Monday, August 26, 2013

An Italian Antique Find From Prague and Sad Camera News

Fun and sad topics to share today, lets start with the fun one first! A couple Fridays ago I did a post about turning travel souvenirs or mementos into home decor (click here for the link).  Despite the very limited space in our carry-on luggage, we were able to bring home a couple unique finds for our house!  

During our last day in Prague, we stumbled upon a cute little antique book store on the way back to our hotel where we found this poster...

Alex and I were both drawn to it- not sure if it was the color, design, the text scrolling across the top, or the worn edges or the paper itself.  It just had an old authentic feel, something perfect and unique to add in our house as a reminder from our trip! I'm still trying to figure out the perfect way to matte and frame it but I just had to share!

From what we found online, it seems to be instructions for how to put together a small scale model from the 1930's or 40's.  Text along the top says "The New Artistic Traforatore" along with "Wholesale- Retail Ettore Ferrari".  The most famous Ettore Ferrari was an Italian sculptor that lived in the 1800's, but given that our print says wholesale/retail it makes me think it is just a name of the store or printing company that made it.  I tried to research as much as I could but it became difficult when the majority showed up in Italian. You can only Google translate so much :) So if anyone out there knows more please share in the comments! 

Now onto the sad news (sadly)...
When our last flight landed in Chicago and our trip finally ended, we realized our camera was left in the seat pocket of our layover flight to Copenhagen from Rome.  Panic, sadness, worry, anger... Every kind of awful emotion you can think of came over us both.  We knew where it was- Could we ever get it back? Did someone steal it when they found it? Would the airline be able to help? What if all of our vacation memories are gone forever? That last one definitely being the worst, who cares about the camera, I just want my (memories) memory card back.  

Thankfully, I did take a lot of pictures on my iPhone but not nearly as many that we had on the actual camera (that also took higher quality photos).  I am so glad we at least have that, I'm just hoping that we somehow get that little camera that seemed to be in Alex's hand in all of my phone photos.  It breaks my heart to think we will never see the panoramic photos of St. Peter's Square, Prague from atop Petrin Hill, Dubrovnik as the sunset, and so many more memories.  Maybe the most heartbreaking is that we'll never watch the videos we took while riding a scooter around Rome.  One of my best and happiest moments from the trip :(
We contacted SAS Airlines with our flight and seat numbers who then informed us they couldn't help and referred us to the Copenhagen Police Lost Property Office.  Heaven forbid SAS Airlines to know anything about what was left on their plane and yes, now I'm whining, complaining, and blaming but Delta recovered something I had left on my flight to Hong Kong... Just saying.  Anyway, Alex got up last week at 2:00 AM to call the Copenhagen police during their two hour window of time they take calls which was 8:30-10:30 their time.  They did tell Alex tht they had a black Sony camera on hand but that they'd need more information from us to prove that it is ours.  So, Alex then sent the serial number from the camera box along with a description of us and the whole story of our vacation, even back to our nephew's birth.  Alex plans to call again tonight/tomorrow at 2:00 AM since we haven't heard anything back.  

I'm really hoping that the Sony camera they have is ours.  I know this just sounds like a whole lot of whining but I'm hoping for a miracle I guess.  Who knows, maybe by putting this out there it will help?  I was hoping we'd find out before I started to write about our trip and share more photos, but since that was the real story going on it's all I've been able to think about.  Keep your fingers crossed!

6 comments:

  1. I can totally sympathize. My one and only trip to Europe, I had a camera that turned out to be on it's last leg (and it was film, no less). 2/3 of my photos came out with marks all over them, never to be recovered or saved.

    The saving grace is that you did get a few on your phone so not all is entirely lost. And don't beat yourself up about it; anyone would do the exact same thing in your shoes (or heels)!

    Here's hoping for some good news for you guys soon!

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  2. ugghh, I would be devastated, too!! I'm seriously hoping they have your camera and will send it back to the states for you. I'm a photographer so I feel like I maybe feel a little 'too' attached to pictures but, for a special trip like this, it would be terrible not to have them back. Keep us updated! :)

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  3. I love the paper poster you found. Very fun memory to hang in your home. So sorry about your camera/memories! I hope you are able to get your camera back...

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  4. fingers crossed it's your camera!!!

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  5. I feel for you. I left a camera in a rental car Morea Tahiti. Honeymoon pics! But the car was so small we had to store items anywhere we could. When we returned the car and went back to another island we realized it was still in the car. This was 11 year's ago. So no camera on the phone. But we have wonderful memories. And the dream of returning to the island!
    I hope it is your phone.

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  6. I feel for you. I left a camera in a rental car Morea Tahiti. Honeymoon pics! But the car was so small we had to store items anywhere we could. When we returned the car and went back to another island we realized it was still in the car. This was 11 year's ago. So no camera on the phone. But we have wonderful memories. And the dream of returning to the island!
    I hope it is your phone.

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