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Kazakhstan 2019: Postcards

Continuing with the theme of travel-related humor, Kazakhstan offered up a second opportunity for hilarity. The first time around involved a customs and immigration paper that I watched like a hawk. The second time involved some postcards, so it was far less official. However, it also led to more sustained laughter.

As you can probably guess, I decided to send some postcards. I can't remember if this was my idea or the Mild Wife's idea, but I want to say that something she said inspired this plan. Specifically, I wanted to send postcards to our younger nephews and nieces. It seemed like a cool little souvenir, since it'd very likely be a unique gift. Also, they're old enough now where they'd probably appreciate receiving something in the mail. Even if they didn't actually know what the postcard said, they'd understand that the item was meant for them. As the Mild Wife has mentioned in the past, a little kid knows when something is for them, and they tend to appreciate that fact.

It seemed like a simple enough plan, but things got complicated right away. I flew in on a Sunday morning, but I needed to find some time to recover from the travel. After I had eaten, showered, and unpacked, I realized that fatigue and jetlag were conspiring against me, so I decided to try to keep myself awake with a workout. Endorphins are a wonderful thing, and I figured I could put them to use in my favor.

Note, however, that none of that includes the word "postcard." By the time I realized I should try to make good on the plan, it was probably early afternoon, and the nearest post office was closed. To add insult to injury, the post office was so close that I could actually see it from the window of my hotel room. Yeah, it was basically spitting distance from me. I scoured the hotel lobby for some sort of a gift shop, but I had no such luck. Basically, I had missed any potential window of opportunity for the day.

Fortunately for me, the next day was a local holiday, so I had the day to myself to try again. I asked the concierge if the post office in question would be open the next day, and she assured me that it would be. Satisfied, I figured I'd make the short trek the next day and be good. Well, let me tell you: the door to the post office was good and locked the next day. Moreover, there was something over the front door and the lights were off. It was most definitely not open for business.

Well, crap. I had started to give up on this plan, but one of my coworkers came across some postcards, so I was able to get my hands on the actual items that I needed to mail. This, however, left me with the task of actually mailing the postcards. By this point, I had to get myself to the office, so I couldn't use the day time to try to solve this problem. I had two potential solutions: I could try to get to the post office before it closed, or I could try to get the hotel concierge to send it for me. I was somewhat hopeful that between these two options, I would be able to get the postcards into the mail.

In a word, no. The hotel concierge couldn't send the postcards, and the post office was closed by the time I got off for the day. I had asked if the airport had a post office where I could send things at one point, but that wasn't an option, either. Essentially, I had postcards but I couldn't actually send them. It was simultaneously deflating and hilarious in the steps that had gotten me to that point.

As an additional option, I figured that I had a layover in Amsterdam, so I could try to send my postcards from there. I actually looked it up before I got there, to verify that there was, in fact, a post office of some sort. However, I missed the very minor detail that it was located in the section prior to passing through security. I wanted to send these postcards, but I did not want to deal with the lines and security an additional time. It simply wasn't a good idea. So, yet again, I had postcards but I couldn't send them.

My very last option was to send these postcards from my final destination before heading home (I had a couple of trips back to back). In a final insult to injury, the hotel I was staying in could send these postcards, but they needed stamps. The concierge did not have any on hand, so they couldn't just slap them on. I finally managed to find some in the hotel shop, but by that point, it felt like it took me something like fifty tries to make this happen. The term "comedy of errors" had never seemed more appropriate.

It was all worth it when the nephews and nieces got their respective postcards, but the process involved for those postcards to arrive was quite the ordeal. The next time I have to send any postcards, I'm going to plan ahead. I'm not going through all of that again.

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