I was robbed!

TL;DR: I am robbed in San Francisco. This somewhat longer post describes in detail the incident itself, the procedure for recovering the cards and documents, and some other events during this time.

Part 1: The robbery

It's 2 a.m. I wander around in dark, desolate San Francisco, with dead silence all around me. My wallet and cell phone have just been taken away and I don’t know the exact way home. My heart is pounding.

Thirty hours earlier, I arrive in Sacramento, the capital of California. I can stay with Dayna's stepbrother Morgan and his family. Femke, their son's girlfriend, takes me to San Francisco the next day, because this section would have been mostly a ride on the freeway. I only ride the last 50 km on my bike. I reach the city via the Golden Gate Bridge. Already on the way to Femke's apartment, San Francisco seems strangely quiet to me. The streets are almost empty, there are practically no pedestrians and very little traffic. The Victorian houses with their cute bay windows are beautiful, but many appear uninhabited and slightly dilapidated. I unload my bike at Femke’s place. She’ll accommodate me for a few nights – thank you very much!

That first night, August 25, I go out in Castro, San Francisco's queer nightlife hub. At about 1:45 a.m. I decide to go home. It’s about 2 km, should be walkable. Outside of the few nightlife hotspots, there is absolutely no one on the streets in San Francisco, including cars, I am completely alone. I don't feel particularly safe, but I dismiss the feeling. What should happen?

Shortly after an intersection, I stop and check if I'm still on track. To my right is a house wall, to my left the sidewalk. Someone comes towards me and I notice them out of the corner of my eye. Three meters in front of me, this someone pulls out a pistol and points it at me. “I’m not kidding – give me your stuff.” Definitely a male voice. He positions himself so that the wall is at my back and he is standing in front of me. The gun is aimed at my chest, only 30 cm separating me from the muzzle. He takes the cell phone out of my hand. “Give me your wallet and headphones.” I give him the items. He says again “I’m not kidding, is that all?”. I say "you can search my pockets" and he pats both pockets and then runs away.

The whole thing took less than a minute. It was a guy, probably under 40, he had a cap on and a hoodie over it. Because it was so dark, I could hardly see any features of his face. As for myself, I remained calm on the outside. Since I was in shock, I didn't feel any fear at that moment, I just did as told. The guy was very nervous so the gun was shaking, that was the worst part. I just thought, hopefully there won't be an accidental shot, hopefully not a shot... 

So here I am, in a dead corner of a foreign city at 2 a.m., disoriented and with no way to call anyone. A terrible situation. I definitely don't want to meet the guy again, so I walk into a side street. Of course, I soon don’t know anymore where I am exactly. I wander around, can't stand still, but just keep running and running. Roughly in the direction of Femke's apartment, but without knowing how far it is or whether I've even run past the area. It's dark. After the twenty longest minutes of my life, I finally meet someone and ask him where Femke’s address is. He shows me directions on the map; luckily I'm not that far from home. Five minutes later I'm there. The robber didn't notice the key. I'm safe.

Part 2: Cleaning up

Such a robbery, or a simple loss of the wallet for that matter, causes a lot of cumbersome work. Below, I describe what needed to be done until I had my cards etc. back.

The first thing I have to do immediately is blocking the cards. I ring the neighbor out of sleep and try to call my bank with his phone, but give up after 10 minutes in the loop. Then I call my parents (from my laptop) and tell them what happened. They in turn call the bank and try to block my card. However, this only works if I speak myself. So they put both the phone that is connected to me and the landline phone to speaker. This way, I talk to the bank employee via my parent’s living room. We repeat this procedure several times. After we talked about the incident in detail again, I can take a breather for the first time.

In the meantime, Femke and her roommate came home and made some nice tea. “We will help you get everything back tomorrow.” I go to sleep, which goes surprisingly well. The next morning, I assess the situation: All payment cards, ID and driver's license are gone, as well as my cell phone with the American and Swiss SIM. Luckily, I didn't have my passport with me. Losing my phone means that I can no longer log in to various places: bank accounts, WhatsApp, Telegram, health insurance, even one of my email addresses. I have no way of accessing my money right now.

Dad transfers $1,000 to Femke via PayPal, which she gives to me in cash. Femke is very kind and drives me around the city on Saturday morning. We go to the police, buy a used iPhone at BestBuy and are able replace the American SIM. Other than that, I have to wait.

On Monday, I'm going to the Swiss consulate to replace the ID. There, I am told that I have to contact the municipality where I live, currently Fehraltorf. Only they can submit an ID application to the canton; this application can then be transferred to the consulate. When I bought a US SIM in New York, I of course took the cheapest offer and can't call abroad, which is now posing a problem. So I write an email and a few days later I hear back from a cantonal office that this kind application transfer isn't possible. IDs can only be made on site in the canton of Zurich. Alright, bye ID!

In the meantime, Noah, a good friend from ETH, lent me his credit card details. To add the card to Apple Pay, he forwards me a text message that says “don’t share the message with anyone under any circumstances.” This means I can make bookings online again and can also pay with Apple Pay. 

One by one, the newly ordered cards and the replacement SIM arrive at my parents’ place in Switzerland. A week after the attack, they ship everything to California (I'm now in a town called Monterey, where I'll wait. Here, I met Ryan, who is hosting me). Mom pays an incredible 100 CHF for super express shipping, even though it's just a letter. It should arrive by Wednesday, September 6th at the latest, or rather earlier. However, the mailbox features nothing but air on Wednesday and also Thursday. What's going on here? Tracking at the Swiss Post is semi-helpful: the letter arrived at “UNITED STATES CENTRAL” on Sunday - that was quick. After that, however, it only says “Shipment has been forwarded – UNITED STATES CENTRAL”. Five times the exact same entry, then one saying “documents needed”. Apparently, there’s an issue somewhere, but what the problem is, is not clear. What kind of documents? Where is the letter exactly? The link “Tracking shipments abroad” leads to the TNT website. However, the tracking number doesn't work there. I find a phone number for TNT, but it's not reachable. God dammit! I cannot travel further without a letter. For today, I give up.

On Friday I write an email to TNT, which is never going to be answered. However, after some googling, I find out that TNT was acquired by FedEx and is now being integrated into FedEx. The tracking number doesn't work with FedEx either, but when I call them and get passed around a few times, I actually have better luck. The letter got stuck at customs and is being processed together with normal mail, which sometimes takes time. But she tells me that it has now come through. What was that again with “documents needed”? She doesn't know that either... On Saturday, finally a new message. “Shipment has been forwarded – UNITED STATES PACIFIC”. And in the evening, it says “Monterey Ship Center”. Woohoo!

The next delivery is on Monday. At one point, I'm bored and check where FedEx is in Monterey, I almost gag: one of the two ship centers is directly below me, in the same building. Why didn't I notice that earlier? My letter is most likely sitting in some closet a few meters below while I spend two more nights waiting. Isn't that absurd? When I tell Ryan about this, we both burst out laughing. It feels like all the tension of the past few days dissolves.

The last two and a half weeks have been tedious: calling around, waiting, writing emails, waiting and waiting again. I'm grateful that everything worked out in the end and, above all, that nothing physically happened to me. What do I learn from the story? I will keep at least one credit card outside my wallet in the future. If I buy a local SIM card, I also store the Swiss SIM in a safe place. Additionally, I’ll make backups more often. And as for TNT/FedEx: Sorry, 100 CHF for snail mail, that's too much.

Part 3: Other events

On Monday, September 11th I got my cards back (apart from the driver’s license, which hasn't arrived in Fehraltorf yet). Up to this point I have been constrained, but of course not completely inactive.

Despite Femke's hospitality, I no longer feel comfortable in San Francisco and leave the city three days after the attack. A colleague who worked in the lab where I did my master's thesis is now studying at Stanford, which is very close by. He offers to take me in for a while. Of course accept that happily. On the bike ride there I enter a pretty run-down area. I immediately feel unsafe again and turn around. This is a combination of two things. On the one hand, there are neighborhoods scattered all over the USA that are desolate in a way that I have never experienced in Europe. As a cyclist or pedestrian you are a bit lonely in the US anyway, and here this feeling is much intensified. No one on the streets, maybe a car drives through every now and then. Otherwise it's dead quiet. Shops are closed down, graffitied, some houses seem empty, windows broken. If something happens to you here, you are on your own. The crazy thing is that these areas sometimes begin just two or three streets away from a busy hotspot. I can't explain this sharp boundary. And: The locals know where it's fine and where it's not, but as an outsider you're lost. Even before the attack, I found myself in areas where I quickened my pace several times.

On the other hand, my experience obviously has an aftermath. I'm being a lot more careful for now. Watch out for any followers more often. I won't be going out at night for the next two weeks. Over time it subsides a little and I can enjoy the days again. But even four weeks later, I don't feel safe at night in Los Angeles and only go to the bar around the corner. I'm excited to see what it will be like in Japan. It shouldn't be a problem in busy areas.

Anyway, I'm taking the train to my colleague. He is a lodger with a quirky old lady that loves cats. Two hours after arriving she suddenly tells me that she would like to have $60 a night. This is unexpected - I should have asked better beforehand. I don't want to be ungrateful, but for $60 I can go to a hostel by the sea. Because I didn't really like the place. It's a small house, cute in principle, but the garden is completely overgrown and plants are starting to overgrow the house. And then the bathroom: a litter box occupies the bathtub, which is why it is smeared with poop. It stinks. There is scattered cat litter on the floor. No thanks. It is a mystery to me how my friend can stay there. I'm staying two nights until I planned my onward journey.

I take the bus and bike to Monterey, where I sleep in a motel and then – via Grindr – I get to know Ryan. Ryan is building a hostel in Monterey and has a bunk bed in his home office. He’ll let me live with him until the letter arrives. That's awesome, I'm deeply grateful for that. It almost feels a bit like living in a shared apartment. 

Then I take the train to Santa Barbara and cycle from there to Los Angeles, where I sell my bike. I spend a few nights in the hostel. For the last few days in America I'm staying with Jan, a friend of Dad's. They used to travel together. The sun sinks into the Pacific for the last time while the surf continually beats against the rocks. A nice ending.

Running next to the ocean - is there something more beautiful?

Cycling in California be like