Friday, February 10, 2006

A depressing post with no pictures

So, you would think my safe arrival in Taipei would be cause for cheer, but that didn't last very long at all. The flight was great, I think it was the first time I've slept through a full night on an airplane. One of my students was on the flight: a grade seven boy. As you can probably guess, he spent the entire 14 hours trying to avoid any type of contact! Hey, we can all remember being that age, right? And I also saw a token movie star in Los Angeles, in fact, I stood behind her (Joely Richardson) and her swarthy foreign boyfriend in line for security check. Having to spend six hours in the airport makes any celebrity sighting a thrill.

Anyway, on to the depressing bit of this post- a "worst-case-scenario" type evening. I decided to go see a movie to try to keep me awake until a reasonable hour (the hardest part of overcoming jetlag is just staying awake!) My roommate and I wanted to see different movies, so we split up and I went to see a scary (not recommended) movie, Derailed. When you buy a movie ticket in Taiwan, you can either keep the computer assigned seats or select your own. I always choose an aisle seat near the front. Tonight I came in, sat down and turned around to see four completely full rows at the very back of the theatre and the rest of the seats deserted (except for me)!

As soon as I realized it would be a scary movie, I adopted my traditional scary-movie-pose: hood up, ears plugged with fingers, rest of fingers over eyes and feet up on the seat in front of me. At the end of the movie, I sighed with relief and got up to leave. As is my habit, I grabbed my purse and quickly flipped it open. You guessed it ... my wallet was gone. I tried not to panic, I triple checked and looked all around my seat- but no wallet. By the time I had enlisted the employees help, I realized my cellphone was gone too. I had that sinking realizalition that I hadn't just foolishly dropped it somewhere- they had been stolen.

The girl kept saying "Don't panic" in a patronizing "silly you" kind of way. Not what you want to be saying to a woman suffering from jet lag and culture shock. Anyway, after several minutes, the security manager came up and offered to escort me to the police station. I quickly realized that this must happen all the time- it seemed very clear that it wasn't a big deal. Some random kid probably crawls up and down the rows, sticking his hands under people's seats to try to find a purse within reach.

To make a long story short, the theatre people were really helpful: one woman stayed with me the whole time, translated at the police station and helped me make a collect call home to get Canadian credit cards cancelled. Right about the time I started to calm down and tell myself it really wasn't that bad, I remembered taking a digital picture of my roommates at dinner... meaning the camera should still be in my purse. Yes, the most depressing news of all is that I must say goodbye to my trusty Canon. Thus, no pictures for this post.

I made the whole statement , they printed out multiple copies of several different forms, and then asked me to sign every page. Then, the policeman brought out a red ink pad and proceeded to have me put my thumb print on every signature and three on each stapled edge of the page. I have a very tired and very red thumb. So I keep telling myself that it could have been worse, and I'll be able to scrounge around until payday.

The moral of the story? When it says "Please watch your belongings" on the screen before the movie: they really mean it!

Posted by Kathleen @ 10:12 PM