Tuesday, March 3, 2015

A Postcard from Vienna!

We were wondering about the mail. We knew friends and family had sent us Christmas cards, but they had never arrived. Now beyond mid February, we were starting to get curious if these would ever arrive. When we lived here 5 years ago, mail usually took three weeks, maybe four, but it did eventually arrive. I had no reason to doubt my experience this time around.

Wrong.

We have received our utility bills on time, water, electricity, phone, cable and internet all arrive in our mailbox in tidy white envelopes or on pretty statements not in envelopes (privacy laws be damned!) at our house. We have received one international box, for which we received a notice to go and collect it at the "centro" post office.

This enigma had been going on just about long enough. We had reason to be in the main "centro" post office earlier this week, so I thought I might ask if there was a special handshake or secret password I needed in order to receive my international, non-parcel mail. I asked at the counter where one buys stamps, and she instructed me to walk to the end of the hall, and there was a window there and I was to ring the bell three times and they could address my query. Seriously, there was even a sign saying "Ring the bell three times." Three short rings? Long rings?

I opted for short rings and waited. A lady appears and I explain my mystery to her. I ask if there is anything special I need to do in order to receive my international post that is not a parcel.

She says no, usually nothing special is required, and she will go and look in the back. Time passes. Children are born. Technological innovations astound. World peace becomes a real possibility...

Meanwhile, Ralph and I figure there are three possible results.

  1. No mail.
  2. Some mail.
  3. A huge stack of mail.

A different lady appears from the back, with the little paper the other lady had written my address on. No, she says, no mail. But it is vacation time, so perhaps a little while longer.

(For real. Vacation time. I suppose if our postal delivery person was off on December 12th for Guadalupe, December 18 to 21 for Soledad, December 25th for Christmas, December 31 and January 1 for New Years, January 5th for the Three Kings, that still leaves a few weeks of delivery time until the February Constitution holiday and Candlemas events!)

But. Guess what happens the next day? A postman shows up with...


Ha! Evidently our postman was away on leave/vacation.

We still have no other Christmas cards from family and friends outside of Mexico, but I remain optimistic (foolishly).

Our Spanish teacher tells us that for our bills (Cable & Internet, TelMex, water and hydro bills), there are delivered by private delivery people that work for the respective companies. Can you imagine if HyrdoOne in Ontario, or AT&T in the US had to manage their own mail delivery service? I cannot, though I see one benefit - no junkmail!

Until more mail arrives or we find a mysterious stack addressed to us at some other address, my postcard is on the fridge, a reminder that things are different here.

No comments: