Traveling and Theft

I have just had my camera stolen from my room, and while i get over the shock of finding out that my insurance has just expired. I thought i would share with you a little of my experiences of theft on the road. Not that i want to scare anybody, because theft is actually quite rare, for me it has actually happened more at home than when i have been traveling. But by being aware of what might happen, can help you make the right decisions in keeping your own possessions safe.

In my case it has only happened 3 times in 15 years, and simple precautions like not leaving valuables on show, or in easy reach usually work fine. I have lost two cameras to thieves and both time i slipped up momentarily and left them unattended.

Slashed Rucksacks

Barcelona, Spain 2004

Luckily for me i was not personally affected by this incident, but it happened in my hostel dorm. When i came back from a day of sightseeing, all of the backpacks in my room apart from mine were gone. My first thought was that people must have left, but then one of the girls came back and found her backpack missing. After a panic she found all the backpacks in the corridor toilet. They had all been slashed open and searched. Most of the owners of these backpacks had packed-up all their possessions and padlocked them. I remember one girl lost, an MP3 player, camera and 100s of euros. 

I always remember this incident every time i see somebody padlocking up there backpacks. Padlocks are great at keeping out pickpockets in airports, but will do nothing to stop, somebody with a knife or scissors entering a hostel with the sole purpose of taking what they can. Probably what saved my bag was the fact i am one of those annoying people whose possessions end up everywhere. My bag was on the floor with my clothes spilling out just as i had left it. I also never keep money or valuables in my backpack while i am not there. Despite not having anything to steal from me, if i had packed-up and locked my backpack, i would have had to buy a new one. 

This is not to say that all thieves will automatically go for the padlocked bags, because a padlock might deter an  opportunistic thief  who sees an open bag and decides to take a dive. But the chances are if you padlock your bag and its the target of thieves, then you will more than likely lose your bag as well as your possessions.

Missing Camera No:1

Melbourne, Australia 2008

Ok i will be the first to admit that i am an idiot. After two years of backpacking around Australia, and never having anything stolen from me apart from food, and hearing of relatively little of from others losing stuff. I left my camera on my hostel bed and went out exploring Melbourne. Could i have been any more stupid? I think i might have tried to cover it with the bed sheet! Made no difference though, my beloved Fuji FinePics S700 (easily the best camera i have ever owned) 'disappeared'. I only had a few days left in Australia, and this was not the the parting gift i wanted.

So i beg anybody reading this please, please, don't leave your purse on your bed, phone charging in the wall or camera on a chair and leave the room.  I see this all the time, and yes most of the time it will be fine, but if it goes missing you only have yourself to blame.

The Anti-Santa

Geraldon, Western Australia, Christmas Day 2007

Food theft is the biggest problem any backpacker will encounter while traveling. You leave your milk in the hostel fridge and when you wake up the carton is empty. It happens over and over every day, every hostel all over the world, there is not really much you can do about it. Its not like you can really padlock your milk to the bunk bed in 40°C.

The anti-santa went one step over milk theft though, and to this day is probably the most shocking theft i have ever come across.

I was driving down Western Australia with a fellow backpacker, when we pulled up in Geraldon over Christmas. We found a lovely friendly campsite which felt quite safe, attached to a large caravan park. The camp area was only very small about 6-8 spots, but very well catered for. They had a nice camp kitchen, with a large fridge. It was Christmas, we and many others on the campsite went out and bought huge amounts of food and wine to feast on over Christmas.  I remember we bought lobsters, prawns, wine, endless amounts of veggies, salads, dips, ice cream and other goodies. We spent a ridiculous amount of money on christmas dinner for the two of us. The campsite was very good about this about bought in a second fridge so we could all cram all of our food in there, and those fridges were rammed. 

I was second to get up on christmas day. I remember waking up and making my way to the kitchen to help myself to Christmas breakfast. My friend was in the kitchen looking rather miserable, along with somebody else. I did not really think anything of it. I helped myself to some cereal  and some milk from the fridge. When  i got to the fridge, i noticed that there was very little in the door of the fridge and there was no milk. So i asked where the milk was. I just got a double look of misery back, it took me some time after this to realise that the whole of the fridge was empty. I then opened the second fridge, this was also empty, along with both the freezers.

I was shocked, Christmas day and we had had pretty much all of our food stolen, though for some reason they had actually left us our prawns. "Thanks". After some further probing it seems that these thieves has actually gone on quite the christmas shopping spree. Around the caravan park people were missing fishing equipment, towels, and children were waking up to find that the Anti-Santa had stolen their Christmas presents.

This was planned and well executed. These thieves must have come in overnight and loaded up their truck. Not you usual milk thieves.

Instances like this have their positives though, it really brought the whole campsite together. We all got together and worked out what we had food wise, and what we could spare we also found a petrol station that was open about 30 mins drive from us and stocked up on nachos and Coke Cola, the owner even managed to find a couple of cheap bottles of wine for us.

Apart from being majorly pissed off in the morning, this is one of my most memorable Christmas's and i actually had quite a fun day.

Lesson learnt? There is nothing you can do about theft like this, apart from hope the lobster was bad (very, very bad).

Missing Camera No: 2

Lyon, France 2013

So to the latest incident. I am staying in student halls of residence and have the luxury of my own fully lockable room. I have been careful to always lock my door, even when going to the toilet or shower, as there is just something about the atmosphere here which just makes me a little cautious. I have been right to be cautious, as a few days ago i went to the toilet across the hall and did not lock my door. When i was on the toilet i heard something in the corridor, and when i got back to my room my camera had mysteriously 'disappeared'. 

To make matters worse, i have stupidly let my travel insurance expire. It expired two days before my camera 'disappeared'. Now i won't be able to claim the cost of a new camera on my travel insurance. It is almost like this happened to remind me why we take out travel insurance. At least it was not an expensive serious accident, that i would be paying for for the rest of my life. Still having a camera is very important to me, and i don't have much money left. 

I have a month left in Lyon and then its make or break for me as i need to walk straight into work as the cost of a new camera is going to be coming out of the money i had put aside if i did not find work straight away. I am even considering going back to the UK to try to find work.

French Course - Day 5 - Nice France

This was the last of my blog entries about my french course that i took, last year. I really wish i had kept up writing as now i find it so interesting to look back on. You store a collection of memories on a blog like no other. Between now and when i stopped blogging i have so many memories that i wished i had written about at the time, the details of which are now fading into the blur which is my past.

7th of August 2012

Well last night before going to bed I remembered I had not done my homework, actually I could not even remember what we were set, and so I did all the questions. I was not going to get caught out for a second day.

Today went a little better; I am starting to get to grips with verbs, enough for me to be able to get the right conjugation in front of the class. After a good night sleep, my brain is starting to function again. Yippee. About half the class are so far ahead of me, the other half are about at my level. It’s the last day for about half the class, so next week we will be down to 5, and luckily most of the really good people are off, so the lessons should be much more focused at my level. 

In the afternoon i went back to the park for more studying, but today i remembered to bring my camera. I have managed nearly a week in Nice, and only have only taken a handful of pictures, hence some of the poor quality photos. So back up to the châteaux for some more great views of Nice. I visited the Cimetière Colline du Château, which was amazing, there was no photography allowed in the cemetery, so i went next door and took photos in the cimetiere israelite (where i could not see an anti-photo sign). The cemetery is full of amazing statues and tombs, that you just don't find in the UK. The cemetery's are so beautiful and well kept and yet i saw know body else, which makes me wonder why? Its defiantly worth a visit if you want to get away from the hustle of the rest of the French Riviera.

It’s so hot today, I have just nearly about melted at the park. My walk back to the tram has taken me about two hours; I just kept stopping for ice-cream and cold drinks. So it getting late now and it seems like I have done nothing with my day. Apart form studying I am just seem to chat and chill with people in my dorm.

Links: http://www.alpha-b.fr/fr/home

French Course - Day 4 - Nice France

As exhausting as to day has been, and it has been exhausting. I've done french classes then helped a friend move, someone who has never heard of packing lightly (anybody else out there carrying around a bag of coat hangers?). I remember this day being worse, i really suffered in the heat and it took me all day to get over it.

6th August 2012

Wow, I started today by me at 33 admitting that I had come to school without my homework. I felt slightly stupid as I did spend considerable amount of time studying French yesterday, just not what I was supposed to.

Class was again very overwhelming, and I really struggled with all the verbal exercise’s I was given. My brain just wouldn’t process French fast enough. Actually today my brain had completely switched off trying to understand anything. I was looking at the teacher, but I could not understand a thing! I just watched as her lips moves; i usually understand at least a few words. I blame all the study in the park yesterday.

The air conditioning has broken in our class room and we all sat there absolutely sweltering. By the time class was finished it was all I could do to stagger back to the hostel. Now I am spending the rest of the day absorbed by the Olympics, sipping diet coke. C’MON Team GB!!””!!

Links: http://www.alpha-b.fr/fr/home

French Course - Day 3 - Nice France

Today i had a french test, did i pass? Hope so, as i am planning on spending the next month in Lyon studying more french, and don't fancy a repeat. But here is day 3 of my french course last year, when i wasn't worrying about passes or fails. 

5th August 2012

Ok I slept bit better tonight, it was still very noisy and the light kept on going on and off, but some of the noisier girls had left. hooray.

The class this morning went pretty much the same way as yesterday, except that I felt even more overwhelmed by French and some of the student seem to be following so much better than me. I left with a huge mental list of things that I needed to get to grips with before the next day:

• The verbs faire, amier, devoir, etc…..
• What are verbs?
• Loads of stuff to look up in our grammar book. Others seemed to have memorised it contents, I have barely opened it.

So I headed up to the chateaux park on the hill to find a shady spot to study in. Parks are my favorite place to study. When I was studying for my final exams at uni, I went to Barcelona for a week so I could study in Park Gould. I just don’t find locking myself away in a dark room, when it raining outside very inspiring. 

I got back to the hostel and made a bit of a stupid decision to go running (du jogging). I dumped all my stuff at the hostel and just took a small bottle of water and my travel pass. I decided to go down by the sea and I thought it would be cooler and it was. I managed a good 20-30 mins of running in before I got back on to the tram. The tram then had “difficulties technical”, and I was stuck on it for over an hour, already sweating and dehydrated from my run, the heat on the tram was unbearable. By the time I got back it was all I could do to eat and cool down watching the Olympics. Hooray we are actually starting to win some medals now.

Links: http://www.alpha-b.fr/fr/home

French Course Day 2 - Nice France

In August i started my first travel blog, it did not last long, i gave up after two weeks. But i did keep pretty good account of the french course and it is still pretty relevant, so i have decided to re-post the first 5 days of the course. 

4th August 2012

It turns out that backpackers and students don’t mix so well. I am now regretting my decision to stay in a hostel as the girls in my dorm did not go to bed, until 2am and thought our room was just an extension of the bar. I really thought about going to the kitchen in the morning and borrowing some sauce pans to bang, when I woke up at 7am just to get my own back. But I made do with deliberately walking into one of their beds on my way to the toilet, lame.

Ok a bit nervous about going straight into another class, I really hope that this is the right decision for me. There is a mixture of abilities in my new class, some people are about the same level as me and there are one or two who are like French dictionaries. My new class has a very lively teacher, Pricilla. She is so animated it is ridiculous, but this is good because she never breaks into English but I suspect she know how to speak it, each word that I don’t know gets an animated explanation in French. The class is much more intense than the one I was in yesterday. The words DIRE and VEUX are mentioned a lot and I am expected to know what they mean, I don’t. So I spend the whole lesson pretending so I can look it up at home. I manage to get out of the class without the hole in my knowledge being noticed. It turns out that dire is a verb meaning to say and veux from the verb vouloir, meaning, to have and to want.

After class I am exhausted, my head has hit French overload and I head back to the hostel, to catch up on some of the sleep I missed the night before. I then went swimming at Nice beach, and spend the rest of the evening revising what we did in class.

French Course - Day 1 - Nice, France

In August i started my first travel blog, it did not last long, i gave up after two weeks. But i did keep pretty good account of the french course and it is still pretty relevant, so i have decided to re-post the first 5 days of the course. 

3rd August 2012

So i am in France learning French.

The following is extracts from my diary about my french course, that i am doing for the next two weeks at Alpha B school in Nice, France.

Arrived on time, yay I found it quite easily. It’s only a short walk from the tram stop.

I was placed into a group of about 9 students. But only about half had arrived by the beginning of the class. The teacher started the class by going over some basics, introductions, dates and numbers. We were then tested on our basic oral and written French and placed into two groups those who knew something, and those who knew nothing.

I was placed in the group of students who knew nothing. I admittedly felt very bad about that as I had done 5 years at school, one years of evening classes and have been teaching myself on and off for years.

The class then started properly, and it was very clear to me that I was going to know all the content already. Others who had never done French before were struggling with the very basics; trying to remember how to say Je m’appelle xxxx. And I really wanted to be pushed. So I told the teacher at the end of the day that I though the class might be too easy for me and I was put into the upper group. Time will tell if this was a wise decision.

Lunch time I went to a local restaurant and tried to order in French. All the French I knew came out in gobbledygook English. The waiter promptly told me where to sit and handed me the English menu. So a fail for day 1 then.

In the afternoon the school organised a tour of Nice, which I joined. The tour was in French. So I tagged along hoping that listening might improve my listening skills. The tour guild Aurelia, was great. She speaks such clear French even I managed to understand some of it, and was happy to answer my stupid questions about shade and sunlight. I got to speak to other students on the tour. Most of them have been learning French for much longer than me and were doing more advanced classes, so kept asking me really complex questions in French, which I answered with a staggered silence.

After the tour my head was overloaded with French, so I headed back to my hostel for a nap, pizza and to talk some English with the other backpackers. The English came out in broken English and people have been asking me all night where I am from? Expecting answers like Finland or or Argentina or something. This is an unexpected side effect of French lesson I hope it passes soon.

Learning French in France

You know it is always said that if you want to learn a language you have to actually go to the country to learn. So this is what i am doing now. I am learning French in France and loving it.

I had taken french at school for 5 years, and had learn't how to say 'Bonjour', by the time i left school (in a very strong British accent). I also did a night school class for several months a few years ago, but only ever really learn't some words and phrases. Yet i have been meeting people on the road for many years, who all know how speak English and they have often learnt in only a couple of months. 

Through studying their 'English language' text books i discovered two things: theses books are all in English and most have very few pictures. This is in stark contrast to the books i had at school. Speaking to people about what their English courses were like, they were all in English. I had also been looking into Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and liked the way that these courses were taught, but ultimately decided that teaching would not be for me.

So i decided that i wanted to give this a try for myself. Find myself an intensive foreign language course which is taught totally in that language, preferably in that country. I chose french, as it was the language i was most familiar with. In August 2012 i tested that water by singing up to a two week french course in Nice, France with alpha-B. Could these guys teach me to speak french!!??

The course was amazing, i learn't loads. It was taught in a totally different way to how i had been taught in England. This is not to say i did not have problems thought, the British educational system has left me with out some basic knowledge, such as 'what a verb is'. This is something i am still trying to correct today sitting in yet more French classes, this time in Lyon, with Alliance Francaise de Lyon. Learning about adverbs, infinitives, nouns etc at home instead of doing my french homework.

In conclusion, learning french in a french school is by far the best way to learn a language, so i have decided to stay in Lyon a second month. As i feel that i am actually learning something, but feel it would all go to waste if i just gave up now. Also i now have a friend staying in Lyon, so it will be nice to spend sometime with her.

Back in August i started my first travel blog. It did not last long, i gave up after two weeks. But i did keep pretty good account of the french course and it is still pretty relevant, so i have decided to re-post the experience of the first 5 days of the course.