Overseas Packages

As you know, each year I have calendars made which feature photos that I have taken.  Last week I wrote that I was going to send calendars to my cousins in Europe.  On September 27th I took six of them along with the completed customs forms to the post office.  The regular first-class postage is more expensive than the calendars are.  It cost nearly $30.00 per package!  On the receipt there is a tracking number for each one, and you can follow the progress of the deliveries on the postal service's website.

The packages to Switzerland all arrived on October 6th, just nine days after I sent them.  Very prompt service!  Three of my cousins sent me e-mails that day.  One cousin, Brigitta, even sent me a photo of the package.

She had not opened it.  She thought that it was an early Christmas present.  Another cousin, Walter, did not open his package thinking that it was an early birthday present.  I wrote to them both and told them that they could open their package now.  A third cousin, Ruth, had obviously opened it because she wrote, "Thank you for the beautiful pictures you made."  The fourth cousin in Switzerland, Andre, does not speak much English and does not have my email address.  I will probably receive a thank you card from him in the mail.  

Hans Peter, my Swiss cousin that lives in Bergen, Norway, has not yet received his calendar.  However, I checked the tracking number, and the package is now in Oslo (by way of Lisbon, Portugal, of all places).

The sixth of the calendars was sent to my cousin Kevin in England.  Unfortunately, I don't have much hope that it will be delivered.  I had "UK", the common abbreviation for "United Kingdom", written on the package and the customs form.  It wasn't until several days after sending the calendars that I noticed on the receipt that the postal clerk sent the package to UKRAINE!  She should have realized that the address was obviously English, but, as we used to say, I don't think she was the sharpest blade in the drawer.

I went back to the post office and talked to a different clerk.  He said that hopefully someone along the delivery process will notice the mistake and send it to the UNITED KINGDOM.  If not, it would eventually be returned to me.  And the postage to resend it to the correct country would be free.

I entered the tracking number for that package, and it was sent out from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago at 9:30 P.M. on October 4th... three days ago.  It only takes about nine hours to fly to England, and normally the tracking would say that it had arrived in London.  I fear that it is sitting somewhere in Ukraine, and, amid all the strife that nation is suffering now, the package is lost forever.