The Post Office

Today began with a trip to the post office.

Okay, that's not true. Today began with walking the dogs, a semi-daily ritual that brings tons of stress into my life, the details of which I will save for another post, as what I really want to talk about is the post office.

Before I could go to the post office, however, I had to drop off HB at work, and then go to OneMart, one of the local grocery/department stores, to buy envelopes.

After procuring my envelopes, addressing and stuffing them, I proceeded to the post office. The post office in Road Town used to be located on Main Street. In fact, the post office website even tells you that it is located on Main Street. The Road Town post office moved from Main Street to Blackburne Road in April.

I'm going to write that again so that hopefully other recent immigrants will not end up doing what HB did on Saturday: cruising Main Street for an hour looking for a post office that is no longer there.

The Road Town Tortola post office is on Blackburne Road.

During my morning visit to the post office, I succeeded in obtaining one of the three packages that I had shipped to HB before leaving the States. I asked after the other two packages, and was told that they probably just hadn't arrived yet, even though all three had been shipped on the same day.

Later in the day, I would find that the other two packages had arrived, and I would take a second trip to the post office to acquire them, having paid a total of $75 in import duties to receive my mail.

Lessons learned:

1. Everything I receive while here will be a gift, and will have an import value of less than $50.
2. Ship everything UPS or Fedex where not exorbitantly expensive, as it will be delivered to your doorstep, no matter where in the world you may be.
3. Not all Commonwealth countries have the same systems as Great Britain. The British Post is perhaps one of the best postal systems in the world. Their former colonies and affiliates have not inherited it.