and a half...

So as you all are aware, I spent the last week touring Lyon, France and Lisbon, Portugal. Let me tell you, they are both absolutely beautiful cities with a lot of their own charm. Also, it was very different being in two countries where you don't speak their language at all. I thought I would recognize the roots of some words from Spanish in both French and Portuguese, but it was much harder than I thought it would be. And God forbid anyone try to talk to you about anything! I will always be sympathetic to foreigners in the US now. I have a lot of respect for them attempting English or asking if you speak their language, especially in a country where people get annoyed if you don't speak English to them.

I digress.

Perhaps another day I will get into the details of my trip, but for now I want to go into what happened on Saturday, September 25th.

It was Aimee's birthday, so we wanted to go out and do a little something different. In Lisbon, there is a really famous "oceanarium," or as we say in CA, aquarium. Aimee was excited about it, so we asked for directions at the help desk at our hostel. We needed to take the Metro: Green line to the Red line to the end of the Red line. Get out of the Metro and it's right there. The Metro is really cheap and REALLY fast in Portugal, and we wanted to see the fishies, so off we went.

After we got off the Metro, the three of us realized we were actually pretty hungry. Trying to save a bit of cash, especially not knowing the price of the aquarium and anticipating a big, special dinner for Aimee's birthday, we went to the grocery store and got some bread, some brie, some serrano ham (which is also popular in Portugal), and a couple of apples.

We decided it was nice outside so we ate outside. We all lined up on a bench in an ideal spot to people watch, me on the left, Aimee and Lauren on my right, then began our lunch feast.

It was a good place to people watch because it was crowded. We were enjoying ourselves on our bench. I placed my purse on my left, touching my leg, so we could all have easy access to lunch.

We were all chatting and enjoying lunch and I can't even explain how it happened... I felt something move on my left. It took me just one second to realize that my purse had been there. I absentmindedly reached for it. I touched the bench. I looked. It was gone. I looked up and whoever it was... well, they were long gone, too.

My purse was stolen from right underneath my nose with two other people right there with me.

The first thing I felt was annoyed. Did I really let this happen from RIGHT next to me? Hadn't I always been the overly cautious one with my purse on my shoulder or on my lap or in between my feet? People have even asked me, "What, are you going somewhere?" because I didn't want to put my purse down.

Then, I felt a wave of disbelief. How could the two people I was with have not seen anything? Even if I reported the theft, I would have nothing to tell the police. I know nothing about what s/he looks like...

I suppose I had a moment of feeling impressed. I mean, there were three of us and my purse was touching my leg. Touché, theif, touché.

I began a mental checklist of everything in my purse. My wallet has one debit card in it, only one just in case of something like this. I don't have any credit cards. I had about 30€ cash and some change that probably added another 5€ (change is a good thing to have in Europe... they HATE breaking big money here.). My 19€ phone was there, too, with about 17€ on it (it's a prepaid phone). Other than that, petty things... some hair ties, bobby pins, nail clippers, the post cards I bought in Lyon and Portugal (I figured keeping them in my purse would help keep them standing upright and not crumpled like they would be in my backpack), some tampons... nothing too valuable. In a moment of uncertainty, I reached for my wrist. My bracelet was still there. In that moment I was able to maintain my composure, sure nothing drastic had been lost.

"Well, you can take a picture of the bench and always remember that this happened... It's a story at least..." Lauren said to me, lightening the mood, or so she thought.

Then I realized my camera was in my purse.

My camera. My camera with all the pictures from the last day of class through all of my trip.

I lost it. I lost control of myself and bawled.

My pictures!

I'm not upset about the money or the phone or even the camera itself... but the fact that I will never have those pictures... It's very, very upsetting.

My mind raced through what I was missing: our farewell dinner from the Residencia, the chalkboard notes our ILP literature professor wrote, all the pictures from France, including a particularly beautiful picture of Danielle, me "performing" at the Roman ruins, a street cellist, the churches, the museum, the views... Then all the pictures in Portugal, some of the food we ate, the explorer monument, the giant map, the "Golden Gate" bridge, Big Jesus, Jim modeling schnazzy European clothing, all the pictures from Sintra, climbing up to the Cruz Alta, and the kind of silly video I took explaining how we had climbed up to the highest peak, taking about four hours and by the time we got to the top the fog had rolled in...

It was all gone.

I stood in the walkway and cried.

I guess I wanted to write this as a warning. Buy purses with a long strap. Always be more than aware of your surroundings.

Luckily, I had a sizable amount of cash and my passport in my money belt, which was locked in my locker in my hostel.

I also blocked my debit card. A new one should be coming in the mail in 4-16 business days. It seems like quite a span... but it's coming straight to Spain. Hopefully the 50€ I have left will last me until then. If not, I will use my Chase account and deal with the fees.

I'm glad I have a backup account... But I would feel better if I had more money in that account, since this is the second time I'm having issues with my Bank of America account (at no fault to Bank of America... Just waiting for a card to arrive the last time, this time it was stolen).

I digress.

I also heard of at least 2 other robberies that occurred in Lisbon while we were there. One was a woman on the street that needed 12€ just to get home because her house was across the river and the police couldn't take her that far. Then, when I got back to my hostel, the guy asked if my passport was in the bag. I said no, he was relieved because he had just gotten back from the police station because two Italian girls in the hostel were robbed and their passports were in their bags.

Anyway nothing super valuable of mine was taken. I wasn't mugged, there wasn't a struggle, nothing like that. It's just really really unfortunate, albeit slightly impressive.

Just learn from me and be even more cautious than you already are being!