<p>Never trust hotel safes. More than once I had trouble opening it with my combinations. The front desk sent someone up and was able to open it very quickly. These are high end hotels.
I’d rather lock valuables in my suitcase and I take a special non-TSA lock with me for this purpose.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why foreign hotels always take your passport. It seems like if they lose it you are in big trouble.</p>
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<p>In some places, there may be requirements to record visitors by passport. But they seem to be fine with a copy of the passport data page.</p>
<p>Recently I returned from a trip to Paris, where I have heard there is trouble with pickpockets. Met nothing but kindness there, despite being alone on the Metro with far too much luggage a few times-helping D bring stuff home. No problems, and D has had no problems during her year in France. </p>
<p>I did notice that most women had cross body bags in Paris, as I did as well, and can’t imagine letting it leave my body for a moment. For the most part, my arm was on top of it in any crowd.</p>
<p>I have been diligent in some settings that I knew we’re trouble spots
It has been a hard reality for my husband to absorb that the city he loves and equates to " home " has been transforming into a climate that is radically different than the one he grew up with
I know how his family and friends feel about the changes that have come because of the policies of the well meaning powers that be
Not a problem exclusive to Western Europe at all
Just hard and sad to swallow</p>
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<p>This is a euphemism for “it was the gypsies”.</p>
<p>My S was pickpocketed twice in Barcelona, and at least once it appears to have been gypsy children.</p>
<p>He was at an ATM in a busy public commercial/tourist area (Plaza Catalunya) in broad daylight. As he hit the buttons to get the money, two young girls came up to him waving a clipboard in his face asking him to sign something about disabled kids. He knew this was wrong and shooed them away. After waiting about 15 seconds for his money to come out of the ATM, he realized they had grabbed it already when his view was blocked by the clipboard. He turned to look for them and they had already vanished into the crowd (he was near a subway station entrance.) When we went to visit him a few weeks later he showed us the ATM, and sure enough there were some kids hanging around with clipboards. I STARED at them, they got nervous and left. I asked him if he reported it and he said there was no point. The police just don’t care about petty theft.</p>
<p>Just before he came home from the semester he was with 2 friends in a sports bar near Las Ramblas watching a soccer game. As he came out, some local boys jostled them and began kicking their feet as if to imitate a soccer game, in a friendly way. S laughed, kicked back and headed up the street. His friend jokingly said, “Check your pockets” and sure enough, his wallet was gone. Furious, he turned around and began screaming at the teens. They laughed, threw his wallet to the middle of the street and took off running. When he retrieved it, all his cash and his transit card were gone - but at least he still had his debit card (he only carried either his debit or his credit card, never both at the same time, for just this reason).</p>
<p>One of his friends had his laptop stolen out of his backpack on a subway in Paris. S used small TSA luggage locks on his backpack, and if he couldn’t lean with his back against the wall of the train he took it off and put it at his feet with his ankle hooked through the strap.</p>
<p>D saw someone attempt to pickpocket another student her first day on a study abroad trip in Istanbul. She carried a cross-body purse (usually under her coat) and limited the amount of cash she carried, and didn’t have any trouble.</p>
<p>To clarify yesterday’s post, “walking with a NY stride and NY face” does mean to call attention to yourself so you stand out in a crowd, I meant that you know how to walk briskly through a crowd or if need be, shove someone attempting to pickpocket you. This was the case with a friend’s husband on the Madrid subway. They were there to visit their daughter in a summer study,he felt himself being jostled and shoved the guy and stared him down plus yelled at him. He happened to yell at him in French which might have confused him more. In the Barcelona subway, I told a bunch of backpackers gathered around the subway wall map to beware of a group that I could tell were sizing them up as potential targets. </p>
<p>As for me the only time I was ever pickpocketed was on the Madison Avenue bus going to the Whitney Museum of Art about thirty years ago. The bus was crowded, I felt my bag being pulled and sure enough my wallet was lifted. The police told me the Fifth Avenue & Madison Avenue buses were heavily targeted because of the concentrated crowd of primarily female and primarily older shoppers. I didn’t have that much cash… but my commuter rail ticket was a big deal as I had to buy a replacement for the month.</p>
<p>theft can happen anywhere.</p>
<p>My uncle had his pocket picked in St Peter’s Square (Vatican). A former co-worker who is a Manhattan native (has NEVER lived off the island, even went to NYU undergrad/grad), had her tote bag slashed on the subway and her wallet taken and she didn’t realize it until she got to the office.</p>
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<p>Given how strong the bigotry against Romani is in many places, would it be surprising if non-Romani thieves adopted theft methods used by Romani thieves, so that the police and others would automatically go blaming the wrong suspects?</p>
<p>As a traveler, you probably want to watch out for the theft techniques to protect yourself against all thieves, rather than adopt the typical racist attitudes against Romani that would not protect you against non-Romani thieves while causing you to be unnecessarily concerned about Romani non-thieves (if you can tell who is or is not Romani in the first place).</p>
<p>A friend of my dd’s had her laptop stolen underneath her fingers. She was working at an outside cafe when a motorcycle pulled up, the passenger grabbed the laptop and off they went.</p>