Yes, as you can see in the title this week had the worst day of my life but you don’t get to here why until I talk about Thursday. The day I still wish I could go back in time to change what happened. Monday was Santa Croche, Tuesday was the Bargello, Wednesday was San Marco & the Academia!!! I know I don’t have much to say for these days but I seriously don’t remember! I had so much homework for all of the classes that I didn’t have time to keep a journal/diary everyday! I do have to comment on the Academia!I mean I got to see the real David in person! The whole time I was there I just kept staring at it. I have learned about the sculpture my whole life and I never thought I would be able to see. I wish I had a picture of him to share but you aren’t allowed to take any! 🙁 All of use kept saying we felt bad for the other art that was in the building! I guess at least I got to see this before the worst day ever.
Thursday started out as a normal day. We toured different buildings for our art history class, Palazzo Medici & the Cloister of Scalzo. Then we went back to our apartment and two of my roommates wanted to go take pictures of a fountain so I went with them and took my camera (This is important for what happens later). The pictures I took on this little adventure are above. Anyway by the time we left we had to go straight to class. I remember thinking maybe I should bring my computer to class so I can import the pictures I needed for the assignment but one roommate had a card reader so I took that instead (worst decision ever!!!).
After class we decided to do some souvenir shopping because we hadn’t done much yet and we all had big lists. We got back by around 6:30 because class got out at 5:30 and invited some of the other students to go to dinner with us. I just went on my iPod because we figured it wouldn’t be too long before they got there. My other roommate mentioned that she couldn’t find her camera but figured she just put it in a weird spot. We went out to eat like everything was normal and it wasn’t until 8:00 that we got back. I wanted to get onto my computer and when I went to my bed (side note: we moved all of our matresses into the living room because one of us had to sleep in a room by them selves) to look it wasn’t there, I checked my room (I got the single) and it wasn’t there. The one roommate mentioned that she couldn’t find her camera still or her brothers computer that she borrowed to upload pictures.
We finally realized we had been robbed! First I was in shock and then I started balling and couldn’t stop! I mean my whole life was on it! I had all of my pictures, my blog design things, everything. Some of you might think I’m exaggerating but I had that computer since early 2011. I’m a graphic designer and a lot of what I do depends on my computer. We called our teachers and one didn’t answer & the other took a while because her husband and daughter had just arrived a few hours before. I went and sat in my “room” on the cold tile floor just not knowing what to do and wishing I would have stayed back from the picture outing and taken my computer to class. I really wanted to talk to my mom but because it was 2pm in Michigan she was still at work.
I was grateful that I had my 2 cameras (one was just a small nikon that I always had in my purse & the other was a Nikon D50) and my iPod touch with me. I at least still have my Italy pictures and a way to contact my family! I’m so glad I got the newer iPod touch with a camera!! I did loose the first week of photos minus the few I put on Facebook because I had uploaded them to my computer and deleted them. I was still waiting for the teacher to get there and my sister got home from school so I talked to her for 15 minutes while watching her eat chicken nuggets. I told her what happened so she understood that I just wanted to talk to her even if only for a few minutes. She did help me feel a little better! Once I was done the teacher was finally there, she had called an ISA employee (we went through their study abroad company) because she could speak Italian to the police. We had to wait around until she got there as well as the police. It was around this time that I realized my phone was gone too! I had only used it as an alarm clock and didn’t have an international plan so I didn’t notice it right away. I mean it was one of the free at&t phones.
Talking to the police was super annoying because they didn’t speak English at all and they were not helpful at all. One thing I didn’t mention before was when we got back from shopping a girl that lived across the hall said that she just got there and asked if her key worked the same as ours. We told them that story and they knocked on the door to ask them about it, their was at least 10 people standing there when they opened the door and when asked about the incident, they denied it. The roommate that helped her with the key and I went in the hall because we thought we would recognize her if we saw her. We knew she was a brunette and the only two girls that were standing in the front were blonde and red headed. Finally, a brunette stepped from the back of the group and admitted it was her. They were “Swedish” students, Swedish is in quotes because we heard some of them speaking Italian to one another as they came up the steps as they claimed they didn’t know Italian. We were all 100% positive that it was them but as the police claimed they were students and there was no way they would do anything like that.
Once everyone left, all three of my roommates were saying they were too scared to sleep but I on the other hand was exhausted from crying so much and in shock. I fell fast asleep. Karissa (the one that got the computer & cameras stolen) and I had to wake up way too early to go to the police station & file reports. While we were filling them out, the other roommates called & said that they realized that more things had gotten stollen that we hadn’t noticed the night before. We got back to see what else of ours was missing! I had my Macbook Pro, phone, Taylor Swift perfume, bobby pins, used hair brush and leave-in conditioner stolen. Some of the other girls got some clothing, perfume, hair dryer, deodorant, and other random things that normally wouldn’t get stolen. It was obvious that it was females that decided to go shopping in others apartments. If only we would have known that the day before, maybe the police could have looked in the apartment across from us. I doubt it though, they were not helpful at all and probably didn’t even do anything. I mean they just said we didn’t lock our door or shut it properly. After all this happened we had to get on a train to go to Venice. It was really hard to be excited because of it. I had moved all my stuff into another apartment and we requested to move to a new one once we got back.
Isn’s it funny how much details we remember when bad things happen to us? I hadn’t planned on writing so much about the theft but once I started I just couldn’t stop. I mean my most prized possession was taken in our apartment where I thought I was safe and could safely leave my things. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could go back & change what happened or have taken insurance out on my computer or wished that I had set up iCloud so they could track it. I’ll be blogging about the Venice trip in the next post so that this one wont be even longer. I didn’t share all this so you would feel bad for me, I wanted to tell all of you so you would think twice about bringing expensive things on a study abroad trip! I also put some random pictures in to make the post a little less sad lol. Have you ever had your apartment or house broken into?