The AirTag Saga

This story starts in Spain on May 4, 2024

Here is my blog from then. Feel free to skip to the present day if you know the story from last year.

Me Roberon la maleta en el tren

OK, It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last couple days. I’m writing this on May 4th at 8pm. (Happy Star Wars Day!).

As I was writing the last blog while sitting on the train, someone was stealing my suitcase from the overhead shelf above me. As we were pulling out of the station at Sant Celoni (about 1/2 way from Barcelona to Girona). He reached up behind us when we were not looking and grabbed the bag and stepped off the train. I got a notification on my phone that my bag was no longer with me. Huh! I looked up and sure enough the bag was not with me. I’ve read to not put stuff up there as it is so easy to grab and get off the train leaving the owners on the train. I looked on my FindMy app and sure enough the bag was just outside the train station.

Maaan! I feel so stupid! We got off the train at the next station which was 30 minutes later. We talked to the lady at the train station and the next train wasn’t for another 30 minutes. She called a taxi for us but he was even longer. The bag wasn’t moving so we decided to go back for it. It was only 2 pm so we had lots of time.

By the time we got back to Sant Celoni the bag had started moving again – this time down to Barcelona. We have been able to watch it take a different adventure from us over the last day. For the last 24 hours it has pretty much stayed put (last seen 6 minutes ago!).

The bag really only had clothes in it. All my valuables (electronics, chargers, meds, toiletries were with me in my backpack).

Remember how Colleen and I always laugh that the last 10 years, all of our travel photos have us wearing the same clothes… well – problem solved.

We spent yesterday from 4-9pm finding the mall and various stores so I could buy clothes to cycle in and some underwear and socks to wear.

I look good now!

In addition to finding clothes we visited a couple police stations (they have local and regional police and each time we talked to them we needed the other one). We finally talked to a nice police officer who was getting coffee at our hotel and she gave us great directions for tomorrow morning. In my journal from our trip to the south of France in 1985, about 100 km from here, I noted that the police were only good at giving directions then too. (We had our car broken into and our bags stolen then too!)

I guess the lesson learned is don’t bring clothes, you are going to have to buy them when you get there anyway. While Colleen, was very smug about not putting her bag on the overhead shelf on the train, we note that she is still wearing the same clothes from 1985…

Tomorrow – Cycling…

May the Forth Be With You (Girona)

May 5, 2024

Now that’s more like it.

So Yesterday was a bit of a pain. Running around trying to do a whole bunch of stuff we didn’t want to do. I had to shop… There is a reason I’m wearing the same clothes for 10 years.

Today I got up and headed to the police station by 8:30. It was only a 15 minute walk. It took about an hour to get the police report done (for insurance). No one appears to interested in going to Barcelona to get the bad guy or retrieve the bag. We’ll have to go look when we get there. I looks like it might be in a bush next to an apartment building. Maybe it’s in a dumpster.

May 9, 2024

Today was pretty much a travel day. I got up to watch the sunrise and read and then at 7:30 went down to get coffee. Now I remember a rule – don’t send the guy with Parkinson’s down to carry cups of coffee up two flights of stairs before the meds kick in.

We drank our 1/2 cups of coffee on the deck over looking the beach and then went down to have breakfast with the rest of the crew at 8:30. We left at 10:15 by taxi for 6 people, and then got on the fast train from Figuries to Barcelona, We had finally decided to rent a car in Barcelona and drive south toward Alicante. The rental place was across the street and picking up the car was easy. We got a Fiat 500.

We decided to drive over to where the AirTag has been living in the hopes that it would be somewhere we could find it. The GPS didn’t work in the 4 stories down rental car parkade, but I thought it would kick in as we pulled out of the garage. It didn’t. I pulled out of the garage into the busiest traffic (around 1 pm at the main train station). It was crazy. There was no where to pull over. There were 6 lane traffic circles with busses and motor cycles not following any particular rules. At the biggest circle I just kept going around the circle until I could figure out how to change lanes to the outside and exit the circle. I just headed north or east until I found a street I could pull over and get the GPS coordinates from the AirTag into the GPS on car play on the car.

You know the scene in every Amazing Race episode where something goes wrong (usually while driving) and one of the people in the couple is very animated and loud and the other just keeps driving because they don’t know what else to do. We always yell at the TV to just pull over and figure out where you are going. Well it may not be the easiest thing to do.

Once we got there, it was obvious the AirTag and suitcase were not on the street. I had a quick look in a couple of dumpsters but was not prepared to go wandering around low income housing by myself. Afterward I thought I should pay a teenager to go into the building and find the AirTag. Maybe when we come back next week.

Jump to present day – May 2024 – May 2025

I has been kind of fun watching the AirTag (with my bag) go on its merry way across Europe. After giving up on the bag in Barcelona, I have continued to watch it over the next year. After about 3 weeks in Barcelona, the tag got on the move. It traveled up the coast from Barcelona, mostly on the freeway. It would get a hit any time there was a truck stop. It left Spain and continued to travel North and inland, passing through Paris and finally arriving at a town called Strasbourg in around September. It was inside an apartment building at 24 Rue Marcon. In the winter some time the AirTag moved from inside the building to a spot outside. I assume the new owner of the bag got tired of the iPhone warning that there was an AirTag following them. They threw it in the bushes behind their parking spot.

There it has sat for the last 5-6 months. It is near to a little green area between bike paths. People ride or walk past quite frequently as the app says it was last seen every 30 -40 minutes. I often joked that I should hop on a plane and go look for it.

A couple weeks ago, the Amazing Race went to Strasbourg. That got me thinking again. When we were planning our way back from Greece, I found a cheep direct flight from Athens to Strasbourg. We even got it on points! So here we are in Strasbourg. The Find My app says we are about 6 km away.

This morning we went for a bike ride. We followed the Google route from the FindMy app location. This town has really embraced the bike, but the ancient infrastructure, slippery cobblestone and funny angled streets and the waterway that goes around the old city made it less than a straight ride. We rented bikes using the bike app – Velhop – only 1.2 Euros per hour.

The ride was supposed to be 30 minutes each way but all the back and forth made it about double. Google had real troubles finding a good route.

When we got to the spot, I felt like I knew the place. I have been wandering around this area for the last 6 months on Google Maps.

While I was crawling around putting my hand through the fence and using a stick to dig to where the sound was , a lady stopped and was curious to see what I was doing.

Her expression is priceless as I explained in a mixture of English, French, Spanish and “Ellie Speak” that I am here from Canada to pick up this little white circle.

Here is the conclusion of the story – video version.