How Canadian man's lost luggage ended up in Center City
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The City of Brotherly Love is going international after a Canadian man is still without his bag nearly a month following his return home. But a Philadelphia man is doing everything he can to help.
"It does feel good to do the right thing," Aaron Cook said, "and do our best to track down the individual who lost their back and get it back to them."
For Cook, it's all in a day's work that has turned into a month-long ordeal.
Cook is the manager of Parc Restaurant in Rittenhouse Square.
One day, a bag was delivered that wasn't his, an employee's or a guest's.
Instead, it was Darryl Pope's bag, but Pope had never traveled to Rittenhouse or even the United States.
"When the bag was dropped off at the restaurant, I tried to reach out to a few people who had his name on Facebook," Cook said, "and I sent a few messages to people with that name hoping they would reach out and say, 'Yes, that's my bag.'"
No one got back to him, but 1,800 miles away, Pope was writing a message in the Rittenhouse Square Neighborhood Facebook group hoping someone noticed the bag.
He knew it was in Rittenhouse Square because of an Apple AirTag he packed inside his suitcase.
Pope told CBS Philadelphia that his Facebook post was "very much a last-ditch effort."
Pope is a surveyor for offshore construction projects.
While Pope made it home flying Air Canada just before the holidays, his bag didn't.
His travels went from the Congo to Paris to Montreal and Newfoundland, but after leaving Paris, his bag went to Toronto and then to Philadelphia International Airport, and then at one point to Rittenhouse Square in Center City.
"I expected some rough travel on the way home," Pope said. "It's pretty typical around Christmas for travel to be a bit of a nightmare and I expected my bag might get lost, but I didn't think it would get this far."
"Anything I could do to help facilitate getting the bag back to its owner," Cook said, "I wanted to do what I could do."