namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
So, my father went on this European vacation by himself(primarily because my parents couldn't easily afford for both him and my mother to go and he's seeing stuff that he is primarily interested in). Two weeks, divided into three parts: Hamburg, Prague, and Vienna. So Hamburg went ok and Prague went ok - almost. According to him, he was in the train station, about to catch the train from Prague to Vienna. He had with him three pieces of baggage. One was a suitcase, with just clothes and tioletries and stuff in it. One was a computer bag with a high-quality laptop, webcam, and cables for those objects in it. The third was a bag that he carried around with him when walking around in the cities, with a digital camera, digital video camera, cellphone, maps, some gifts, etc in it. It's kind of a man-purse, if you will. Ok, so according to him, in the train station, there was a very short staircase he had to go down - no more than ten feet. He was holding the two bags in one hand and pulling the suitcase with the other. He had to carry the suitcase down the stairs with both hands, so he had to put the other two bags down. He walked down the short staircase with the suitcase, looking over his shoulder at the other bags as he went. He took his eyes off of them for ONE SECOND as he turned around to go back up the stairs. And they were gone. Laptop, Digital Camera, Digital Video Camera, Cell Phone, Maps, Gifts he had spent money on, his passport, his international driver's license, etc. All he had left was the suitcase with his clothes and toiletries in it.
And this wasn't just petty theft. People do it professionally in these cities. They especially hang around places like that, watching people, waiting for them to take their eyes off their stuff. They probably sell it/pawn it off right after stealing it. I have taken to calling them 'the spineless, conscienceless, cowardly motherfuckers' in the past two days(this happened in the early morning hours USA time of June 23rd).
It just makes me mad that there are slimey people that make their living by waiting to take advantage of good people. It's probably anywhere between a $3000-$5000 loss because of all of those electronics(not to mention all the pictures he had taken in Hamburg and Prague).
Anyway, he stayed in Prague yesterday to deal with this. He managed to get something filed with the Czech police there so that when he gets back to America(in a week) he'll be able to ask the insurance company to cover at least some of the loss. Not exactly holding our breathes though, for fear of the insurance company saying 'you shouldn't have taken your eyes off of it, your fault, no dice'. He got another train ticket for today and is now in Vienna.
May the spineless, conscienceless, cowardly motherfuckers rot in hell.