!!! Bastards !!!

So we’ve had some serious problems.

We were in Amsterdam filming our last interview with a coffee shop owner. Everything was going great. Our chubby British proprietor, with his glassy red eyes, was opening up, getting all meaningful by looking directly into the camera and telling us how he had to flee Birmingham so he could get stoned perpetually. It was a heart moving story. Really.

For us, this interview was a fact hunt, we’d already found out what the Dutch thought about smoking pot (most of them don’t), about how much you should pay for a joint (3-4 euro), and all the other silly questions you can think of like, ‘Can you die from it?’ (Um….no) and ‘Which nationality do you see vomiting the most?’ (English and Italians are on par)

For this interview we just needed a little more info about the ‘grey import market,’ as opposed to the black market, for importing marijuana from Nepal, Morocco and Afghanistan. Personally, after discovering (to my horror) that none of the pot-farmers were receiving a decent cut from these sales, i.e. it wasn’t fair-trade, I thought they were all a little dodgy. We also wanted some more info on how much a ‘hooch shop’ can legally hold on its premises. (It’s no more than half a kilo, if you’re interested, otherwise when the cops come in, which they do, they can take it if the shops over the limit).

You might say, everything was going too perfect. This guy was giving us everything we needed. And with emotion too.

When two young lads walked into the shop and pretended to be interested in the interview, I paid them no mind. Sandy was too busy filming to notice. Soon the lads left. So did one of our bags!

It had our passports in it.

Oh god, the Anguish. We screamed. At each other. At the Brit. At God.

On the street, millions of tourists were wandering.

The little bastards were nowhere in sight.

So I bolted around the alleys glaring down every little fucker that might or might not have looked like them. Everyone looks guilty when you’re bloods pumping faster than a race car in the formula one. I guess I might have appeared pretty messed up because most people avoided me, I would’ve too if I saw someone like me coming. You might say this method of sleuth investigation wasn’t the best, but what can you do in a situation like this? And if did I find them, what then? I haven’t been in a fight since my early years of high school so I’d be hard pressed using my powers of persuasion to ask for it back.

But I tell you, it was horrible. If someone had given me the choice between having our passports stolen or having my balls shaved with big rusty knife, I would’ve taken the later.

You can imagine us at the police station saying, ‘Our bag has been stolen!’

‘Where were you?’ The cop asked, grabbing a pen.

‘At a coffee shop.’

The police officer’s eyes look at the ceiling, you can tell he’s thinking we’re another pair of silly stoners. He probably has to deal with hundreds of intoxicated backpackers everyday.

‘We were filming an interview,’ Sandy says before going onto explain the legitimate nature of what we were doing.

The cop opened up after that, telling us how bag snatching is major problem in Amsterdam and a major racket is working the area. While we were making our statement, another woman came in to report her bag stolen. A pair of young lads (possibly the same ones!) had stopped her to ask directions and when she had turned around – that special magic happened again – her bag had vanished.

Anyway long story short is that we high-tailed it to the Australian Embassy in The Hague, where we got emergency passports issued. Apparently if you lose two passports within five years the replacement price goes up - so keep them safe kids.

We’re in Lyon, France, now, taking it easy in the sunshine. I can’t speak French so I’m talking to the locals in English with a French accent. I think they really appreciate it.

Things are getting better and better.