Just when I started to move on from being robbed and losing my i-Touch…things got worse. Within 29 hours, I was robbed again. Yes, robbed again. What are the chances of that? Kiev has been a bad city for thefts and I`m not the only one that was robbed.
After a great day sightseeing with 3 other new friends I met at the hostel (Morgan, Josh and Anton), we decided to stop for a late lunch/early dinner as 3 of us had overnight trains (and I was leaving for mine in 1 hour). So we were in a table in the back of the restaurant and there was no one around us. My bag was zipped up, then clipped closed and between Josh and me in the corner and I could feel my bag. You could think clear and out of any danger.
Ends up, a guy sat down in the chair behind me, made eye contact with Morgan who was sitting across from me and she thought it was a little odd how long he was staring at her. Josh noticed him too, and he was talking on his phone and sitting near to me. I had no idea to any of this as my back was to it all. Ends up, he went to take off his jacket and soon after must have used it to cover up what he was doing, unclipped my bag, unzipped it and lifted my wallet right out and quietly left. None of the four of us had any idea.
I realized it when we were getting up to leave and saw my bag was open (and started to panic) as I always close it up (especially since yesterday, we all have been so careful). It was at this moment I realized my wallet was gone and my train ticket was in my wallet, plus a lot of cash that I was going to exchange plus my cards, Student ID (which has saved me a lot of money so far) and my drivers license which was my ID when I didn`t take my passport with me. The four of us went searching in all the trash cans up and down the street in front of the restaurant and looked in the bathrooms too, thinking he may have taken the cash and dumped the rest. But we never found anything. Josh, Anton and Morgan were so great and kept looking in the trash cans on the street when I went back to start to cancel my credit cards and figure out next steps.
I was just sick to my stomach and couldn`t believe it. None of us could. Josh felt like it was his fault as he didn`t say something when he saw this shifty guy. Morgan thought it was her fault as she felt weird about the way he was looking at her. I kept telling them it wasn`t their faults as these things are going to happen, and I just was the target and bad luck in a city with bad thefts. I also kept saying it`s just things and I can replace. No one was injured so that`s the good news.
When we got back to the hostel, Jonathan, who was with me when my I-Touch was stolen, had met three guys on a tour he took that day and he found out all 3 of those guys were pick pocked on the metro and two on the same time. The other guy had his wallet stolen from his front pocket of his jeans. So it must be common in Kiev and we all suffered from the thefts.
But it`s time to move on, and I will survive. Luckily I had another credit card, another ATM card and US cash in my bag back at the hostel, so I was ok to move on and not stranded. That was from years of travel experience.
I got back to the hostel and contacted my credit card and ATM bank to cancel and they are sending a new credit card overnight to Steph in New York and she will bring it to me in Poland (along with a new i-Touch that Colin is going to get for me and load up with music and drop it off at Steph`s office to bring to me). So great to have people like Colin and Steph that can help me. I also made arrangements to have my new ATM card sent to a hostel in Krakow, Poland so I`ll have that when I arrive to meet Steph and Shana.
So in my mind, all is all right. I`m safe, and have money. I would say these two thefts have costs be about $900 – that hurts a lot, but I have my health and am safe.
I went to the train station last night and just wanted a train ticket out of Kiev. All I can say is “Get me the F out of Kiev!”. I’ve now arrived in Lviv in the western part of the Ukraine and already am much happier. So on to good times from here 🙂