A peak into another society

I have contemplated writing this blog post in Norwegian to not offend anyone... I decided not to, so I´m sorry all you American readers (who are you by the way, and what on Earth is "vampirestat"?! I suddenly have a lot of new readers in the US!!) but I think I have to blog about an incident today. I love America, and Americans, and a week ago I blogged about how much I learn from your school system, and would like to see more of it in my own country. The list of what I love could go on and on. I love Costco (it´s like ten times the size of Coop), I love that everything is big here - everywhere, and cheap too!!! I love how you can send stuff in the mail anywhere in the whole country within a few days for almost nothing, and how you literally can get a hold of almost anything under the sun, and even multiple choices of them!

I absolutely love the weather!!! Here and everywhere I´ve been in the States. And I love walking down the street and some stranger walks by, smiling and saying hi! (while I ponder where I know this person from, before I realize I don´t, he´s just being polite and friendly!)

But... and please don´t be offended... a couple of things in your system could take a rather long time.... sometimes at least... we have bureachrecy in Norway that makes us do the same thing twice also... but... well, let me tell you about today.

Today, my plan before going to the café and read, was a trip to the campus post-office, which I assumed would take me 10 minutes, maybe 20 if there was a line.... well, it took me three hours, including having to travel from one mailroom to another! By the end of the afternoon I was fearing a meltdown, that´s how high my level of frustration was. I had spent hours the night before researching the post service, twisting my head, trying to understand the 50 pages of information on prices and regulations (in the confusing world of ounces and pounds (abbreviated lbs for some reason)). I finally thought I had it figured out at bedtime.

But... at the campus mailroom  we couldn´t figure out how to send one of my packages and for how much; the lady didn´t quite know whether something was wrong with my package, or their scale. It didn´t really help that I couldn´t find one of the addresses and that people behind in line were leaving, but she didn´t seem to have an answer and ended up wanting 78$ for something I´d measured and weighed the night before to be about 33$. "Well, it might be cheaper at the other post office," she said wearily half an hour later, "because they don´t have to... *post-office-language-not-understood-by-me* down there."

What?! Cheaper at another mail office?! All right, a very nice gentleman offered to carry all my packages out of the mailroom and the growing line behind me, and were kind enough to listen to my frustrated rant for a while. "Well, personally I hate sending things abroad," he said, "it´s a nightmare!" Gee, thanks, I said, before giving Magnar the same rant on the phone and having him pick me up to go to the bigger mail office in town.



After sweating two hours in there, almost having the melt down in front of the long line feeling everyone was watching me, after filling out five or six forms, writing my own lengthy Hawaiian address ten times for four packages (one time extra because I wrote it in the wrong place on the envelope) and then watching as the lady typed everything I had just spent 25 minutes writing on various forms all over again on a computer - I finally could lurch out of there with as much pride and sense as possible.

My calm brother-in-law Magnar was almost as sweaty as I. He had spent the whole day trying to pay two bills - one for electricity, one for rent. For me back in Norway I never even think of that. Years ago I clicked on a couple of buttons in my internet bank so that those bills are paid every month without me lifting a finger. Actually I hardly pay any bill manually anymore. Phone bills, apartment loan, car, electricity, TV, and so on, every bill is withdrawn from my account at appointed times. Here Magnar spends a day every month to pay those bills, running from one office to another, getting checks, finding out this or that, handing this paper here, another one there, filling out forms and ending up in the bank, seeing the woman actually changing the check into actual money, counting the money with her bare hands, then recounting them - and then having Magnar sign that he saw her count them, that it was the right amount and that it was put in the right place!! I could not believe it!

While talking about this at four a clock in the afternoon, after Magnar finally had managed to pay the house rent, Kaleb asked what we were discussing so fervently. We tried to explain to him that the States consists of almost 300 million people, and that this must be why the system is not so fast and kind of a bit backwards..... but thinking about this thru the day, I wonder - is it really the reason?! What is the deal? I would love to know! Someone please enlighten me!

So yeah, I loved hanging out in the Hawaiian sun afterwards, and I love being here in America, but after these three hours today I was sweaty and worn out. I wasn´t prepared. Next time going to the post office I will research even more, and make sure I have the whole day off with no other plans :-)