Camera thieves should have their hands cut off!!

I have to start this post by saying I would like to have a number of pictures to show for the 2+ weeks I was in Barcelona and southern France with the Professor but that is the reason for this post. I do not have pictures because on the last day of our trip, we were at the beach in Barceloneta on the Mediterranean Sea and my camera was stolen with all the memory cards, battery charger and all. EVERYTHING was in my backpack and they took that from right beside me - one second it was there and the next it was in the hands of some thief among a sea of a thousand tourists on the sand.

Now I know that the title of this blog is a bit harsh, but I am PISSED! The THOUGHT of someone TOUCHING my camera, handling all the gadgets, the batteries, the case...possibly looking at the pictures as they delete them to sell the thing, it makes me want to vomit. I feel violated. It's like they were touching ME, my husband and our lives.

I am also struggling with the thought that it was MY fault. I should have been more vigilant, I should have left my camera in the hostel, I should have SAT on my backpack while I lay on the beach and not have laid it beside me. I should have left the full memory cards in the hostel. SHIT. I'd give anything to have that moment back, to have left my camera in the safe confines of the locker of our room at the hostel.

But, it was our last day. We wanted to see the sea one last time. As we approached the beach, people had surfboards...we wondered why. The last time we were there, there was nary a wave that could be called surfable. This day though, it was windy and there WERE waves, surfable ones. The Professor was soooo excited. He is a longboarder and that means he is a surfer as well. Even though he has never surfed, I think he imagines himself doing it when he is on his long board. So, he was out there, immediately, playing with those waves and although he didn't have a board, he pretended he did.

I got some great video footage of him that day. It was the first video I shot the whole trip. I hadn't wanted to use up too much memory or battery beforehand but since it was our last day, I thought, what the heck? That was the last thing I will ever put on that camera.

We got the camera before the Professor went to Vietnam the first time. It was our first digital camera. We went with a small, portable one so that it would be easy for him to tote around, a Canon PowerShot SD1000 Digital Elph (I am looking at the box right now with the manual and cords still inside). I loved it. It took awesome pictures for such a small camera and only 7.1 mega pixels.

It wasn't the actual thing that I was so attached to but what I was able to do with the "thing". Photography became a hobby for me. Getting cool, interesting shots of people, places and things - I have a good eye for a good shot AND my pictures of Spain and France were INCREDIBLE!

Provence, with it's lavender and sunflower fields, it's stone houses with colorful wooden shutters. The summit of Mount Ventoux, where the Professor and I were so scared of falling off the edge we didn't think we'd be able to drive back down. Those pictures were taken from the door of my car because I was too afraid to get out for fear I'd be blown off the mountain top (I swear they sweep up the bodies every evening). The multiple castles. The castle of the Marquis de Sade in Lacoste, the random Salses castle originally Spanish but now in France built on a narrow flat streak of land along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. So many more. Our tour took us to many Roman ruins as well. The Pont Julien (Julian bridge),in Bonnieux near Apt, France which we specifically went to to take pictures of for our eldest son whose name is Julian. It was built over the Calavon river but I'm sure the river has changed since the Romans marched over that bridge for today there is just a small puddle or two left of the Calavon.

Oh, I could go on and I just might in the next blog which will be more about my trip than the camera but I needed to vent. I MAY need therapy. The Professor says I should buy a BETTER camera - the Nikon D90 was suggested to me by the make-up counter lady at Macy's (I went there to replace all the make-up that was stolen as well). I just don't know, small and compact is nice, easy... but maybe I go for big and better now. It is just too soon. I have to mourn the SD1000 for a bit and be without.