Welcome in the United States...?

Only Murphy could have expected that we would have so much to say already on day 2 of our trip. Indeed: everything that COULD go wrong, went wrong. Or at least, the worst case scenario happened.
Back in Amsterdam, with the divers needed for my (Linekes) research still safely in my backpack, we informed the lady at the luggage check in about the suspicious looking divers in my backpack. She called a few people and with the divers in our checked-in luggage there would be no problem. Indeed, when we arrived in Philadelpia, my backpack was still safely packed inside its flight bag, nothing happened. But in Seattle, the first thing I noticed when the bag came off the conveyor belt was that the flight bag had been opened up a bit. I took a closer look and noticed that my backpack was open, zippers were loose and my stuff came partly out of the bag. Another close look learned that the divers... were gone. Eleven of them, about 750 euros each. EACH!!!
There we stood, after a trip of more than 24 hours. We went to the US Airways luggage centre immediately, ofcourse. But unfortunately, one of the most braindead, but at the same time most self confident person you can imagine tried to help us. Really nervewrecking... After answering all kinds of useless questions we could go, nothing they could do for us anymore.
In the hotel I discovered that also my toilet bag was missing. No teath brushing! Smelly armpits! Lost jewelry! Stupid *&*$^#&!!! I thought it would be my jetlag that would keep me awake that night, but it were the worries about the lost properties...
The next day (today) we spent most of the day calling to all kinds of services, to try to detect the lost divers. But nobody could tell us much more than to just fill in forms and wait. Frustrating: why not check whether something I describe has been found? Would save a lot of worries already... We even went to the Dutch consulate, but unfortunately there would be no one there until Tuesday...
The last place we went was the local police office, to report the missing items just for insurance reasons. We were not looking forward to this moment; we expected some doughnut eating, ignorant and bored police officer. How different can the truth be from the stereotype! The officer was actually the first person that really listened to us, confirmed that we had the right to be angry (you should blow them away with claims!) and brought us in contact with a police officer in the area of the airport (strangely enough this was already another district than Seattle itself and we needed an officer who worked in that area). This police officer again listened very carefully and said to us he would try to contact Philadelphia airport himself. Hopefully this will work!!!

The bright side of all this: we have seen all sides of Seattle now, even the sides you would normally not see (police office, consulate) and we met some really nice people on our way. For instance that nice police officer and the hotel staff. Apart from people working at security services at airports, Americans are really friendly and honestly interested!
Also, facing problems together makes you only appreciate the company of your loved one even more. Although we know nothing more about the divers nor my toilet bag, it has been a great and cosy day. The weather was beautiful, we had a nice dinner with a view on the sunset at the beach of Seattle... Super great!!! Tomorrow we will go to Moscow, Idaho despite the fact we did not find the divers yet. We will just see what happens, and hopefully some people from the university can help us out a bit more.

Sorry I could not keep the story a bit shorter!

Greetings and love,
Lineke (and Jan ofcourse!)

for pictures, check: http://picasaweb.google.com/linienjan