Skype

has to be one of the best innovation/innovation/whateveryouwannacallits of the century. Most people know about it; I did know about it around 2003 but used it rarely, but now I definitely need to use it. Skype is a telephony service that allows you to call someone's landline or cell phone from your computer or vice versa for less than 2 cents per minute. So you buy a minimum credit amount of 10 bucks and have hours and hours of talk time. There are a bunch of services that they offer (like a subscription that allows you to call from your telephone to another telephone for a pretty cheap subscription rate) but that's the basic one. Most people in Italy have prepaid phones and the domestic calls costs around 35 cents (that's Euro cents, so that would be more like 45 american cents) per minute while domestic texts cost 15 euro cents per minute. Let's not even talk about international rates or roaming rates. Ugh. I've been here just over 2 weeks and probably have spent over 60 euros on my damn phone. I can't be living the lush life here, that's for sure! However, the only good thing is you don't pay to receive calls and when your credit runs out, people can still call or text you.