Stolen Bag in Chamonix
This is the horror story of how I got my bag stolen in Chamonix, France. Well it’s not a horror story, I didn’t die and I still have my passport…It was very devastating though. Here’s what happened.
Our last full day in Chamonix was supposed to be our spa day, the reason I wanted to visit Chamonix in the first place. We stopped at a cafe for breakfast before our spa reservation, grabbing a quick bite to eat. I got a smoothie and my friend got some oats. We sat down at the nearest table close to the register. This whole narrative is still a bit unfathomable when recounting and writing out because it all happened in a span of less than 10 minutes. So we sat down at this table and waited for our food. The only time I got up from the table was for ten seconds to walk five feet to ask the barista to make our order for “to-go” instead of “for here”. Those ten seconds might have been the ten seconds that could have changed everything. We receive our food and are all ready to head to the spa. I’m reaching to grab my bag when all of a sudden there’s no bag…Where’s my bag? This is when I register that the bag is gone. Wait a minute, what? The bag was gone. Was my bag stolen, accidentally mistaken by someone? Where is this bag?
So this is when I start freaking out and panicking. The bag is actually lost and nowhere to be seen, it was definitely taken. I never left the cafe and was only here for ten minutes but it’s gone. I think I remember having the bag touching my feet, but the certainty fades. Whether I had it on me or not, whether I lost it from those ten seconds I got up, it’s now gone. My mind is now in a state of alarm and panic; I had everything in that bag. My wallet, cash, two credit cards, camera, tripod, journal, metro card, house key, and hotel key are all gone. It’s only 10am in France, 1am in California, I can’t reach my Mom in this state of crisis. So I leave the cafe and start frantically walking around Chamonix, hoping to find someone holding my bag. After that doesn’t work I go to the police station to file a stolen bag report. I’m still lost and alarmed on what to do next, while also feeling really guilty since if only l was responsible for my bag.
I had all of my valuable possessions in that bag because I trusted myself so much when it came to responsibility. I always knew that there are pickpockets and thieves out there, and I’m always aware of my belongings. But in this one moment where I felt comfortable and let that slip, everything is gone. And now I have to pay the price, having no money and the valuables that meant the most to me.
While it’s true that everything’s replaceable, and everything I lost was a material object that I can get back, what aches the most is losing my journal. Keeping a journal (especially in France) is very important to me so that I can remember the moments and memories from my year abroad forever. While I can rewrite the pages I lost, they will never be recounted as well as when I wrote the moments. Fortunately, this journal is a new journal I recently started in December, but there were very sentimental entries lost such as when my Mom met my host family, my first trip to Paris, and meeting some of my new best friends from semester 2. Losing my camera was also a hard thing to get over because my Sony ZV-1 camera was my prized possession. I would take that camera everywhere to vlog my life in France. I also lost all of my footage from the school Paris trip and my Chamonix trip. Cameras are expensive so it may take me some time to purchase a new one, but I will not give up on my passion just because my camera is now gone.
I communicated with my Mom about the news once she woke up, it was already late afternoon for me in France. She was very comforting about the situation which made me feel loved. One of the biggest challenges with studying abroad is learning to become independent in situations which you don’t know how to handle yourself. In times like this, all I wanted was to just be home in California with my Mom, without the stress of what to do now that my possessions have been stripped away from me.
After blocking and tracking the credit cards, we found that one was used in another ski town called Courcheval, a couple hours from Chamonix, so yes the bag was stolen and not just taken by mistake. I have the police officers in Chamonix and Courcheval still working on the case, and now I just hope that I can maybe find the journal or my camera one day.
While this experience was not something I wished to endure, I have learned a lot from the incident. I’ve now faced the results of my lack of responsibility and awareness for my belongings, and now I have to pay the price for it. Even when I expected myself to never lose track of my belongings, the universe said otherwise. I also believe that mindset and attitude is everything. I am a very lucky person who has had many fortunate experiences. But on this trip there were moments where my mind was filled with nothing but negativity, and whatever your mind thinks is what is brought out to you.
So now I am stripped of all of my important belongings, but I am grateful that I am safe, not hurt, and I still have my passport. Did my biggest fear come true? yes. But am I alive and am I going to thrive off of this situation? absolutely yes. Nothing will stop me, even my lost Longchamp bag.
