This is not how I wanted to announce where I was moving in Mexico. But this week,
as the title said, I was the victim of a robbery in Mexico, specifically Guadalajara, Mexico.
Before I start the video and share this story, I want to put out a disclaimer: No I'm not saying
that Mexico is a bad and corrupt country and you shouldn't come here because it's too dangerous—I
don't believe those things at all. I am fully aware that this type of thing can happen anywhere,
in fact, the most ridiculous thing about it is I've heard of this happening to other people
like a hundred times before yet in a flash it also happened to me. So what happened? I
was walking down the street with my friend Trish and we passed by you know a little parking area.
Out of the corner of my eye, I did see a guy sitting on his motorcycle looking down at a phone
and in just a split second he zoomed out of that parking lot in between us and scooped my phone
right out of my hand. Pretty much like this, for the purposes of this video I'm going to use
my old, piece of crap iPhone 7 that basically, I even tried using for one day to make it work
after my phone was stolen and it pretty much overheats every two seconds. Anyway anytime
I have my phone out in public—because I know what people are already thinking, some people,
the victim-blaming people are going, "What were you wearing? What were you doing? You must have
been distracted. You shouldn't just be waving your phone out all around or whatever. That's not what
I was doing. I looked down briefly at my phone to look at directions because I knew we had passed
our destination—we should have hit it by then—and I had my phone in my hand pretty much like this,
like I always do because I'm very aware that this is a type of robbery that can happen.
One finger on the top and the rest of my phone gripping. I mean, the rest of my hand gripping.
The thief comes though, as I have it close to my body, and right underneath my hand scoops
it up and I think because of the shock that a motor vehicle had just come that close to me—he
could have run over my toes he was so close—I was just stunned. So he scooped it and I just
stood there like a deer in the headlights because I could not believe that that had just happened.
And like in slow motion too, you know those adrenaline moments. So yeah he sped off. There
were a number of people around they also saw what was going on. I yelled over at this family, like,
"Can somebody help me?" And they came over, of course, there's nothing that they can do.
Another nice bystander came over offering to help. Or, we were kind of asking him to help
and he helped us flag down some police officers. I filed a very unofficial report with some officers,
you know put my name down they heard the story and then dropped us back off at my apartment.
But that was it. Somehow this thief was able to turn off Find My iPhone within four minutes,
I estimate, of it being stolen. I have no idea how that happened, Apple Support
has no idea how that happened because you would need my passcode to get into the phone
and my Apple ID and password in order to turn that off, so if you have any ideas about that
please comment below because I would just like the peace of mind of knowing how the heck this guy
made my phone invisible. So it's no longer associated with my account I can't see the
last location I will never see it if it comes back online again because that's been disconnected, so
of course, I've been looking on like Facebook Marketplace to see if the guy would be dumb
enough to put it on there like in the case or whatever, the case that I had it in, but no. And
yeah, I mean that's really it. I still can't believe that this happened in the daytime when
I was walking with somebody and with other people around, that's how bold this guy was.
And I also can't believe it's something that I've heard of happening before and it happened
to me while I'm always cognizant that that is something that can happen, just like the scam,
you know, or the robbery ploy or whatever you want to call it, the tactic where if your windows are
down in the car and you have your purse in the passenger seat a motorcycle could come by and
like grab your purse out and go, or your phone or whatever. Yet it still happened. I almost
forgot to mention this but it is worth noting yes, at the end of the day it's just a phone
I'm physically okay. It wasn't a violent attack, thank goodness. And it could have literally been
me that he snatched up on that motorcycle because I weigh like 112 pounds so definitely something
to be thankful for there. What disappoints me the most is that it makes me feel really really unsafe
in a city that I'm now wanting to call home. I already do feel a little bit
like...like not having a boyfriend or a roommate or somebody to walk around with at all times,
sometimes I do feel unsafe here. Like people stare for a little bit too long, specifically men.
And it's not the type of stares that are like, "Oh wow a light-skinned foreigner, wonder what she's
doing." It's more like you know they're staring with some type of intent, some unsavory intent.
So this was so violating and it makes me feel even less secure to walk around by myself in
the daytime. I don't really know what more to say than that other than this just really sucks and
I hope this isn't a sign, I mean...
I want to call Guadalajara home. I love this city,
I love the people, I mean for the most part. I really like living here so far but...
I don't know, is this a safe place to be for a solo female? Maybe not.
So I also forgot to share that I posted something in a foreigners Facebook group and basically was
like, "I think this is completely pointless to even ask but is there anything else that
I can do?" You know, if anybody has any ideas and I was surprised how many comments I got
basically saying like, "Oh yeah you should never take your phone out in public. You had
to know this was going to happen if you're using your phone in a public place," which
to me is so ridiculous. I mean yes I get it you should be careful of your stuff,
especially anything valuable, but to say never use your phone in public? It's like
you need to have your phone out if you're ordering an Uber, maybe you take your phone out because you
want to take a picture of something. You have to text somebody saying, "Hey I just got here." You
know, you're meeting up with somebody. I mean, I can think of 100 reasons that you would need a
phone out in any normal context, so it just seems like how can you tell people that, you know? Also,
probably not surprisingly, there were a number of people who said the same thing happened to them,
including one person who said her daughter was almost the victim but she held onto the phone
and the person sped away. Thinking back I'm like man, I wonder how the situation would have gone
down if something like that had happened, you know, because I was gripping it but like I said
I was just so shocked that he was so close to me and, you know, it just happened. Also,
a piece of advice that I got that I thought was pretty valuable is to put a ring on the phone,
you know those things that you can stick to the back that way you can always have a finger two
fingers through it. I don't know how feasible that is with the new iPhones, and maybe other phones,
where you place it on the charger, like the MagSafe I think it's called. But I probably
will be doing that anyway, you know you can still charge the phone from the bottom, so that
in all the situations where you do have to have your phone out at least it's a little bit more
secure in your hand. I'll be looking for that for my next phone because I really cannot be
spending all this money buying new phones every seven months because it was just it's crazy that
for the longest time I had that iPhone 7, for four and a half or five years or so, and then I finally
decided to treat myself to a new one, iPhone 12, and then not very many months later, this.
On a more positive note, you can click on this video to see all sorts of shenanigans that
went down last week when I attempted to make my favorite Mexican recipe,
pozole verde. Please subscribe to my channel and I'll be sure to post updates
and continue posting videos in Mexico—no I'm not leaving—and one more thing. GONG
that bell so you get notified the next time I release a new video and I will see you there.