Day No. 39 - First the work ...

...then the pleasure.

Even far from home, work catches up with us from time to time. - At home in Cologne, a bit of mail has piled up. So we take a day off work. I'm particularly pleased to receive a letter from the pension insurance company about a scheduled inspection. - They must have known I wasn't on site!

But we also used the day to detox a little. 

When we got on the scales, we realized very early on that we were actually carrying a bit too much ballast. Even if Hector calls this overloading, it means slimming down one way or another. Over the last few days, we've been checking one piece of luggage or another for its right to exist on board. Does it make us happy? Is it necessary? Does it take up unnecessary space?

And lo and behold, 20 kilograms almost came together, ready to be sent home. - So off to the nearest supermarket to dust off two boxes and buy plenty of duct tape. Everything was quickly neatly packed. 

So far, everything seemed quite simple. I wrote a nice, explanatory text for the post office using Google Text Translator.

Above all, who is the recipient, who is the sender, that the package must be insured (we also wanted to send my "old" Mac) and that we need an invoice. 

But what begins simply...

In the post office, the emphasis is on office, called Correos in Spanish, I placed our prepared text and the parcels on the counter. The text was read and there was a clear "Si", which means yes. - The next question was whether we spoke English, to which we answered yes. I had always thought that my English was bad, but although we were supposedly speaking English, I could only understand Spanish. - We were questioned in detail as to whether the package contained any weapons, flammable or explosive substances, drugs or other intoxicants, tobacco, live or dead animals or whatnot. The number of individual shirts, pants etc. had to be specified for the insurance and...

Long story short, the whole procedure took at least one, it felt like three hours. - At the end, a colleague came along who really spoke English. - His simple comment about his colleague: "she is stupid". 

The consequences: Torgit immediately extended her efforts to learn Spanish. - My self-confidence in "I'll sort it out with my hands and feet if necessary" is now limited.

Speaking of learning languages. - Cologne City Library also offers its "readers" a free digital language course from Rosetta Stone via an app. Now Torgit is sitting next to me, cramming Spanish. I haven't had the courage to tell her that we're going to Portugal tomorrow. 

Insight of the day: less is more, at least more space.