A Dash of Panic with a Side of Spritz

On our second day in Florence, the next day, ZC and I stumbled across a wine window just as the clock struck noon... a perfectly acceptable, and might I add, "reasonable" time for a tasty beverage.

If you ask me...

Okay… maybe we didn’t exactly stumble across it. Let’s just say I may have “accidentally on purpose” led us straight there.

When you order through a wine window, you get the choice of “for here” or “to go.”  'For here' means you basically take the glass and stand on the street, sipping away... 'To go"... I think with this option, you pay for the glass and you can wander off... but I can't be confident. I only ever stayed by the window and then left my glass in a basket when I'd finished.

At this particular wine window, we both opted for an Aperol Spritz... and stood outside sipping happily until, as per the usual, I noticed my phone was nearly dead. Of all the places to have your phone die... Florence.

Why can't I seem to remember to EVER EVER EVER charge my phone???

The man running the wine window happened to be outside sweeping the terrace and wiping off the tables & seats from the recent rainfall, so I politely asked if he could plug my phone in for me. I had the plug, the cord and the phone... all I needed was the socket. He kindly took everything inside.

Lovely, right?

Very lovely... the loveliest of lovely... except... uh oh... moments later, it hit me.

Actually, embarrassingly so, it hit me much more than mere moments later.

My credit cards were ALL tucked inside my phone case.

Internal panic.

WHO hands over their entire financial lifeline over... in Italy... the pickpocket capital of Europe... to a complete stranger?  WHILE I'M STANDING ON THE ROAD DRINKING!!!

Me.

Apparently, me.

I spent the next ten minutes berating myself for committing what might (potentially) be the stupidest mistake of my entire travel career.

Rookie move. Classic me.

When I finally got my phone back, everything was perfectly fine and intact, obviously, but I still locked both of my cards, just in case. Honestly, every trip seems to come with a new “life lesson” I should’ve already learned by now. At least it makes for a good story… or a blog post. Ugh...

Fingers crossed they didn't copy the details.

Time will tell.

Anyway... off we went to the food tour. There were eight of us in total... us and 6 Americans. (One man was even originally from Abbotsford!) We’d barely even sat down at the first stop when I got an email notification:

“Your restaurant reservation in Paisley, Scotland, has been confirmed.”

Excuse me, what?

NO WAY...

Let the games begin...

I hadn’t booked anything in SCOTLAND. I was in bloody ITALY!!! The reservation was under the name “Joanna Dumbreck” (close, but no cigar), but it had my real email address. It was for two people at an Italian restaurant in Paisley, Scotland... October 25th, at 7:30 p.m. That very night.

My brain immediately sprinted to the most disastrous conclusion imaginable...

📍SOMEONE HAD MY CREDIT CARD INFO AND WAS OUT THERE MAKING DINNER RESERVATIONS AROUND THE WORLD!!!📍

But then… how did they get my email?

I cancelled the booking right away... though even that simple move freaked me out. What if the confirmation link was some kind of phishing trap? One wrong click and bam... these scoundrels would have access to my entire phone, my laptop, my finances, my passwords... my soul.

You can’t trust these things anymore!

I got a cancellation confirmation, but the entire ordeal completely derailed me for the rest of the Florence food tour.

How do I get myself into situations like this?

The food on the food tour was decent. It was actually my birthday gift to ZC for her 60th, so we had high hopes it’d be something special. I’ll admit... I’m a little judgmental when it comes to food tours... for obvious reasons. The guide wasn’t even Italian at all... she was Turkish. Funny, considering on my last tour, I suspected the guide was Greek. The carnivores started with a charcuterie board, while we vegetarians were served grilled eggplant and zucchini (aubergine & courgette), along with a mix of cheeses. We tried a few glasses of local red and white, followed by an Italian dessert wine, vino santo, served with biscotti. We also sampled a traditional Italian sandwich made with pane sciocco bread.

So here's a little bit of history in regard to the pane sciocco...

Back in medieval times, Pisa and Florence weren’t exactly best friends... they were rivals and often at odds over trade and territory. At one point, Pisa decided to really stick it to Florence by blocking their salt shipments coming in through the port.

Salt was essential back then... not just for flavour, but for preserving food... especially bread. So... with no salt coming in... the Florentines did what any good Italians would do... they adapted. They started making unsalted bread, which they called pane sciocco (“stupid bread” or “bland bread”).

And they never stopped. Centuries later, Tuscany is still famous for its saltless bread.

After the tour, ZC headed to the Accademia Gallery to see the David, while I met up with an old friend, Sofia. I’d already seen the David, so I happily passed on another visit.

Sofia and I go way back. We met while volunteering with Archelon, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, in Rethymno, Crete. We were there in 1999 & 2000, working to protect Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta). We lived in tents in an olive grove, on a hill just outside town. Each morning, well before sunrise, we’d walk the beaches, searching for turtle tracks and signs of nesting.

Whenever we found a nest, we’d map it, take notes, and, if it was too close to the water, carefully move it farther back to protect it from the risk of inundation.

It’s incredible to think that now... decades later... some of those same turtles might be returning to those exact beaches to lay their own eggs. Loggerhead sea turtles typically reach sexual maturity between 25-35 years old, so the hatchlings we helped back then are coming home. Full circle.

I could honestly go on and on about the Caretta caretta... that time in Crete remains one of the happiest (and most educational) chapters of my life.

When I saw Sofia again after all these years, I cried real tears of joy.

It was absolutely fantastic seeing Sofia again and catching up on everything she’s been up to. The last time I saw her was back in 2007, when I was travelling around Italy. She’s still every bit as beautiful, generous, and kind-hearted as I remembered.

She also had plenty of advice for me... most of it involving keeping an eye on my belongings and not trusting strangers (she was horrified by my credit card saga). She also told me to make sure I don’t get hit by any flying bullets while in Sicily or Naples.

She meant it all out of concern, of course… still, the bullet part freaked me out more than a little.

On the way back, I insisted we stop at this one particular bistrot I’d been eyeing for the last couple of days. It just looked so quaint and quintessentially Italian... like something out of a film. It was right around the corner from our accommodation, so naturally… we went on our final evening, coming back from drinks with Sofia.

We sat down at one of the cheerfully decorated, unique tables (ours was the Joker from Batman)... and the server approached us shortly afterwards. He wasn’t like any server I’ve ever encountered, neither my travels nor during my own years in the industry... and trust me, I’ve worked in the industry for years and years… and years. No uniform, no apron, no pen, no pad of paper...

Instead, he was a middle-aged, stocky guy with slicked-back hair, his shirt open to a proudly hairy chest, a big necklace, a tight leather jacket, and dark sunglasses... He looked more like Tony Romano than a waiter.

He took our order and returned with two glasses of wine. As he set them down, he said something in broken English that we half-understood... basically admitting that they hadn’t actually measured the pours, so one glass was a bit bigger than the other. For a moment, I thought we’d received two different wines, but no, just different amounts.

I immediately nicknamed him Tony, though Slick Sal or Greased Lightning would’ve worked just as well. When he wasn’t serving tables, he stood in the doorway, puffing on a cigar like he owned the place. Maybe he did. Maybe he was helping a friend. Maybe he'd taken it over due to unpaid bills. I don't know. It was the very definition of thug life, Italian bistrot edition.

#thuglife

Anyway, that night when I got back to our accommodation, I finally had a moment to do a little digging into JoannaDumbreck-Gate.

Ya... re-cap:

• Name on the reservation: Joanna Dumbreck. Same first name as me.

• Email: joanna.mcbride@gmail.com. MY EMAIL.

• Reservation: Zambretto Italian… and where am I right now? ITALY.

  
  

Private Investigator Joanna McBride, reporting for duty. I was going to get to the bottom of this.

Usually, you can’t make a reservation without a credit card, which meant… yes, I had just (stupidly) handed my cards to strangers. BUT... how did they get my email? Things weren’t adding up, but I knew there was a puzzle to solve.

I scrolled through Facebook and quickly found a Joanna Dumbreck. Her profile said she lived in Scotland and worked as an administrative assistant at the University of Glasgow. Paisley isn’t far from Glasgow… maybe that could be her?

Hmmm… perhaps.

Then, naturally, I did what any self-respecting, obsessive, and nosy girl would do: I dove in headfirst and started creeping her Facebook profile.

A few boring posts later… I hit the jackpot: her wedding. She thanked three bridesmaids... and all three had the last name: MCBRIDE.

Plot twist? All three bridesmaids were from Edinburgh.

And where did I used to live in Scotland? Edinburgh!

Ok, ok… probably just a coincidence and totally irrelevant to the story... but hey, I thought I’d throw it in for the sheer amusement of it

Next... I checked her “About” page, looking for a phone number or email. Nothing.

BUT... that’s when I discovered her Facebook profile was listed as: www.facebook.com/joanna.mcbridex

MINE is: www.facebook.com/joanna.mcbride

The only difference? That little ‘x’ at the end of her name.

I quickly figured out that McBRIDE was her maiden name... and not just some random coincidence. Although... what a random coincidence! Maybe she forgot to update her profile after getting married, maybe she accidentally used her maiden name in her email… or perhaps she just forgot the little ‘x’ at the end. I have no idea. Either way, she managed to use MY EMAIL, and that reservation somehow landed in my inbox.

So I messaged her on Facebook… carefully... because I really didn’t want to come across as a full-on stalking psycho.

Nerve-wracking? Damn straight.

Effective? You betcha.

Within a couple of hours, she replied... saying it was actually a blessing in disguise that I’d cancelled the reservation, since they hadn’t even made it to the restaurant that night anyway.

Crisis averted.

ZERO apology for sending me temporarily insane with financial worry and identity theft… but hey, I guess I can’t expect miracles from everyone.

Thank goodness it had nothing to do with my credit cards being stolen or copied... but for the time being, I’m keeping them locked down... just in case. I really don’t want to get blindsided while I’m in Sicily with drained accounts.

Oh... and some more bad news...

I threw my jacket out.

Sad times 😢

Rest in peace, sad, tattered, 4-month-old, black jacket...