iohelix

people have sent us a few packages here on the other side of the planet, but the post office does not deliver them all the way to our house, so we have to go pick them up, usually from the main post office downtown near our house. recently we received a package and for some reason or another, the pick-up slip we got in the mail was different form the usual pick-up slips, and the address on it was for a different post office.

so I looked up the address of the post office, and it was on the other side of town, 3 buses and about an hour away. I get Skye and myself all ready for a little adventure, and head out the door around 2:00p. we catch the first and second buses just fine, it’s a pretty hot day, and we’re both gradually getting sweaty. while we were on the second bus (actually a tram), we get asked to see our tickets…  holy crap. in the more than a few months that we’ve been here, I have never once even heard of anybody being asked to see tickets, so we stopped buying them months ago (I know, I know).  so of course, I didn’t have one. mr. ticketman informs me there is a fine of €40, payable immediately to him. I suppose it’s a good thing I had it with me, because I’m not sure what he would have done if I hadn’t had it (which I often don’t).  so I pay him the fine, and go on with my trip.

we get to the stop for the third bus, and it is in the middle of nowhere. we are so far outside of town that there’s nothing left but industrial buildings and train tracks. we catch the third bus, but as it’s going along, I notice that the stops it’s stopping at aren’t the one I need (my stop was only two stops down)…  so I ask the bus driver where my stop is, and he just shrugs his shoulders (the extent of most of my conversations here).  another guy on the bus asks me if he could help, but he couldn’t speak english either, so he just tells me that the bus has two more stops and then it’s the end of the line. as we near the last stop, the bus driver points to the stop where I got on this bus, and there is a bus there with the same number, but different end point, and motions that that is the bus that I’m supposed to be on… as it passes us…  awesome.  (I suppose I could be glad that the bus I was on made a loop and at least brought me back, but at this point, I’m hot, irritated, and down €40, so I’m just more irritated)

I get off the wrong bus, only to wait at the stop I was originally at for another 20 minutes for the right bus, which takes me a grand total of like 500 meters to the post office where I need to be (easily walkable in a few minutes, as I’ll soon find out).  I walk up to the window, and the guy points me to another window another 100 meters down the road. I walk in there, knock on the window, and a guy takes my pick-up slip, points to some number on it, and says something. I have no idea what he’s saying, and I tell him “I don’t know what that means.”  so he walks off to get someone who speaks english and when the lady comes back, she says the same thing, pointing to the same number on the slip. I again tell her I don’t know what that means, and she says “posta 1″.

oh poo…

posta 1 is the post office downtown… near our house.

yay for not being able to decipher the stupid pick-up slip.

so we walk out, go to the bus stop, and I look at when the next one should be going by…  and the last bus went by about 2 minutes ago. yeah, you read that right, the last bus. here’s where I find out that the distance between the post office and the tram stop is easily walkable in a few minutes.

I finally get downtown, Skye has sweaty head, but is being surprisingly well behaved (not super, but pretty good under the circumstances), I’m hot as crap, also sweating a bit, and we pick up the package and go home. a trip that should have been about an hour total has taken about three and a half hours.

we appreciate all the stuff people are sending us, but please, when you do…   think of the children.

although now that we know what the special little pick-up slip code means, it won’t be near as bad next time…