Post Office Blues

Sound track of the day:
It don’t have to be so exciting
Just trying to give ourselves a little bit of fun
It always looks so inviting
You ain’t as green as you are young

Current Temperature: Sun is getting stronger during the days

Culture clash: Spanish people may be warm and fun, but damn they do not care about your personal space। I need at least a five inch perimeter of nobody.





I’ve never had much luck with the US postal service. As soon as I enter the hallowed doors of the disgruntled somehow the words “jerk” must etch themselves across my forehead, because I almost always have a bad experience: smirks, neglect, even yelling directed at little old me who simply wants to mail a package. Fortunately, the USPS provides many self service options so that I might avoid personal contact. If I don’t know how to use something, there usually is a nice security guard who seems to know how to use all the machines.

The Spanish Post Office, main branch, is located in an elegant building of immense proportions boasting a granite or limestone façade and various external tiers demonstrating its magnificence. I even think at some point it must have been a royal residence or official building.. Inside it appears to transform into a pinnacle of modernity with LED screens, florescent lit numbers for counters. In other words, it looks pretty classy.

Despite the appearance this building gives the centuries old agency, the Spanish Post Office turns out to be not so different from the USPS. My new friends and I were trying to mail post cards and buy additional stamps for post cards yet to be purchased. After being told to wait in a line, and then waiting in that line for 15 minutes, a woman cut in front of us saying that she had the next number. Number? We were supposed to get a number?

The kind woman, sympathizing with our plight, offered to buy our stamps for us, asking what we needed. With grateful smiles on our face we asked for “7 postcard stamps to the US please.” But when she asked the cashier for those very things on top of her own purchase, he wouldn’t give them to her. He didn’t even acknowledge the request. He simply gave her what she wanted and stated the price simply for that. Cold and unkind.

And so we got our number to buy our stamps.

And then we got another number to mail the postcards.

On tonight’s menu:
Grilled mushrooms
Fried eggplant
Fried calamari rings

Sangria
(I‘m so full)