The other day Larry and I decide to get out of town and take the train to the beach community on the Adriatic directly east, San Benedetto. Now when someone says “go to the beach” to me, I’m in my swimsuit sunscreen in hand ready to enjoy the sun and sand. When I asked Larry whether he wanted to wear his swimsuit or carry it, I was informed this was just a scouting trip. Somewhat deflated I had him promise we could at least have a long relaxed seafood lunch by the ocean. We get an early start, grab our cappuccino and cornetto at our now favorite cafe, and walk to the bus stop to look for a bus to the train station. It is not obvious which bus goes to the train station, so Larry (in his improving daily Italian) asks a sweet old lady if the #1 bus goes to the station. She said yes, but in a round-about way. We figured great, a free tour – and it was. However, we never saw the train station and got a sinking feeling when we realized we were the only passengers left on the bus and the driver just go off and disappeared. Clearly we were at the end of the line and in a town somewhere in the outskirts of Ascoli that we never heard of. So we wait for the driver to return from his shopping and do what we should have done in the beginning, ask the driver which is the bus to the train station. He tells us that bus will be along in 40 minutes, so we sit on the wall and wait. Also remembering that if you are in doubt and ask the driver, he’ll also let you know when to get off. (No, they do not have signs or recorded announcements on the buses to let you know upcoming stops.) Lesson learned, but we now walk to the train station because it’s faster. Mind you the bus only gets as close as two blocks from the station, which is why we missed it before. We were expecting the bus to pull up to or at least within sight of the station....

A lot has happened and we haven’t been in town two weeks yet. It is Thursday of our second week and we applied for a checking account at BNL nine working days ago. Busy with the whole apartment thing, we had managed to stay out of the bank an entire week to let them work it out. Having received no phone call, as promised, Larry is beside himself. We get the fact that they need to be sure we are not terrorists or money laundering, but it’s just a checking account! Thursday morning we dress to impress and go into the bank. We walk into the office of one of the gentlemen that helped us the first day. He looks at us sheepishly and says he still has not heard anything from Rome (which we translate into no one wanted to be the one to tell us the bad news). At this point it seems we are asking for something “outside the box” and no one in this office has the authority to act independently. He honestly feels bad he can’t make it happen. We tell him we will just have to go to another bank, and he agrees that is probably the best course. Well now Larry is really worried wondering what bank to start over with. I mentioned before that we aren’t particularly religious but as we are walking through the Piazza del Popolo that day the door to the Church of Saint Frances is open and Larry decides we should go in. We had planned to tour the 26 churches in the city once we had “business” done, but had not stepped foot in a single one of them until now. Coincidence? I wonder. That afternoon we had an appointment with Cinzia V., to sign some paperwork and we explain our dilemma and ask if she has any suggestions where we might try next. She makes a couple phone calls and in walks a nice friend of Cinzia’s who speaks English and works for Pfizer. Then the four of us walk to the Bank of Rome (UniCredit/Banca di Roma) across Piazza Roma and into the office of the Regional Manager. Cinzia begins to explain what we...