Well I am back from Spain. I took a huge amount of photos, unfortunately, I made the mistake of checking my luggage on the flight back. As a result instead of a lot of interesting (at least to me) photos of renewable energy usage in Spain, we have the following story of theft instead. The only pictures to survive were in the last of 4 SD cards that was in my camera which I carried on my person. I will post those photos here soon.
Upon arriving in Chicago, I found that my luggage had been rifled through, packages opened and everything small and valuable had dissappeared, including the 3 SD cards containing the pictures and video from most of the trip. I checked the luggage at Barajas airport in Madrid with the items in tact as I had packed the luggage personnally and it had not left my possession until checked. I found them to be missing upon picking up the luggage in Chicago. Actually, I had picked up the luggage and returned to my home, but again the luggage had not left my possession since picking it up.
I am fairly certain that the items never made it onto the plane in Madrid based upon the way in which the bag was obviously searched, and the timing. I took British Airways flight 7444 from Madrid to London. Realistically, the only place there would have been time to have gone through the bag the way it was was in Madrid.
I connected through London, but with only an hour between the flights, and re-screening they would have been hard pressed just to screen and get the baggage onto the plane, let alone open all of my packages and camera bag. I am still trying to absolutely verify this at this time however. The connection was from flight 7444 to United Flight 91
I believe that it did not happen in Chicago, in that customs clearance was quick, and I grabbed the bags as they immediately came out of the holder. Basically I walked off of the plane over and picked up the bags. Based on my observation, and contacts/investigation in Chicago which I won't detail here, I am basically very certain that it did not occur from the plane to baggage pick up there.
Obviously, at this point, I should not have checked any items of value. Given my occupation, which some of you know, I feel very stupid about all of this. I thought I had been very careful. I had taken everyting as carry on on the way there. My plan was to only have carry on luggage for the trip. I had been forced to check my small rolling suitcase on the second leg of the trip to Madrid at Charles DeGaul Airport in Paris, but nothing bad had happened there. I had read horror stories about the world famous pick-pockets in Spain on their Metro system. In fact we met a British lady who had been pick pocketed but I was vigilent, and nothing bad happened regarding pick pocketing. I did have to fight off some punks in Cordoba who tried to wrestle my camera from me, but this was largely because I had been filming them fighting at the big festival at Cordoba. Something that I would advise tourists in any part of the world to be careful about as from my experience criminals don't like being filmed very much, and will generally endeavor to destroy the evidence. I had tried to give the video to local authorities but I gathered that they had bigger issues and were generally uninterested. (I thought it was a very useful video since some of the workers had been assaulted) Anyway, that could have happened in any country, and I kept my camera, and was uninjured. When we were leaving the country I was feeling more relaxed, as nothing bad had happened, and I was exited about the video and photos (6 gigabytes) I had obtained related to all sorts of subjects, including renewable energy. I checked the baggage for the return flight, and the rest is, well, history.
losses: One HP5455 PDA with charging cradle and leather case
San Disk 2GB SD Card
San Disk 1GB SD Card
1GB SD Card, not San Disk, another reputable brand
one multiple format memory card reader and USB Cable
one canon 400sd charger for NB-4L battery (fortunately I had the camera)
one Motorola v400 cell phone with charger
about 20 Euros in coins I was going to show people and give to friends here
All in all, probably originally cost about a thousand bucks US for this stuff, taken after check in for flight 7444 from Madrid to London operated by British Airways on June 1st 2006 and before pickup from the connected American Airlines flight 91 from London to Chicago. I suspect the thief(s) is very happy with himself. It really burns me that the criminal is prospering from this.
In Summary, instead of photos of a couple of large wind farms, several solar voltaic installations, some detailed photos of a typical solar hot water installation, of which I found to be not too uncommon, uses of solar for signs and parking meter boxes, that were stolen from us all, we have this long winded rant from an unhappy traveller instead. Richard Hagen
