Imagine being alone in a foreign country.

Now imagine that, while in that foreign country, you’re living out of your vehicle.

Now imagine that, while in that foreign country and living out of a vehicle, somebody steals the vehicle – and with it, all your possessions and identity documents.

Laura Ramaekers doesn’t need to imagine it. It’s what she’s been living since Sunday afternoon.

A Belgian, Ramaekers has spent the past month or so in Canada, working toward her ultimate dream – a cross-country trip in a vehicle specially outfitted to serve as her sleeping space and full-time home.

Progress was happening quickly. She had just bought a 2002 Subaru Forester and started to modify it. The refrigerator was in. The bed was installed. The curtains were up.

“Everything was perfect,” she says.

Then came Sunday. Ramaekers and some of her new friends decided to spend the afternoon at Snyders Flats. She drove. They biked.

The friends on bikes decided to head home early. They asked Ramaekers if they could put some of their belongings in her SUV. She agreed. When she asked how they would get the key back to her, they told her they would hide it nearby. The area was safe and nobody would take it, they said.

A little over an hour later, Ramaekers returned to where she had parked the Forester. It wasn’t there.

At first, she thought it was a prank being pulled by her friends. A woman in the parking lot helped her looked around for the vehicle. Once it became obvious the Forester was gone, the woman urged Ramaekers to call the police.

While the stolen vehicle was a major concern, the bigger problem for Ramaekers was what was inside the SUV. Gone were her passport and work permit – which she had wanted to take into Snyders Flats, but her friends had said she was more likely to lose there – as well as credit cards, her driver’s licence, her camping gear and her cash.

“It was so weird. It felt like ‘Now I can’t even prove my identity,’” she says.

By tracking purchases made on the credit cards before they were cancelled, Ramaekers and her friends were able to trace the thief’s trail through various pharmacies and gas stations in Waterloo. All of the businesses offered up receipts and whatever surveillance video they had to try and help identify the person making the purchases.

The credit card data also helped narrow down the time of the theft. At 12:40 p.m., a friend messaged Ramaekers to say the car had been locked and the key hidden. The first credit card transaction took place at 1:30 p.m.

“We had a number of places with exact times, places with recordings, and so we were able to present a lot of information to the police,” says Kevin Burt, a friend who was part of the Snyders Flats trip and the subsequent sleuthing.

After filing the police report, Ramaekers called her family. Through tears, she told them what had happened. Then, in an attempt to take her mind off the theft, she played board games with her friends.

Ramaekers, Burt and the police were all optimistic that the Forester would be found, although they expected that it might take some time. Then, on Monday, there was another twist.

While driving between key locations in the case with a CTV News reporter, Ramaekers spotted her vehicle driving in oncoming traffic on University Avenue. The reporter called 911 and followed the vehicle until it pulled into a parking lot on Westmount Road West in Kitchener.

“It was so unreal – like in a movie,” Ramaekers says.

“I hope all my important documents can be found, but I’m so glad that the car is back.”

One man was arrested at the Westmount Road property where the vehicle had stopped. All of the Forester’s contents, including the appliances and amenities Ramaekers had installed as well as her IDs and credit cards, had been removed.

With reporting by Daryl Morris