>>>>>This is very good. I agree; money and credit card can be and will be replaced. I am sure she learned the lesson of being more accurate with valuables in Europe. Where I grew up pick pocketing was a very common thing. And still is in most European countries.
>>>>
>>>>Really ?
>>>
>>>Every time I visit a European country (almost every year and these are western European countries), the local guides always warn everybody to watch for pickpockets. Last year we landed in Amsterdam and on the train from the airport to the hotel started talking to a woman (very nice elder woman who actually lived in Boston for a couple of years and had very good command of the English language). At the end of the conversation she says in not so many words "be careful of pickpocktes; they are many of them here".
>>>If you talk to many Americans who traveled to Europe they will tell you of personal stories of being pickpocketed.
>>>Oh.. just ask Mike Beane :)
>>
>>Might have to do with behaviour differences of american tourists compared to american biz visitors. Heard no complaints from them, and I do know some outside the fox circles ;-)
>
>I agree that tourists and biz visitors act differently. But if there were no pickpockets, it wouldn't matter ;)

Hard to argue with 2nd sentence, but think of it as local spice, similar to drastically higher chances of meeting stray bullets if entering ***some*** parts of the US.