{"id":317,"date":"2013-11-13T07:51:09","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T13:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/?p=317"},"modified":"2013-11-13T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T21:56:14","slug":"the-italian-cell-phone-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/2013\/11\/the-italian-cell-phone-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Italian Cell Phone Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last time in Italy I purchased an Italian cell phone on the hood of a taxi driver&#8217;s car on the recommendation of my driver in Positano\u2026a friend he said and a &#8220;good guy&#8221;. \u00a040 euros later I had a brand new phone with a headset and charger. \u00a0Next to the TIM store to buy a SIM and phone time. \u00a0I was set. \u00a0Well not quite. \u00a0Instructions came in Italian and I couldn&#8217;t even turn on and off the phone. \u00a0I&#8217;m limped my way through and it was good in emergencies but not the tool I imagined. \u00a0Fast forward 2 years and as I was preparing to depart for Italy I took out the phone and of course the battery was dead. \u00a0EBay to the rescue in with a new battery installed I Googled the phone brand and model and voila found a English translation of the owners manual showing me a diagram of the phone. \u00a0Now I know what the buttons do and can manage answering a call and making a call. \u00a0It&#8217;s when I don&#8217;t catch the call it goes to voicemail and then I get a message all in Italian with a number at the end. \u00a0Am I paying to get message? \u00a0How do I text and retrieve a text? Is that costing me on my calling time? \u00a0Actually I&#8217;m no more frustrated than going to the AT&amp;T store before departing to ask what to do to avoid International charges. \u00a0So when in Rome\u2026I have a cute red mobile phone so am feeling more like an Italian but wait\u2026.they all have iPhones and Droids so mine looks like a collector&#8217;s item. \u00a0By the way, the iPhone 5S was going for 795 euros for a 16GB! \u00a0Mamma mia!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_318\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-318\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_0053.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-318\" title=\"IMG_0053\" src=\"http:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_0053-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_0053-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_0053.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-318\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">My Italian Cell Phone\u2026or I should say, &quot;Mobile Phone?&quot;  Call me!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last time in Italy I purchased an Italian cell phone on the hood of a taxi driver&#8217;s car on the recommendation of my driver in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designingitaly.com\/italian-travel-specialist\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}