I Went To Europe And It Was Okay, Part 4: Monday, December 20, 1999
12/20/2001 1:40 AM
When we checked out of the Hotel Tirreno, we decided to walk to the train station since it was so near. About halfway there, we were assaulted by about five or six small women carrying pieces of cardboard. They babbled away and jostled us, but we managed to break away with the help of a man on the street. About 30 seconds later, Patty realized "Shit! I think they were pickpockets!" We checked ourselves and found that her wallet was missing from her fanny pack.12/20/2001 1:40 AM
We tried looking around for the women, but they had disappeared in a flash. We figured out too late that the cardboard was to hide their hands while they picked pockets. Patty had about 40,000 lira in her wallet, which we wouldn't mind so much. The big problem is that they got her credit card, which we are using to finance a huge portion of the trip.
We took our luggage to the train station and put it in a locker, then we were off to find a police station. We file a report, but there is little else they can do to help us. They suggest going to the US embassy, so it's more walking for us. The embassy isn't much help either; they allow us to make some toll-free calls to the States, so we call Patty's mom. She'll try and get the credit card blocked.
We leave the embassy and it's raining. Perfect. With no where else to go, we walk back to the Hotel Tirreno. They have a room for us and are very helpful contacting banks. We manage to get a new credit card forwarded to us in Rotenburg, Germany and get a couple hundred dollars wired to one of the banks. However, the banks in Rome are closed by this time, so we have to wait until tomorrow. We still have some cash, so we are okay for the night. We walk to the train station to get our luggage and take a taxi back to the hotel.