Berlin to Odessa Day 20: Odessa Pt. 3 in which we try to buy postage stamps
You would think that in most major cities, especially popular tourist destinations, that postcards are a dime a dozen and found on racks in every touristy shop and supermarket around town.
Well in Odessa, you would be wrong.
We spent hours looking for suitable postcards to send to our hosts from the trip. And found only two sets of postcards; a terrible set, and a mediocre set.
I am reminded of Jim Gaffigan who said:
Have you ever spent a bunch of time selecting a postcard to send to someone, and you've spent all this time agonizing over finding the right one, then the next time you see the person they are like, "Hey thanks for the shitty postcard, what did you pick it out in 5 seconds?"
Nothing can really properly show how humbled and appreciative we feel towards our hosts and the experiences that we were able to share with them. But to be fair, we scoured every place we could find!
The next step was buying stamps. We met up with a couchsurfer, Julia, today who took us on a fabulous tour of the city, with a healthy mix of deep historical and architectural knowledge mixed with very snarky remarks about the Ukraine. She took us to the main post office - a beautiful historical building - to find stamps. We had about 20 postcards to send.
At the post office, across from the woman selling sausages on a fold-out table, were about 30 windows, of which 4 were operational (actually the sausage lady was doing a quicker business than the tellers). Our guide, who is Ukrainian, went to the window with stamps - but nobody was there. So she went further down and asked someone where we could get stamps. She received a blank stare and was told to go to the next window. Teller #2 huffed and puffed at this request and at first said that she could not sell stamps. But then grudgingly and with a lot of eye rolling, she produced 10 stamps, and several unit stamps for the Ukraine (needed to attach two of these for every postcard being sent within the Ukraine). This was still short of the 20 we needed, so we went back to the window with the stamps and asked Teller #3 for some of the stamps that were at her station. There was more eye rolling and impatient huffing as she explained, for whatever reason, that she did not have any stamps to sell. I don't speak enough Russian or Ukrainian and Julia was probably too kind to point out the obvious which is: "Hey! This is a post office!"
Given the impatience of the tellers with someone who does speak the language, I doubt I would have any success in a subsequent trip by myself.
Well in Odessa, you would be wrong.
We spent hours looking for suitable postcards to send to our hosts from the trip. And found only two sets of postcards; a terrible set, and a mediocre set.
I am reminded of Jim Gaffigan who said:
Have you ever spent a bunch of time selecting a postcard to send to someone, and you've spent all this time agonizing over finding the right one, then the next time you see the person they are like, "Hey thanks for the shitty postcard, what did you pick it out in 5 seconds?"
Nothing can really properly show how humbled and appreciative we feel towards our hosts and the experiences that we were able to share with them. But to be fair, we scoured every place we could find!
The next step was buying stamps. We met up with a couchsurfer, Julia, today who took us on a fabulous tour of the city, with a healthy mix of deep historical and architectural knowledge mixed with very snarky remarks about the Ukraine. She took us to the main post office - a beautiful historical building - to find stamps. We had about 20 postcards to send.
At the post office, across from the woman selling sausages on a fold-out table, were about 30 windows, of which 4 were operational (actually the sausage lady was doing a quicker business than the tellers). Our guide, who is Ukrainian, went to the window with stamps - but nobody was there. So she went further down and asked someone where we could get stamps. She received a blank stare and was told to go to the next window. Teller #2 huffed and puffed at this request and at first said that she could not sell stamps. But then grudgingly and with a lot of eye rolling, she produced 10 stamps, and several unit stamps for the Ukraine (needed to attach two of these for every postcard being sent within the Ukraine). This was still short of the 20 we needed, so we went back to the window with the stamps and asked Teller #3 for some of the stamps that were at her station. There was more eye rolling and impatient huffing as she explained, for whatever reason, that she did not have any stamps to sell. I don't speak enough Russian or Ukrainian and Julia was probably too kind to point out the obvious which is: "Hey! This is a post office!"
Given the impatience of the tellers with someone who does speak the language, I doubt I would have any success in a subsequent trip by myself.
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