The part about chatting for 40 minutes really gets me, because that free advice was probably worth more than the machine itself. A neighbor down the street gave me her old tiller when she moved, and she spent an hour showing me how to break up the clay soil in our yard. Cheap things from people who know what they're doing come with lessons you can't buy at a store. My tomatoes did better that summer than any year since and I still use her trick of mixing in coffee grounds.

This is such a common thing and it's wild how it works. People trust the taxi stand right outside arrivals more than they trust some random guy at a coffee counter, even when the coffee guy is saving them 20 euros. I've seen the same thing in Rome, the train from Fiumicino is like 8 euros and people still line up for 50 euro cabs. Tourists just default to whatever is easiest to find, not whatever makes sense.