Today I went to post home the souvenirs I bought on the recent trip to Brasov. Now this doesn't sound like much of a task, unless apparently you are in Romania.
Mr M came to pick me up and we drove around to go to the post office. On the way, we stopped at a store to ask if they had a box to put the souvenirs in. The store owner happily offered us a box that she was about to restock the shelves with anyway.
Mr M helped restock the shelves and we left with the box. We walked around to a post office nearby, packed the box and approached the counter. It was quickly apparent that we couldn't post it here and as we left I asked Mr M, what the woman said. He told me that we couldn't do it there and had to go to a different place where they check the contents.
We drove around a few blocks more and found a place with Bright Red shopfront with what I think was the word 'Post Romana'. We enter the shop and approach the counter with the package. Again, I can quickly tell that we can't send it from here either. It seemed like the woman was giving directions for another place. As we left I asked Mr M what the problem was and he confirmed that the woman said, we can't do it from there either, we need a different place.
We drove around a little further onto some main road and couldn't find the place, so Mr M stopped near a row of parked taxis and asked for directions. He returned to the car, we made a U turn and headed down one of the sidestreets. Half way down the street on the ride side of the road, we see another of the red buildings named 'Post Romana'. We park, head into the post office and approach the counter.
Again it appears that we were being told we were in the wrong place. The woman then pointed through a doorway and we headed over, hesitated as we were not sure if we had to wait. Mr M asked the woman if we just walk through and she waived us to go through. I should mention that all the conversations that took place today were in Romanian, so I really had no idea what was being said or people were asking. If I hadn't been with Mr M I would have had some serious problems.
Once inside there were 3 women sitting at desks, we approached a desk with noone waiting and the middle aged woman inspected the contents of the box. Mr M asked me I paid for it all. I assumed it was because the woman asked, as he was there when I bought them. "130 Lei", I responded. The 2 middle aged women sat next to each other seemed to be very intrigued in the items and begin showing each other. They kept saying "Ah Dracula" and "Vlad" a few times. I didn't know what was going on. Mr M walked over to a table in the middle of the room. There was another guy packing some parcels at the other side of the table.
Mr M begins to unpack the box at the table and unwrap everything. He then grabs some pieces of brown paper and wraps an item in the paper. I follow his lead and begin to do the same. Once all the items are wrapped and placed in the box, I added some additional pieces for padding. Once the box was packed the woman instructed us to seal the box and we begin to do so. We tape an address label to the top and head over to another desk on the opposite side of the wall, which was being serviced by a young woman.
The young woman seemed to be not impressed by the parcel and sent us back to the packing table. Mr M grabbed a big sheet of brown paper and started to wrap the box. We held the paper over the parcel, as we had to wait for the other guy to finish using the tape again. If you have ever watched a guy try to wrap a Christmas gift, you would know right now that this was not a good scene.
Just as we placed the piece of tape around the paper on the parcel, the first woman we spoke to came and waived us away. She removed the piece of paper we had around the box, grabbed another piece of brown paper and showed us how to wrap the box correctly. Mr M assisted her buy applying the tape. Once the parcel was completely sealed, we attached to hand written address labels. One with the address of the sender, Mr M used his address, and one with the destination.
Once we had the box wrapped sealed and labelled, we went back over to the desk with the young woman and Mr M asked me how long I wanted the parcel to take. I said "It didn't matter", but I guess they needed a timeframe as he said "It 5, 10 and so on" . I said "I guess 5" and put the package on the scales in front of the desk. It weighed 1.6 Kg. The woman gave us a Consignment Note and we filled it out. It was in Romanian, so Mr M had to complete most of it. Once completed, the young woman checked it all entered some information into the computer, told me it was going to cost 230 lei ($70.00 - $80.00 AUD) and I paid in cash. She stamped all duplicates, removed one duplicate of the consignment note and gave it to me with the print out.
We then had to go back to the first desk and the woman there perused the consignment note, then signed each copy. I am not really sure why this step was necessary, but perhaps the postal service here in Romania is yet to trim the fat and bureacracy from decades of communism. It seems the only purpose for this woman was to sign off on the whole process. Kind of redundant if you ask me, but I guess it pays this womans bills, and I really shouldn't criticise as she did help us wrap the box. The strange part is that everything else seems to be very relaxed and no structure yet to send a parcel, you have to go to such effort. Maybe it was just because it was being sent overseas, I don't really know.
I guess it took about 2 hours from the time we left home until the package was finally sent. On the drive home Mr M laughed about the fact that it basically cost me twice as much to send it as I paid for the stuff in the first place. "Australia is so far away", he said. I have to admit, it did seem like a rather expensive exercise, but I didn't have much room in my bag and my niece wanted to take some stuff to school to show the class.
I returned to the apartment and logged onto Facebook, I had a few messages waiting for me from friends back In Australia. I was fairly tired and as I read the words of my friend Nicole, tears began to well in my eyes. I won't go into detail of what was written, but I can say it was some of the nicest words anyone ever directed my way. I began to miss a lot of people again. I think with Miss C being away, some loneliness has started to set in and this is the reason for a lot of my doubts and procrastination.
So anyway, it's 12:45 AM here and I am Watching 'Liar, Liar' on TV while I write this story. I haven't seen that movie for years and I forgot how much I enjoyed it. One of the films Jim Carrey made during his prime. Anyway, time for me to go to bed. I can't wait to head off to Transylvania again on Friday. I just want to say thanks to everybody who keeps in touch with me through Facebook, Email, the Blog and other means while I am here. If it wasn't for you I may not have the courage or determination to continue this trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment