I had the opportunity to visit the post office today, always an ordeal no matter what country you’re in. There are usually long lines in Paris branches, just like in the US. But the post office has a little chart posted outside advising which hours are the least busy, so today’s visit was at 9 AM to avoid the crowds. There is a separate commerçante line for storekeepers or business folks.
On a previous visit, I experienced the famous ‘Line-Jumpers-of-Paris’, folks who brazenly cut ahead of you with clever excuses, ordinary chutzpah or sheer rudeness. The clerks have little sense of being rushed and take all the time they need to complete each transaction in methodical sequence. No multi-tasking here! You can spend 45 minutes in line and then be told it’s impossible to send what you want to where you want in the container you want.
But while in line you get to examine how different La Poste in France is from the US Postal Service. Not only are there cash machines, change machines, photo machines, greeting cards and school supplies for sale, there is an entire BANK in the post office.
You can get a friggin’ mortgage there. As well as telephone cards and ATM cards. And you can arrange to have your computer data backed up through one of their services.
Before I left the apartment for this postal visit, I had carefully packed my carton and sealed it with super-duper tape and made certain it could survive the trans-Atlantic and trans-continental trip it would be making. Only to discover that if I used one of the special La Poste boxes it would cost 30 euros less to mail. I was ready to be told to take my Amerikanski box and go home and return with a real French box or pay the 30 euros extra. But no: the postal guy was not only very cute, he was utterly charming and slowly and methodically sliced open my surgical taping and then slowly and methodically repacked the whole thing in the much more chic French box. All the while being very discrete about the weird crap I had stuffed inside. Not only that, but he was complimentary about my crude French and chatted about Northern California versus Paris (slowly and methodically, of course). Another wonderful lesson on Life in Paris.
Cynthia Tuttelman (aka "Tut") is a writer, family doctor and quilter who lives in Northern California and part-time each year in Paris, France. Follow along and explore the wonders of Paris.