Please Mr. Postman

   The postal workers here do not pick up mail from your mailbox. Nope, you have to take it to a drop-off box or a post office! How hard is it to just take an envelope or two?  On the flip side, you only have to post a "No Junk Mail" and for the most part, you won't get any. We actually removed our "No junk mail" sign, since we're so desperate for mail and advertisements are interesting to me. Always curious what shops and restaurants are out there, not that we frequent them very often.
   Another difference is a small thing, but still annoying. I think I've already posted about the shopping trolleys. You need a gold coin ($1 or $2) to remove one from the line-up. You get the money back when you return the cart and attach it to the previous cart. I can deal with that. What I struggle with are the fully rotating wheels on the trolley. It's bad enough that you have to fight to keep the thing going in a straight line down the aisle. Imagine you're pushing a cart full of groceries between two cars to get to your car. But the car park is sloped. So you now have to try to prevent the heavily loaded trolley from sliding down into the lower car. Rather awkward.
   Finally, no paying at the pump for petrol. You actually have to walk into the station and interface with a live human being if you want to buy your gas. At least you can pump it before paying.
   Now for some news. Andy finally got his motorcycle on Thursday. Great timing now that the weather has turned quite cold (not.) Unfortunately, he still can't legally drive it and he has two more hoops to jump through before he can go back to VicRoads and register it. I'll save that whole saga for Andy to blog about once he completes everything.
   Andy also got his Hudson rowing shell delivered. The bad news it has several cracks in the fiberglass, most likely from being tied down too tightly. The good news is we have insurance. The bad news is it $0.60/lb. That gives us about $18. Not exactly going to cover the repairs, unfortunately. We're quite lucky that the whole container wasn't lost. Apparently around 10,000 containers are lost at sea each year. Had ours been one of them, we would have gotten a very small sum of money to replace most of our worldly possessions. You can be sure we'll insist on better insurance on the trip back. 
   Meanwhile, we're still unpacking boxes, and we've got a nice stash of things to give away or sell. Haven't figured out the best method for doing that yet. Yesterday we went to a swap meet held monthly at a nearby primary school. Lots of people selling, didn't see too many people buying. Still, we'll probably do it if we can get a stall space for next month. It only costs $20, and a few vendors we talked to thought it was worth it. We've got a lot of books to part with, and given the high cost of books, I think we should be able to sell enough to get some extra traveling money.