The Great Post Office Adventure

The dubious look on the bus driver’s face as he opened the door and stared at us spoke volumes more than his words could ever have. There before him, waiting to step onto the bus, stood two very wet girls with eyes sparkling and umbrellas closed. Their jeans were wet up to their knees and their messenger bags had evidence of the rain that had been pouring down so hard just a few minutes earlier. The questions in his eyes remained there as the girls swiped their cards and found a seat in the nearly empty vehicle and in silence he continued on his route.

I don’t think Laura knew what type of adventure she was getting into when she responded positively to my request for companionship on my search for the Jönköping Post Office. I didn’t really know what we were getting into either, so I claim innocence. All I knew was that there was a FedEx letter floating somewhere around in the city that, since I hadn’t been at home that morning wouldn’t get to me until Monday if I was lucky, unless I went out and tracked it down myself. So I called the number on the FedEx slip that had been left under my door and the lady told me to go to my town’s post office to pick up the letter when the truck returned there after it finished its delivery. I asked my flat mate where the post office was and received a blank look. I asked google where the post office was and received nothing. Determined, I folded the slip and shoved it into the pocket of my jacket, then traipsed down to the local parcel pick-up in Råslätt but they didn’t know where the post office was either! They did however, have a phone number. So I gratefully accepted the number and proceeded to call them on my cell phone. The automated lady on the other end spoke only Swedish and pushing 0 did nothing. I returned to the parcel pick-up feeling defeated. The man behind the counter took my FedEx slip from me and dialed the number on the folded piece of paper. He said a few quick words to the person on the other end and then handed the phone to me. This time the lady told me she would find out where I should go to get my letter and then call me back. I returned to my room and awaited the phone call. About two hours later it came. “Verktygsvägen 19” the lady told me, “you can pick your package up at that address until 17.30.” 17.30, that gave me about two and a half hours. I looked the address up and found the road. It was just off the bus #3 route in a wooded area. I had seen people get off there before and had wondered what lay behind the trees. It was the type of stop that could easily have had a ghost story attached to it, with the lonely Verktygsvägen road working its way up the hill, shrouded by trees on each side.

I whipped out my phone and texted Laura, “wanna go on an adventure?” Whew! I had a companion. By the time we got onto the bus the sky had been drizzling for quite a while and a bit of a wind had picked up. We climbed off the bus at our stop and began working our way up the hill, grateful for our umbrellas. About a third of the way up the hill was a cross street. This was the street google had pinpointed for us, so we took a left and began working our way down it. The rain was coming down harder and the wind made our umbrellas almost useless. We made it ¾ of the way down the street when we realized we were definitely not going to find Verktygsvägen 19 anywhere on it. Having seen post office trucks coming up the hill, we knew it had to be somewhere!

We returned to the first road and continued our trek up the hill. A sign in front of us indicated that indeed, there should be a post office up that way somewhere, and the trucks that kept passing us gave some reassurance. Even though we had that reassurance, the loneliness of the road seemed a bit strange. There was no sidewalk. Just the road amongst the trees, like we were going to some secret hide away. We passed a stack of logs and through an opening we could see a field planted with…grass? Maybe they hadn’t planted that year. The occasional car passing us gave second glances as we trudged up the blacktop, useless umbrellas in hand, with the water seeping up our pant legs. Had we been thinking earlier we may have rolled them up and thus avoided a few of the questions in the bus driver’s eyes later on, but we were students on an adventure and didn’t think ahead too often.

Finally we reached a gate that had a picture of a surveillance camera on it. Ahead was what looked like a big shipping dock where multiple companies had their warehouses. One of the sections of the building had the now familiar emblem of the national post office painted on it. We eagerly sloshed towards it and pulled the door open, a little worried we’d be thrown out. Inside was a glass case with random post office things in it. Could we buy a post office sweatshirt here? That’d be pretty cool! Other than a flight of stairs and another door, nothing else was in the room except for the grey painted walls. Voices were coming from upstairs so we began making our way towards them, still wondering if we were really supposed to be there. A man started down the stairs still talking to his friend on the second floor. He saw us standing there and looked a bit surprised. “Are you looking for something?” “I was told I could pick up a package here?” The words were barely out of my mouth when he was continuing down the stairs and with a wave of his hand directed us to follow him (I think they had been warned about me). We were led back to the main floor and through that door next to the glass case, into a huge warehouse with carts all over holding packages from all who knows where! So this was what the back of a post office looks like! I wished I'd brought my camera. I gave him my FedEx slip which was now looking somewhat forlorn and he went to a cart and pulled out a package “Bonita Persons?” he asked. Yay! I signed the slip and he handed me a very flat FedEx envelope. What treasures did it hold? I thanked the guy and we headed back out into the wet world. Secretly I’d been hoping someone would have pity on the two bedraggled girls wandering around where they obviously weren’t supposed to and would offer to drive us back down to the foot of the hill to await the next bus. No such luck. Perhaps it was safer that way anyhow.

The walk back down the hill went much faster than the walk up. Perhaps it’s because we now knew where we were going. Perhaps it’s because we were walking downhill instead of up. Or perhaps it was because we wanted to get back to dry land and out of the rivers that were washing down the hill around our feet, but soon we found ourselves back where we had begun. And no ghosts had come out of the woods to frighten us or to steal my package. Now all we had to deal with was the startled bus driver as we scrambled onto the bus. As we settled into the seats I glanced up and caught him looking in the mirror above his seat at us. I almost wondered if he was going to make us stand up so we wouldn’t get the seat wet. Perhaps we were breaking some cultural norm but at the moment we really didn’t care (and still don’t).

And that is the great post office adventure. Was it worth it? Yes of course! Laura and I now have a fun story to tell! And I got my package.

lost in the supermarket

In the back, on the left-hand side of the store in an area that looked like the Asian section, on the top shelf there stood a jar which read tomatpuré. It was a clear jar, and on the line below "tomatpuré" it read "Naturell." Could it be? Was this the item I'd spent a week searching for each time I came to the store? I've never felt so completely at a loss when grocery shopping in my life! I would compare shopping in a Swedish grocery store to going on a treasure hunt where all you had to help you out were pictures and a secret code that you had to unscramble. I've figured out the basics, in the almost three weeks I've been here, but today I think I've made my most exciting discovery yet. Tomato paste! (I hope) The first attempt or two at shopping also yielded some exciting discoveries, yes, but then there were so many discoveries at once that it became normal. It's like...giving a room a quick once-over cleaning where you pick up lots of visible stuff so it looks so much nicer. Yeah, it looks like you're doing good, and you do feel accomplished, but deep inside you know the drawers are messy, the carpet needs to be cleaned under the bed, and we won't even mention the closet! But when you straighten those drawers out, vacuum under the bed and and the closet is looking much better you get a very satisfied feeling and life can go on. Finding the tomato paste was my drawer straightening today. And I'm still not sure it is tomato paste, but the texture looks right and it tasted like tomato paste...it just wasn't in a tin can, it was in a jar so it looked different and I didn't know exactly what the label said. But with this, hopefully, my meal menu can greatly increase, and I'm happy for that. Mom's spaghetti, here I come!

where in the world?

Do you ever have trouble picturing yourself in a specific spot on the globe? I remember feeling that way when I went to the States for 8th grade. Sure, I could tell you I was in the States, but if I looked at a globe and pointed to Minnesota and said "this is where I am right now," it just didn't feel right. When I went back to the Philippines after 8th grade, I could look at a map and say "that's where I am, those islands in the Pacific" and it felt right. I think that strange "no, I can't be there" feeling is about where I'm at right now in Sweden. It doesn't feel real that I could possibly be here, in Europe, in Sweden, after so many years of dreaming about it.