It ain't easy to keep gettin' stuff in the mail when you've relocated across the globe.
Now please understand that I love the mail carriers and the US Postal system (my parents were both employed by the USPS!). However we had issues even prior to our move across the pond.
It all started when a family moved into house number 6709 (we are 6708) with the same last name as ours! We adore this family, they happen to be great friends and we can not imagine the street without them. However, having Larsons at 6708 and Larsons at 6709 can prove to be challenging - for anyone. Our kids have attended the same school and even there we encountered difficulty.
When we moved to London, we did not have an address. We came over here without housing (yes, one of our mistakes) because we knew we could enjoy 1 month of temporary housing while we looked at options and found a place to move to. We feel we were a bit misguided here because we had the understanding that we'd be able to find something in a month and that in fact anything earlier than that might be tricky because places go so quickly. What we didn't understand is that most places are posted 2 months prior to becoming available. We had already missed that window. So we had few options...that's for a separate blog entry....
After our summer home visit, I officially changed our address, completing a Permanent Move card to our address in the UK.
Boy was I surprised when I received a notecard from the local post office here in London that had my neighbor's name indicated on it, saying a package was waiting to be picked up. I knew it was an error because it had her first name. To pick up a package you must show ID. SO, I hauled myself over to the parcel office branch of the post office and sure enough, as expected, the package was for my neighbor BACK IN MINNESOTA. Now this package made quite a detour! I couldn't take it because it wasn't my name, and so the only option I had was to return to sender. Thinking about it now, I do hope that she eventually got this package! I called her and we had a good laugh and she said she wasn't expecting anything from the sender's address, so she wasn't upset about it. Hopefully it arrived - albeit late - eventually.
Things are quite complicated because we need to keep a US postal address. There are all kinds of things that require a US address - your US bank account, credit cards in the US, memberships (hello, Costco), tax information, state licensing information, property information, etc. Some companies provide a postal box for their ex-pat employees (I know that General Mills does this, so you can mail anything to the employee who is abroad to their US business address and the company then forwards it to them). The military and government personnel also enjoy this benefit. Not so for our situation. Luckily, my parents have accepted the burden of having most of our important US stuff at their address. I like to think that they are over qualified for this task since they're both former US postal employees. Thank goodness they've allowed us to do this. They get our mail and let us know what looks important, and forward stuff on when necessary.
Both my husband and I have our driver's licenses expiring this year. Actually, his already has...this is tricky too, we'll need a MN address.
Having a foot in one country and another foot in a different country definitely makes life interesting, if not complicated!
And just how much mail gets lost (or not forwarded, or misplaced, or returned to sender, etc.) during the process of an international move is hard to guess. But I'm guessing it's more than I'd like to know.
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