I was up really early this morning, probably around 0400hrs, something like that, and it's all to do with jet lag. I got up and messed around on the computer and then phoned home, even managed a bit of Face Time on the iphone. All good. I had a hearty breakfast, much needed, and then I walked across the bridge (there are lots of bridges in Pittsburgh, incidentally) and into the downtown where there was a junior 'fun run' of 5K. Streets were closed off to traffic, there was cheering, the military was involved (as participants) it was all very upbeat.
I went in search of a Starbucks, somewhere to chill for a bit, although, to be honest, I'd already been chilling in the hotel's breakfast room so I didn't really need any more down time. Today was my first day in Pittsburgh and officially my 'day off' so I considered going out to Kennywood, a theme park, just for the hell of it. There's a movie, Adventureland, that my daughter and I have watched a couple of times and, well, I went there to get her a tee-shirt. I could have taken a cab, but that would have cost me money so I took the bus, the 61C, which took me through a decidedly dodgy area called Homestead. On the bus I decided it was best policy to keep myself to myself and not catch anybody's eye, but all was fine and when I reached the park I wandered around, took a few photographs and, of course, bought the tee-shirt.
The journey back was, like the journey out, a little edgy, but all was fine and soon the bus found itself in 'civilisation', or Oakland, to be precise, a place I'd visited before, staying in a hotel called the Quality Inn, it's probably still there, close to a Panera Bread outlet where I tried (and enjoyed) my first ever Bear's Claw (it's a pastry). The Quality Inn didn't really live up to its name; it was, shall we say, a little 'down at heel', but the people who worked there were good. I remember that there was a couple arguing in the room next to mine and I recall expecting to hear gunshots and the sound of somebody fleeing the scene, but again, I was letting my imagination run away with me.
When I got back to my room at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square I was tired out and it was only 5pm so I decided to lie down on the bed and fall asleep, which I did, fully clothed. I awoke around 11pm and considered just changing, or rather taking my clothes off, cleaning my teeth and going back to bed. Alternatively, I thought, I could go on the lap top and write something, like I'm doing now, except that I'm writing this from the ground floor on the hotel's 'business centre' computer. I decided to write and not sleep and went to retrieve my lap top from the safe, except it wasn't there and nor was my passport. I called and then paid a visit to the front desk and then checked out what I was supposed to do online. I've cancelled my passport now and I've called 911. That's a first for me, calling 911, but apparently, here in the USA, that's what you do when you're passport's been stolen or, I suppose, if anything's been stolen. Anyway, after a while three cops turn up, nice guys, and took a few details. Apparently this hotel, the Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square had issues with room theft in the past, but they thought they'd solved the problem by installing a key card locking system. There's been no problems, I'm told, for around five years... until now.
I'm trying to figure out how it happened, whether whoever stole my belongings accessed the room while I was asleep (I hadn't put the latch on) or whether they got busy while I was swanning around Kennywood. The police reckon it's the latter and they should know. So I've had to cancel my passport, which is annoying and I don't have a lap top anymore, which is also annoying and a shame as I loved that Chromebook, I really did.
Right now it's 0159hrs and I'm wide awake. The police have been and gone and now there's nothing much left to do other than wait for the morning when I can talk to a Candace Dearolf, the front office manager.
They say there's a first time for everything and this is the first time I've ever had anything stolen from me in a hotel room, and I've stayed in a lot of hotels all around the world. I've left my lap top on the desk in the room, in virtually every hotel I've stayed in. I kind of trust the hotel because I figure that only the housekeeping teams have access to the rooms without having to break in; and because this is known, they're not going to risk prosecution and losing their jobs by stealing from the guests, but it happens and now here it is in black and white.
Later, and having spoken to Candace Dearolf I'm none the wiser. They're going to run over the data that tells them who has had access to my room and, I guess, get back to me. In the meantime I'm starting to get a little angry about the whole thing. I've lost my passport and my laptop and the British Consultate in Pittsburgh is completely out to lunch. I've left them SIX voicemail messages and they've not responded. So remember that if you ever find yourself in dire straits in Pittsburgh. I'll keep you all updated as and when, or even IF something happens, but I think I can kiss goodbye to both my lap top and my passport for good, although I've now cancelled my passport so I'm not expecting it to turn up and if it did it, would be useless.
But it did turn up and so did the lap top. Details have now emerged of what actually happened and it goes like this: a hotel guest approaches the front desk of the hotel and complains that the safe in his room is locked and he can't access it. The person working behind the front desk asks the man for his room number and he, unwittingly, not thinking straight, gives my room number. The hotel didn't think to question this or even ask him to repeat it, they simply accepted that the room number he had given was the right one. They were wrong. So a hotel engineer is sent to my room and when he gets there he finds a locked safe, just like the man downstairs had said. He opens the safe and finds my laptop and passport and smartly takes them out of the safe and downstairs to another safe on the understanding that they belong to the room's previous occupant and that's why the man downstairs was complaining. But he was wrong. He was not in the man downstair's room, he was in my room and he had taken my laptop and my passport from the safe where I had placed it.
Candace broke the news to me in a confusing and chaotic email and it soon dawned on me that I had cancelled my passport and had no documentation to take me home to London on 10 May when I'm scheduled to fly back. So now things are looking really bad. Through no fault of my own, my passport had been 'stolen' along with my laptop and suddenly I have both items back in my possession, but one of them (my passport) is totally useless.
I need to act fast. What do I need to do to get home? The answer is I have to travel to New York to the British Consulate to get myself an emergency travel document, but first I need to go online to get it booked and arrange a meeting with the Consulate prior to getting the document. I organise this, pay £100 online and then fix a date and time of Friday 10 May at 11 o'clock. Now all I've got to do is get to New York, but how? I won't be allowed to use a plane without a passport so what the hell can I do? One suggestion is to hire a car, drive to Erie and then catch a train to New York. Sounds like a plan, but surely there are other options. Yes, there are, thanks to a work colleague: he suggests a Greyhound bus to Philadelphia and then a train to New York. Not bad, I think, but there's more: how about a train all the way from Pittsburgh to New York? Now that's more like it and it departs at 0730hrs and takes around 11 hours to reach the Big Apple. Job done, I think. I mosey on up to the train station, but it doesn't open until 1800hrs. When I eventually go back there's no queue and I buy a business class ticket to New York on the Pennsylvanian, but when I hand the man behind the desk my credit card he says it's not working. "Shall I use the cash machine?" He says yes, so I draw out the money, hand him the cash and he gets to work. "The machine appears to be busted," he says. "You'll have to come back tomorrow." So that's what I plan to do, but the money I'm spending on this is getting silly and none of it is my fault. I've spent £100 on emergency travel documentation, £122 on a train to New York and I'm shortly going to spend £100 on changing my booking from a flight from Pittsburgh to London to a flight from New York to London. On my return home I'll need another passport (urgently) and that's going to set me back around £140 and that little lot adds up to £462. And that's not to mention the numerous phone calls to the UK passport office and to home, explaining the problem and figuring out what to do.
So now I'm back in my hotel room. I'm going to have to go back to the Amtrak ticket office tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6pm to get my ticket. Hopefully, by then, the ticket office machine will be working and I'll get my ride. Silently, I thanked the Lord that I was not going to be on a Greyhound bus. Earlier in the day I'd heard stories about them and the sort of people that one finds on them. Because it's so cheap, it attracts the low-lifes of this world, just like everything else, and the thought of sitting next to some nutter who might have a gun was a little concerning.
I had dinner with a colleague at Eddie Merlot's at 444 Liberty Avenue - and I didn't like it one bit, especially the name. Nothing appealed, it was all burgers and fish and alcohol and it made me feel, not sick, but bloated and awful, so I opted for a baked potato and a bottle of Pellegrino and later turned down what I knew would be a gooey, over-sized dessert. Not great. I parted with my colleague at the top of Stanwix Street and walked the 22-minute walk home along Fort Pitt Boulevard on the river bank and then over the Smithfield Bridge.
And here I sit thinking about going to bed and getting a decent night's sleep. My eyes are feeling heavy and I need a good night's sleep as tomorrow, the President's Breakfast awaits me. In fact, I need to set my alarm and ensure that it wakes me.
 |
| I took a day trip to Kennywood, aka Adventureland |
The journey back was, like the journey out, a little edgy, but all was fine and soon the bus found itself in 'civilisation', or Oakland, to be precise, a place I'd visited before, staying in a hotel called the Quality Inn, it's probably still there, close to a Panera Bread outlet where I tried (and enjoyed) my first ever Bear's Claw (it's a pastry). The Quality Inn didn't really live up to its name; it was, shall we say, a little 'down at heel', but the people who worked there were good. I remember that there was a couple arguing in the room next to mine and I recall expecting to hear gunshots and the sound of somebody fleeing the scene, but again, I was letting my imagination run away with me.
When I got back to my room at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square I was tired out and it was only 5pm so I decided to lie down on the bed and fall asleep, which I did, fully clothed. I awoke around 11pm and considered just changing, or rather taking my clothes off, cleaning my teeth and going back to bed. Alternatively, I thought, I could go on the lap top and write something, like I'm doing now, except that I'm writing this from the ground floor on the hotel's 'business centre' computer. I decided to write and not sleep and went to retrieve my lap top from the safe, except it wasn't there and nor was my passport. I called and then paid a visit to the front desk and then checked out what I was supposed to do online. I've cancelled my passport now and I've called 911. That's a first for me, calling 911, but apparently, here in the USA, that's what you do when you're passport's been stolen or, I suppose, if anything's been stolen. Anyway, after a while three cops turn up, nice guys, and took a few details. Apparently this hotel, the Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square had issues with room theft in the past, but they thought they'd solved the problem by installing a key card locking system. There's been no problems, I'm told, for around five years... until now.
I'm trying to figure out how it happened, whether whoever stole my belongings accessed the room while I was asleep (I hadn't put the latch on) or whether they got busy while I was swanning around Kennywood. The police reckon it's the latter and they should know. So I've had to cancel my passport, which is annoying and I don't have a lap top anymore, which is also annoying and a shame as I loved that Chromebook, I really did.
Right now it's 0159hrs and I'm wide awake. The police have been and gone and now there's nothing much left to do other than wait for the morning when I can talk to a Candace Dearolf, the front office manager.
They say there's a first time for everything and this is the first time I've ever had anything stolen from me in a hotel room, and I've stayed in a lot of hotels all around the world. I've left my lap top on the desk in the room, in virtually every hotel I've stayed in. I kind of trust the hotel because I figure that only the housekeeping teams have access to the rooms without having to break in; and because this is known, they're not going to risk prosecution and losing their jobs by stealing from the guests, but it happens and now here it is in black and white.
 |
| After a stressful 48 hours and not much sleep, I needed a breakfast treat! |
But it did turn up and so did the lap top. Details have now emerged of what actually happened and it goes like this: a hotel guest approaches the front desk of the hotel and complains that the safe in his room is locked and he can't access it. The person working behind the front desk asks the man for his room number and he, unwittingly, not thinking straight, gives my room number. The hotel didn't think to question this or even ask him to repeat it, they simply accepted that the room number he had given was the right one. They were wrong. So a hotel engineer is sent to my room and when he gets there he finds a locked safe, just like the man downstairs had said. He opens the safe and finds my laptop and passport and smartly takes them out of the safe and downstairs to another safe on the understanding that they belong to the room's previous occupant and that's why the man downstairs was complaining. But he was wrong. He was not in the man downstair's room, he was in my room and he had taken my laptop and my passport from the safe where I had placed it.
Candace broke the news to me in a confusing and chaotic email and it soon dawned on me that I had cancelled my passport and had no documentation to take me home to London on 10 May when I'm scheduled to fly back. So now things are looking really bad. Through no fault of my own, my passport had been 'stolen' along with my laptop and suddenly I have both items back in my possession, but one of them (my passport) is totally useless.
 |
| Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square |
So now I'm back in my hotel room. I'm going to have to go back to the Amtrak ticket office tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6pm to get my ticket. Hopefully, by then, the ticket office machine will be working and I'll get my ride. Silently, I thanked the Lord that I was not going to be on a Greyhound bus. Earlier in the day I'd heard stories about them and the sort of people that one finds on them. Because it's so cheap, it attracts the low-lifes of this world, just like everything else, and the thought of sitting next to some nutter who might have a gun was a little concerning.
I had dinner with a colleague at Eddie Merlot's at 444 Liberty Avenue - and I didn't like it one bit, especially the name. Nothing appealed, it was all burgers and fish and alcohol and it made me feel, not sick, but bloated and awful, so I opted for a baked potato and a bottle of Pellegrino and later turned down what I knew would be a gooey, over-sized dessert. Not great. I parted with my colleague at the top of Stanwix Street and walked the 22-minute walk home along Fort Pitt Boulevard on the river bank and then over the Smithfield Bridge.
And here I sit thinking about going to bed and getting a decent night's sleep. My eyes are feeling heavy and I need a good night's sleep as tomorrow, the President's Breakfast awaits me. In fact, I need to set my alarm and ensure that it wakes me.
