Christmas Parcel

I went to my friendly neighbourhood Post Office yesterday and queued up for 30 minutes just to send a letter. Hub couldn't understand 1) why it took so long 2) why I didn't have stamps at home 3) why I couldn't return another day to post it.

Maybe I enjoy standing for ages looking at Italians collect their monthly pension or at the sole person working behind the counter, always taking her time, always printing out pieces of paper from her old printer and stacking them everywhere...

I do not have stamps at home like I used to because I do not usually need to mail anything. I still have pieces of French stamps here and there in the house - so much for wanting to stock up on stamps and now I can't even use them. Besides, one has to pay according to weight, size and destination of courrier so one can't always know beforehand how much it's going to cost. Most of all I do not trust the 3rd World Italian Postal Service - so the least I can do is hand over my letter to the Post Office in person and see that the lady stick a stamp on it.

And whether I go there on this day or another wouldn't change anything, in my 17 months here, every trip to the Post Office has always been greeted with a long and slow queue. La dolce vita.

Anyway, what I was leading up to was the fact that just after I've paid for my stamp, the lady asked me if I was xxx living on xxx road. She then showed me a small parcel and asked me if I've received a slip for it. I replied negative, she shrugged, printed out another of her papers on the old printer, made me sign on it and then passed the parcel to me. Great, of course, but made me wonder if I would still get this parcel if I hadn't decided to go to the Post Office...

It was from my old friend One Wheel! Filled with things he knew I would enjoy. And he has been sending me a little parcel almost every year now that I think of it. This year, I think that it's a miracle that I even got it. Everywhere I've only known horror stories about parcels to Italy either being returned to sender, lost, confiscated or taxed to death. And the list of prohibited items to Italy is long and quite ridiculous. In fact, the only way to send anything to Italy is probably to send it to a postally less prohibitive country in the EU and then to transfer the parcel to Italy from there.

Well, YL and L, thanks a million for the Christmas cheer, will think of you when I use the pastes and listen to the music! Molto grazie...