Unfortunately, all was not pristine in Italy during B2B. First, in Taormina, we fell for a simple scam. A street merchant was selling little "puppets" of various Disney characters that seemed to dance to the music from a boom box. We foolishly paid 5 euros for a dancing Winnie the Pooh for my sister. He checked it out to make sure it worked. When we got home, no dice. I checked the instructions to find out that these are simple "puppets" which you slide on a thread to make them appear to dance. Total production costs maybe 15 cents. We also saw these for sale in Rome; make sure not to fall for the same scam as we did.

Today, checking my account on line, I saw that three ATM transactions were made in Milan on Thursday; a week after we left Europe. Both cards are still in our possession so the perpetrator had to get number and PIN from one of my ATM transactions in Europe and then make a card. This probably happened at the machine in Venice which did not work properly (although it could have been at any of the other machines, too). Be careful. I don't think I could have avoided having the numbers stolen (I never used card for purchase or gave it to anyone to hold) but it is critical to watch after your return. Now, I get to see how hard it is to have the funds reinstated. :(