Thursday, June 19, 2008

Europe Part 2: Lost and Found (it seems to always work out)

Last saturday I had booked all my tickets for the next leg(s) of my travels. Well, when I arrived at the new hotel on Sunday, all the tickets were missing from my bags. I quickly called the previous hotel to see if I had left them in the room, but they said they couldn't find them. This is about $500 Euros in tickets, so I decided clearly to put some effort into resolving this!

I worked with the front desk to determine if there was any way to have the tickets re-issued, or even canceled and re-purchased. Unfortunately, because I had purchased the tickets in person, there was no way to handle this over the phone. I took a taxi back into Dusseldorf, to see if I could work with the ticket office in person and get somewhere. However, they gave me the same story - because I purchased the tickets in person (and not over the internet), they can't help. The tickets are essentially viewed as "cash". I then went back to the old hotel to search the room myself -but no luck.

On Monday, I opened a case with my Credit Card company, but they felt that I likely had no recourse with them either as my company credit card doesn't have "personal effects insurance." Interesting.. At this point I felt strongly that the tickets had in fact been stolen from my bags while they were in storage. I asked the Director at my current hotel to see what he could do.

Well, yesterday they were "mysteriously found", and returned! This was my last day before I had to leave, and I was just about to re-purchase all the tickets....as I say, it always works out!

Aside from the ticket story, my week was mostly filled with FOOD FOOD and MORE FOOD! (oh and beer and wine..:) I don't think I can eat anymore - I'm permanently stuffed! I didn't have the Porc Knuckle (wow), however.

Currently, I'm on a high speed train down to just outside of Frankfurt. The hotel looks interesting. And tomorrow night.....overnight to Budapest!

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