We are pretty proud of how comfortable we feel using Paris's public transit system. We have a huge map of the city on the wall of our apartment. I bought a placemat (completely touristy but the best 3€ I have ever spent) that illustrates the Paris metro. It is the only version of the metro map I can see without my glasses. We have an app on our phones called Citymapper that will give us choices of routes for any destination we put it into it. It tells us how long it will take to go there and will even tell us which of the metro options have air conditioning. We have monthly Navigo cards for me and H and the girls use half price tickets until their student metro cards arrive.

The girls navigate the trains, buses and stations like pros. They find the routes to transfer to other metros within the station, take care of their tickets, scan for seats and enjoy all the dramas that take place on the trains  

So when going to Ireland we naturally decided we would take the metro to and from the airport. It was free for me and H because of our Navigo cards, time efficient and not dependent on traffic. Getting up and down the steps of the metro stations with our carry-ons was a bit of work as the girls could not carry their cases up and down the stairs themselves. 

All went well until our return home when we got off the metro and started walking towards the apartment. Sophia got a look of abject terror on her face and started hyperventilating. When she was finally able to speak she said she'd left her backpack on the metro. She'd been very tired and took it off to lean against Desmond and, well, she left it on the floor.

Inside the backpack was the family ipad that the girls use to watch Netflix when we are travelling, the headphones they use to listen and the splitter so they can share. There were two library books from the American Library in Paris. All replaceable items. The most devestating loss, by far, was "baby bear": the stuffie that Sophia has slept with for as long as she can remember. Baby bear was in the backpack because he was too precious to be put into the suitcase. And now he was gone.

Sophia was inconsolable.

Houman went back to metro station to talk to the station master and file a report. They said they will look for the item for two days but because there was no name or any way to identify us on the pack it was highly unlikely we would ever see anything from it again. Houman set the ipad to delete itself the next time it was connected to wifi so that whoever found it could not get our personal information.

A few days later the ipad had not been wiped so we wondered if it was a very skilled thief who knew how to delete it without the wipe feature kicking in. This way they could resell it, maybe?

We had resigned ourselves that we would never see the backpack again. Sophia drew a picture of baby bear and put it up in her room. We went to the American Library to explain what happened and pay a fee to replace the books. We decided to not replace the ipad and the one that H had bought for work some years back would become the new "family ipad".

Six days later, and Houman was in Toronto getting Desmond set up at university. I was on the metro with the girls and received an email. It was from the prefecture of objets trouvé: the police station for found objects. The message said (in French) that our backpack had been found, that it contained an ipad, english books and a doudou ours (stuffed bear). It said that we could retrieve it at the police station. I read the message three or four times before saying anything to the girls. My french is not that strong and I didn't want to get their hopes up.

With a whoop, we decided to go there directly. Using my handy, dandy app, we were able to get off at exactly the station we were at, switch metros, then walk about 20 minutes to the land of objets trouvé. The office reminded me of gringots bank in Harry Potter. The whole thing was dark wood and there was a person in each little stall. There was a wall of lost keys with about 10 layers to it and when someone would go to ask about their keys they would just sift through each wall looking for the ones they wanted.

We waited until our number was called and then i showed them the email. They took my I.D.,  charged me 11 € and told me to go sit and wait to be called. At this point, I still didn't believe it was going to work out. We waited for about 10 minutes and then I heard the girls gasp as a man brought our blue flowered backpack to the counter. We hopped up before they had a chance to call us and it was clear that was the item we were waiting for. Sophia opened the bag and her face when she saw baby bear was priceless.

We sent a photo to Houman right away. I wanted to surprise him before he read the email that I assumed they had also sent to him. After all, he was the one who filed the report. His response: HOW did you get it back? Turns out, our getting the backpack back had nothing to do with his filed report. The police had looked through the ipad, found my email address through our FaceTime history, and contacted me. They had itemized our every item, created a record, sent an email, stored the bag in their warehouse, and delivered them safely into our hands within 10 minutes of us presenting ourselves.

We were amazed. Paris is a big city. They have 16 metro lines and 300 stations to manage. But when they find a backpack they don't just throw it in a lost and found bin. The look at it and make a significant effort to track down the owner. They catalog it and warehouse it. And when we come looking, they give it back to us in perfect condition. Baby bear and all.