Here’s the sitrep. We got into Torino last afternoon, checked into our hotel, and dove into work. We checked out several bookshops—including that of Bourlot, tucked away in a quiet pillared arcade off of San Carlo Square, where antique meets antiquarian: the building is 500 years old! I also took the opportunity to check our SIM at the local Vodafone kiosk, a proper one this time, where they told me there was nothing they could do and that I should take the phone to the Apple store nearby. As the clouds darkened and it began to rain, I proceeded down a quiet street with a small café to one side, and a piazza on the other with some important museum on one end. I went into the Apple store—which was no more than a tiny retail store with a meagre selection of Apple products (basically your typical Apple store minus the square-footage). The agent looked at the phone, asked me where I got it, and after I told him it was Canadian he looked at me and say that iPhones are impossible to travel with in Europe. He said that there was always the possibility of hacking the phone—of course, he wasn’t able to do it, working for Apple. Jamal—what have we done?
After checking a few more map shops, we walked back along one of the major streets of central Torino, via Po, which stretches from the central square and the Palazza Madama down through the Vittorio Veneto square out to the Po River, and across it to this lovely domed church in the fashion of Rome’s Pantheon—behind which climb the foothills from which this region of Italy, Piemonte, gets its name.
We bought some fancy shoes at a local shoe store, then continued walking past the Madama palace to a large buffet-style restaurant (where they cook whatever you like before your eyes), and we enjoyed a small dinner overlooking a medium-sized piazza with large trees down the centre.
After dinner we strolled back to our hotel where Shahram suddenly discovered his wallet was missing! After searching the room and all his pockets for potential locations, we realized it was truly gone. I hurried back to the restaurant, retracing our steps along the way, to see if the wallet had been turned in there. However, the cashier said they had seen nothing—and checking where we had sat for dinner and with the woman currently sitting there—nothing.
Upon my return to the hotel, we spent the rest of the evening (and into the early hours of the morning) calling various credit card agencies. This included a hurried trip to the train station next door to try to make a collect call to Canada, which failed repeatedly despite the recipient’s assurance that they would accept the charges. Finally, we wrapped up this calling spree and emailing spree at about 1:00 AM, with plans to pick up a replacement American Express card in Frankfurt next Tuesday (AMEX apparently is not getting along well with their Italian office!).
At the moment, we’re about to settle down to a nice salad at this café. All we’ve done today so far is visit a few bookstores and check in again at the restaurant to see if anything had turned up overnight (which nothing had). Until next time,
Arrivederci,
Richard
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