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Cellular Odyssey

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It's only six days until my departure, and I'm suddenly faced with all the preparations that I should have been completing throughout break! Today I worked on finding cell phone service while in Italy. It appears that TIM has the most reliable service in the country, so I considered buying a TIM Italian SIM card, only to discover through complicated testing that my current cell phone is locked so I can't use it with a different carrier. From here it gets more interesting: I can either a) try to get AT&T to unlock it for me, which by all online accounts is something they try to make as frustrating as possible; or b) buy a new unlocked cell phone starting at $99 for a quad band phone; or c) pay a sketchy online company anywhere from $3 to $69 to unlock my cell phone remotely.

I think I'm going to wait until I get to Italy to get a phone... and hope for the best!

This means that you should get in touch with me via Skype, if at all possible! Skype is a great free program with voice and video chat via the computer. My computer has a built-in webcam so I can video chat with everyone! If you need my Skype username, send me an e-mail. If you need to download the program, visit this website: http://www.skype.com/. I'll send out an e-mail to everyone once I have an Italian phone number that you can call. For emergencies, you can call my American cell phone, which will get reception in Italy but costs me $1.29/min for calls!

If anyone has suggestions about cell plans or buying phones in Europe, please let me know! Now I just have to figure out what I'm forgetting to do...
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