Globestroller

Late last week I got a note in my mailbox from Eesti Post. I assumed that it was one of those notes to say that they hadn’t been able to deliver something because it was too big to fit through the slot, or needed a signature or something, but it was in Estonian, so I couldn’t really tell what it said. This surprised me slightly, as their website is in Estonian, Russian, and English, and it was a preprinted note so it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to make it multi-lingual too, but as I’m just the dumb foreigner who doesn’t speak the language I’m not really in any position to complain!

The note did have an email address on it, so I typed up what looked like the key text from the note, and asked if they could explain what the note was / what I had to do. Unfortunately the text I quoted, whilst important, wasn’t really key: it was the part that said that I should bring ID with me when coming to the Post Office. And, even more unfortunately, the nice person at Eesti Post who responded to my mail only provided a translation to the part I’d quoted, rather than explaining what the whole thing was!

I could probably have replied quoting more parts until I eventually worked it out, but I figured it would probably be easier just going to the Post Office. This also backfired slightly as although they’re open pretty long hours during the week, they close at 3pm at Saturday.

So on Monday afternoon I tried again. The friendly staff there were able to tell me that I was correct in my thinking, but incorrect in my location. I wasn’t meant to go to the central post office, but to the one on Kotzebue. Unfortunately they couldn’t tell me where this was. I’m not sure whether this is because they didn’t know, or just weren’t confident enough in their English – I’ve noticed that lots of people who have otherwise great English become very hesitant when trying to give me directions.

Operating on the assumption that my mail would only be waiting for me at Kotzebue if it were my closest post office, I started scouring the area of the map up near my apartment. Thankfully I found it quite quickly – just a couple of streets below my nearest Rimi (opposite the doll museum!). So yesterday afternoon I was finally able to pick up my parcel – one of the books I’ve requested on Bookmooch, which was not only a great way to get rid of lots of my books before leaving NI, but is now a great way to get books that the local bookshops are really unlikely to carry. And as my post box has a really narrow slot, I suspect I’ll be back to that post office quite frequently!