 What's up guys, it's Josh and we're back in with another video. Today is a little bit of a story time I guess. I'm not one to do story time type of videos, but this is a story that a lot of people have been asking about because I didn't really go into a lot of detail about what exactly happened. But as you guys know, a couple of weeks ago when I was studying abroad in Paris I had all of my camera and editing equipment stolen from me. It was all in a single backpack and it was a very tragic event that almost ruined my summer if it wasn't for the generosity of you guys. Inside my backpack was my laptop with all of my footage from the entire trip. My Canon 70D DSLR camera with two different lenses. My Sony RX100 point and shoot camera and like hundreds of dollars worth of like magic gimmicks that I had purchased and hand made and that are, some of them are just not even replaceable. So it was a big loss. Basically everything of physical value in my life other than my phone or my wallet was in that backpack. Like to be completely honest, I would have rather had my phone or my wallet stolen. That would have been a lot easier of a time. At least my passport, I left it at home. I made a conscious effort to leave my passport at home because I did not want to lose that. That would be a whole entire mess in and of itself. Luckily you guys pulled through and with the help of a successful GoFundMe I was able to rebuy some of my gear and get back to making videos for you guys. We haven't completely recovered yet but we're on our way and we have everything we need right now to keep pumping out these videos so I'm excited. Regardless, I also received a lot of questions about how this theft actually occurred and since it's a pretty funny story and I'm still really salty about it, we have this video. So welcome to Storytime with Josh as we recount one of the most unfortunate events to happen to me in the recent future. Yay! As you guys know I was looking forward to a pretty big collab with a fellow YouTuber from Princeton and we had just set the date that we're going to meet in film. By the way if you haven't checked out our collab videos yet you should definitely do that as soon as possible because not only do they give a lot of great information about Princeton Yale but they also answer a lot of your guys' questions about college. So I'll leave the link below. Anyways I think we had decided to film on a Tuesday which did mean that I had class in the morning. After class finished I grabbed some lunch with some friends and then decided to do some work in a nearby park. We actually ended up going to Park des butchermans which if you guys haven't heard of it is probably one of the craziest and most beautiful parks I've seen in Paris. It looked like something straight out of the movie Avatar it was absolutely insane. I did have footage of it but it's gone now but Google it it's pretty cool. I'm getting sidetracked but anyways the point is that I did not have time to go home to charge my phone. I did swing by my host family's house for like five minutes but it was just to grab a microphone and a tripod for filming. So I decided to keep my laptop in my bag so I could plug the USB cord into it and charge my phone while it was on the metro and while we were filming. I also had both cameras in my bag because I have my small camera for blogging and then I have my big camera for taking pictures and stuff so those were both in my bag because we're gonna be by the Eiffel Tower. Who knows, might be able to take some pictures, might be able to vlog a little bit. I just wanted to be prepared for anything. Bad idea Josh. The point is by some perfect storm of events all of these big ticket items happened to be in my bag at the same time. I sprinted out of my house towards the metro because I was running late and straight to the Eiffel Tower which is where we decided to film. We met up, everything was going well, we filmed the first video and then we decided to change locations for the second video. We walked around the park a little bit and decided on this nice stone bench that had pretty good lighting. We sat down and I had my backpack right next to me on the bench. But when we were framing the shot I obviously didn't want my backpack next to me in the shot because it's obnoxious. Right next to me on the ground leaning against the stone pillar that was in between the two benches. You see the bag was like right down here, right, right in my peripheral vision, thought everything was good. But you know, we just happened to be filming a YouTube video. One of the only activities I know of that requires intense focus forward onto a lens and complete disregard for anything in your peripherals. Anyways, we finished filming, I was feeling good about the take. It was going well. We were answering the questions pretty well. I was really excited for the video. I get up, I stretch, I look to my right and I don't see my backpack. I'm like, wait a second, did it like fall under the bench? So I check under the bench. I'm like, huh, interesting, did I not set it down? I'm pretty sure I set it down right here. Where'd it go? Like the thought of theft didn't even register in my head because it seemed so impossible. It was literally within arms reach of me sitting in my peripheral vision. Like how would I not have seen it? How would I not have felt it? But eventually we nicknacked into the conclusion that theft was the only thing that made sense and that my backpack had been stolen. I didn't believe how somebody could come so close to us and sneak right behind us and snatch my backpack from right next to me. Not only that, but Nick was getting up like every two or three minutes to frame the shot. So somebody had to have been watching us because they didn't want to come and try to steal a backpack and then Nick get up and frame the shot. So here's your answer. These thieves in Europe, they're professionals. They saw two stupid teenagers filming a YouTube video in the middle of Champ de Mar and scouted out the locations of our gear. I was wearing a Yale t-shirt with salmon shorts. Nick was wearing a Princeton sweatshirt. It doesn't get any more American than that. Probably sat there watching us for 20 minutes, started to notice the patterns of Nick getting up, checking the framing, us filming the video, and observed us make sure that they were safe, scouted out the location of my gear right next to me, seeing that they were filming and then this son of a... Stuck up right behind me and stole my gear. Now I know what you're thinking. He must have shown up in the footage. Nope. Like I said, there was a giant stone pillar in between the two benches which the thief must have taken note of and literally must have gotten right behind so he wouldn't have been in the frame and reached down and snatched it. It was just ridiculous. We scrubbed through the footage afterwards and could not find even the slightest evidence of something. I'm just blown away by the extent that some people will go to steal and ruin someone's day. So basically we wanted the area looking forward but I knew I wouldn't be able to find it. I tried to talk to some security guards but of course they were no help. Basically I was just freaking out on the verge of tears, running around the Eiffel Tower like a... Big shout out to Nick for staying with me and helping me out because I don't know if I would have been able to do that by myself. Anyways, once I accepted that there was no way that we're going to find the thief, I immediately routed myself to the nearest police station except there was a problem. The Tuesday night that we had decided to film was actually the semifinals of the World Cup which France was in. So basically the streets were completely empty. Everyone was grouped around these bars and all the police stations were closed. I even tried going to a second police station but that was also closed. So we just ended up watching the last 10 minutes of the game at some random bar which was absolutely crazy by the way. Obviously France won so the streets begin to immediately erupt in madness. As I immediately became soaked in beer, I don't think there was a full drink in that entire bar. I witnessed a car crash in the middle of the street and a bunch of people ran and charged a public transport bus and it almost flipped over. I may have lost all my gear but witnessing that made my night a little bit better. The bad part was that my phone died. So it took me over three hours to get home because of all the crazed fans on the Metro. The Metro had to keep stopping. I didn't even know what Metro routes to take because I couldn't route using my phone. I got home and realized that my phone charger was in my backpack that was lost which meant that I had to router to my host family's house without a little phone flashlight and they didn't have a lot of lights in their house trying to find a phone charger because I needed to plug my phone in and call my parents and inform everyone of the situation. It was a mess, it was a mess. It was just a series of a lot of unfortunate events leading to a devastating consequence. People will always warn me about theft and pickpocketing in Paris. They said, oh, it's one of the most dangerous cities. And I was like, okay, I get it, I get it. But I didn't think it could happen to me. I followed all the instructions they told me, you know, don't wear earbuds on the Metro, wear your backpack on the front of you, keep your wallet in your sock. I was doing all of that. I've been super careful, but you know, it just takes one moment. These guys are professionals. They're gonna get your stuff no matter what. So don't seem obnoxiously American and leave your backpack sitting next to you while you're filming a YouTube video by the Eiffel Tower. So that's the role of the story. Obviously, there's a lot more lessons that I have to learn from this and maybe I'll make a video about that in the future. But it was, headed in today, it was just a really, really unfortunate situation. All right, I hope you guys enjoyed listening to me rant about this because I definitely wanted to get it off my chest. If you enjoyed, feel free to drop a thumbs up down below. It helps me and supports the channel a lot more than you think. Comment down below any questions, comments, concerns, or future video ideas. I will try to respond to your new subscribers. You won't regret it. I will see you guys in the next video. Why she from Europe, take a joke, then you ride it. If you wanna get the smoke.