June 3rd – Home At Last - The End

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Still stressing about the laptops but, with hope in our hearts, we had a nice breakfast at the Embassy Suites. We waited to miss the morning rush hour and used the time to track down an actual human, Patrick, at TSA to work Mission Laptop Recovery. This was a feat and involved tracking down a Supervisor from an old online newspaper article (saying people hardly ever get their stuff and they have rooms full), calling her voice mail and then getting a special number from her message. Score one for Amy’s persistence. Apparently, TSA Lost and Found does everything by voicemail and email and tries to avoid contact (Ummm, maybe this is why no one gets their stuff from the big room full of IPads, Laptops and lost jewelry!) Talking to a person was much more satisfying as he told us that, “Yes, 2 laptops came in from our TSA Security Checkpoint at about the right time.” Hope rose. He also said he would call us later in the day (which he did not) so Brian did not enjoy our local wine-thirty. Many messages later, we got an email saying “Fill out this form. How would you like your items shipped and what’s your credit card number to pay for it?” Taking a leap of faith that they weren’t some other poor schmuck’s laptops, we sent back the info. On Friday, they arrived by UPS! They even work despite a nasty drop wound and crack on Amy’s. Brian is a happy man and all is right with the world.

Trip Statistics:

Steps: 475,334, average of 6.8 miles a day each

Airplanes-3, Trains – 16, Funicular - 1, Buses -8, Cabs - 6, Cars -2, Ferries -1 : 36

Lost Things: 1 Backpack (Amy, for 10 minutes on trail); 1 Wallet (Amy, returned intact by nice village woman, didn’t even know it was missing!); 2 laptops (Brian, recovered by Friday with only one drop scar). As everyone in Amy’s office can attest, she still owns the record for leaving a trail of lost things behind her…

Recovered Things: All of them! The travel fairies were looking out for us.

Wine-Thirties: Every day

Bugles, Honey Mustard Bites and Chips eaten at Wine-Thirties: A million.

Pretzels: 10, Gelato scoops: 9, Cheese: Too much!

Work done on vacation: Much less than normal.



Fun Times – More than we can count!

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