CUSTOMS OFFICE FED EX ADVENTURE
I wrote on Sunday about the pleasure of letting go of your own culture where you are constrained by the cultural conventions you know so well, constrained by knowing just how to fit in and the opposite stimulation of opening up to a new culture where you are simply floating along, free of conventions. I felt I was living the childhood rhyme and in Uruguay was row, row, rowing my boat gently down the stream.
So yesterday, Wednesday, I put this into practice when I took the papers that Fed Ex had given me and went to the airport to pick up my $21.91 Amazon Basics jacket that my son, Tom had sent me, at the airport Cargo Terminal. Unfortunately I found rowing my boat gently down the stream was a good deal more strenuous and confusing than I had in my cluelessness expected.
This is my story of my first big adventure in Montevideo after being floored by Covid. I left my Airbnb about 11, I think, with my Fed Ex papers in hand, and just came back at 7 after picking up the jacket and then, dead tired, eating at Almazara restaurant just down the street.
I will probably pass out soon, but want to write down what happened on my first big adventure in Montevideo. I also found the apartment warm after leaving the windows half way open on a cold day to air the place out at Daina’s suggestion. The heat was off in the living room, but for the first time was somehow on in the bedroom, after my not being able to turn it on for my first two weeks here. I have no idea why, but it was nice to be warm.
I am sore all the way down, but particularly in my shoulders, and exhausted. According to my Apple Watch I got 117 of 30 minutes exercise yesterday and walked 12,405 steps and 4.17 miles mostly getting to the bus and back. I didn’t take a nap. I am really worn out.
The first thing I learned on my trip was that there are several bus terminals (at least 2) where I thought there would be one and that the second one has a number of bus lines. I finally found my bus after an hour of circling, walking and asking.
Luckily I asked the driver to indicate to me where to get out because there was no indication, a sign or a building, where the cargo terminal was (out of sight behind a Air Force set of buildings).
But once I perilously crossed a crowded highway, two rapid zooming lanes in both directions, and found the cargo terminal my adventure was just beginning. I was sent to a desk where I showed my passport then sent on in English to the second door on the left, but when I got there the guy didn’t speak English and shunned me. A very nice guy noticed and took me under his wing and guided me for an hour. At the second window, or maybe the third they opened my package and I identified the grey coat as mine. Then I was sent (or taken by the nice guy) to another room where I took a number and waited forever for my turn. The first nice guy, who had lived for six years in Connecticut, who had been continually appearing and checking on me told me he had to go but told me just what to expect and how to proceed. A new nice guy appeared who had also lived in the States for a number of years. When it was finally my turn I took my papers to a desk and was then sent to get my passport scanned and was told to produce a receipt for the jacket which I had bought on Amazon six months ago. For some reason I hadn’t thought to bring the receipt to Uruguay.
I searched Amazon and found the same jacket that I paid $21.90 for, now for sale for $46 and got that printed up. But that wasn’t enough to indicate its worth.
I was put back in the line with a new number and a long wait and told, now by the second guy, Miguel, who had also decided out of plain kindliness to take care of me, to find the record of purchase on my Amazon credit card.
That took forever but I finally found it with the $21.91 that I paid. When my number came up again I showed this to the woman behind a desk who didn’t spreak English. It apparently, for some reason, also wasn’t good enough. She tried quizzing me by using a translation app on her computer, then gave up and sought help from a guy who spoke English. I explained that this was my actual record of my payment. I thought I was supposed to pay 6% customs duty on this but ended up being sent to another desk and paying $20. Then I was sent to the Fed Ex office where the woman in charge was out having a smoke. When she finally returned my Fed Tracking number was unlocked, releasing my package. Then I was sent back to the very first window where I had started my search to a man who spoke English who figured out that I had to pay $16 for four days storage. With the $16 reciept for the storage and the $20 customs receipt (plus $40 Fed Ex shipping for a $20 jacket), I was sent to pick up my jacket, which I did and was finally able to leave. I had been there for about four hours.
Then I went to a nearby very elegant Starbucks restaurant where I both got coffee and learned where to get the bus back downtown. At the bus stop I was told by a guy who spoke English that the first bus that appeared would get me to the harbor. I got on the completely full bus, wobbled down the aisle and was offered a seat because of my white beard by two young women who stood up and let me sit, holding the full paper cup of Starbuck’s coffee in my hand, which I squeezed as I sat down with the top popping off and the coffee spraying everywhere on two seats. The nice guy who had directed me on the bus held my coffee cup as I mopped up with a Kleenex. I rode that bus to the end of the line where I discovered that I was the only person left on the bus and was told I was finished. I was not very far from my Airbnb and walked back to my apartment. I hadn’t eaten lunch and it was 6 p.m. I planned to reward myself with a Mexican meal and walked the two blocks to the spot where I thought the Mexican restaurant I had discovered on line was, but I couldn’t find it. I knew if I came up to my apartment, starving as I was, I wouldn’t go out again. So I stopped at a nearby restaurant, Almazara, recommended by Daina and ate chicken stroganoff and then staggered home to write this down before I would forget it.
I don’t know what the moral of this story is. It doesn’t seem to be that life is but a dream, or at least not a good dream, this was a dream straight out of Kafka. But now that it is over, it isn’t a bad dream, either. It is an adventure. I came to Montevideo on a whim, with no purpose, but I’ve suddenly discovered why I am here, to experience life in a completely different way than I have ever experienced it in Asheville, North Carolina. I may ache from the neck down, but I feel very much jolted into being fully aware. This is my little Moby Dick experience and for some reason I enjoy it.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 