Aneya & Lauren: Getting Robbed.

Lauren: It's happens to the best of us. In a big city, it's almost expected. And it finally happened to us. On our way back from Buenos Aires, about two blocks from our own front door my better half on this blog, Ms. Aneya Fernando was the victim of a crime. Amid the commotion on the bus when we were least expecting it someone opened her backpack and took her purse.

Aneya: I don't even really know what to say at this point, I'm still in a state of shock. It was especially surprising given that we've been living in this city for the past 5 months, have used the metros and the buses countless times, have had such faith in the people and now....this. It was also weird because we'd just been to Buenos Aires, a city we both found way more intimidating and scary than Santiago. This city was our home, nothing bad could happen here. Right? Wrong.

Lauren: In retrospect, other passengers on the bus were trying to warn us. They were indicating certain passengers with their eyes, silently indicating that we should be aware of these men, but after an exhausting international flight we weren't picking up on these cues. All we wanted was to be back home and someone saw their opportunity and took it.

Aneya: It's hard because I keep reliving the moment and thinking, what I could I have done differently? Well, obviously I shouldn't have put my purse in my backpack. But I was carrying three different bags and I thought I'd be easier. We were exhausted and hungry and just wanted to get home. Lauren asked a man next to her for directions and suddenly three men surrounded us, each of them telling us different things, distracting us. It made us both really uncomfortable and we just wanted to get off the damn bus. People were shoving and pushing and when I finally jumped off Lauren realized my backpack was open. And my purse was gone.

Lauren: And really, things could have been so much worse. It's a terrible feeling to have someone take something from you, get that close to you, but the robber didn't attack Aneya. We got back to our front door unscathed, albeit a few emotional scars. If we were in Buenos Aires, largely unfamiliar with the city and only knowing Eric it would have been far worse. Instead we came back here, to our apartment rather than a hostel and started putting things together. It's a hassle to get all new things, but not the end of the world.

Aneya: I've traveling quite extensively throughout my life and nothing like this has ever happened, it's really quite shattering, emotionally. Of course the material things I can replace, it just sucks because I had more in there than usual, since we were traveling. First of all, the bag itself was Coach (so was the wallet) and not cheap. In the bag was everything I hold dear.

My passport, my wallet (with various credit cards and my American driver's license among other things) my iPhone, my Chilean cell phone, my iPod, my camera, my sunglasses, the book I'd just bought at the airport, my notebook, my keys to the apartment, basically everything that's important to me. The camera really hurts the most, because I took so many beautiful shots of Buenos Aires and I'm never gonna get those back. So that hurts. I mean, it all hurts. And it's a strange feeling to come home and realize you have basically nothing. No identity. No money. It's like I don't exist at all.

Of course, all these things are getting replaced. I've been wired money, so I'm not broke, I made a new set of keys, I'm looking into getting another cheap, Chilean phone. But it's just not the same. Nothing is. I have to go to the Embassy to get a new passport, which I guess is a good thing, since the pages in mine were almost all filled up.

This whole thing just really makes me lose faith in people, and that makes me sad. It also makes me overly anxious and suspicious now and my general attitude towards Chileans has changed. Maybe it's just a temporary thing. I don't know. All I know is I'm never using that damn backpack again.

-- Aneya & Lauren