Italy: bicycle thieves

Around 10 a.m. this morning, I went to the post office carrying a box which I had to send to a customer and a white envelope in my pocket with inside 200 Euro cash that I needed to pay a bill with. Some time later, when I finished queueing I realized the white envelope was gone! I panicked a bit, swearing like crazy at the sky for my fantastic and always punctual luck, went back to check if I had lost it on the way from home to the post office, but finding nothing, I almost gave up. Around 12.00 a.m. I went back to the post office and thought that if someone had seen that envelope on the ground, might have picked it up and put it in the mailbox just outside the office, thinking that it may have fell from the mail-drop-site. So I asked inside, see if they had a key to open the public mailbox to check if my letter was there! Nothing to do, apparently that branch had no key and according to the employees even if I had waited for the collector-guy, he couldn’t have possibly allowed me to search through the public mail.
Almost magically, a gentleman on his sixties next to the counter who had listened to my conversation, came close and told me that he knew someone who might have been able to help me. Said so, he kindly invited me to follow him to his car, where he pulled out an addressbook and made a call to the director of the mail-collection of Milan, who promptly vowed to provide adequate help and support. Few hours later, I received the call from him directly, saying that unfortunately the workers weren’t able to retrive my envelope… (they browsed 3 times without success). I hung up the phone in a bad mood,  and afterwards, as last attempt, I went downstairs with my girlfriend to search again along the street sidewalks.
Anyone could have quietly picked up and kept an anonymous envelope with some cash inside without too much sense of guilt…
Shortly after, amazingly I met the gate-keeper of my condominium who said to have found the envelope!
The moral of the story, Im not saying I was never helped with such honesty in other countries, as indeed, I experienced an outstanding number or very helpful, friendly and genuine persons from oversea, very few from Europe actually. I still think Italy is the third world of Europe, a country of mafia and illegal immigrants scumbags where just 2 weeks ago they stole my bicycle at 4.30 p.m. right in the city center chained to a metal pole. All I need to say is that it’s not so common in the northern Italy for strangers to stop by and just do you big favours, and,  today, what I wanted to express in the first place is that for the first time after more than 10 years, I felt quite proud and glad to be in my country.