TIM

Our mission for Wednesday was to buy Italian SIM cards. I had tried to buy one on Tuesday, but the guy in the store said I needed my passport. So Wednesday we returned to TIM, which is one of the main three carriers in Italy (the others are WIND and Vodafone). I was looking for just a SIM card that would make phone calls, but one of their offers was TIM YOUNG. Basically, I pay 9 euro a month for 1GB of internet and 1000 texts. Outgoing calls are 12 cents a minute, but to receive anything is free. Compared to American companies, it's a steal!

Well, the three guys in the phone store are our new best friends. I only know one by name: Jacopo. He helped me set up my phone. They are quintessentially Italian. Handsome, friendly, funny... At one point I mentioned that I am Italian-American, and one of the guys asked which region of Italy. When I responded "Puglia," his eyes lit up, and he said, "Ma, io sono di Puglia!". As it turns out, Jacopo was from Puglia as well! They of course had to argue over which area was better, Lecce or Bari.

After activating our phones, Grace and I headed to get gelato. We stopped at the same shop, and I had melon and peach. Then we walked down Via Zamboni, where the majority of the University buildings are. We were looking for the University Store, but it was closed.

At the apartment, I went onto the TIM website to register my phone. I made a quick call to what I thought was an information number. When I checked my balance, only 2.80 euro remained from my 5 euro balance! Since my phone call was about 8 seconds, I had a hard time believing it cost 12 cents. This whole situation stressed me out, because I couldn't understand any of the information on the website. Grace decided that we needed to get out of the apartment, so we walked back to Piazza Maggiore.

We had dinner at a place right off the piazza. The food was just ok. I'm still looking for exquisite food here, but I have yet to find it. Since we didn't want to return to the apartment to face the daunting task of looking for housing, Grace and I sat in the piazza and attempted to do some puzzles from a British newspaper. The puzzles were way too difficult (probably because they contained too many regional references), so we gave up and headed back.

At the apartment, we started to look online at housing options. It's a very stressful thing to do. We are already on the second day of searching and so far we have zero solid offers.

Today we went back to the TIM store to figure out why I had been charged so much money. Apparently, the number I called was a very expensive information guide! They answered a few more questions and when we left, I said "Speriamo di non ritornare domani!" Our friends countered that, telling us that we definitely should come back tomorrow! We'll see.

After the whole phone debaucle, we went to a bookstore that was supposed to be air conditioned. Nope. The 104 degree heat is really unpleasant, especially when there's no break from it. So we walked to a cafe in the Jewish section (It wasn't a Jewish cafe though -- don't worry, Mom, no matzo for me!). Our program coordinator sent us an email of places to cool off, and this cafe was on the list. No air conditioning there, either. It seems the only places that have it are clothing stores.

Our apartment search continues. Tonight we are going to go see a free orchestral concert near the university.

The middle of a looooooong wall of apartment listings

My mediocre tortellini and "pancetta"

Piazza Maggiore