Australia Post and Mail in General...

Ok, living in the States I am very used to the US Postal Service, sometimes sucky but for me often pretty damn good. I know some things have changed, but this reflects the things I was used to and compared to what I now have here. I remember being in grammar school and waiting for Mailman Joe (we all knew his name) to come down the block with the letters to see which High Schools we'd gotten into. It figures it was the one time he didn't show up until 2ish, when he was always by us the latest 10:30am. We knew our mail deliverers, they had a face, they had their mail cart and door to door they walked with yucky bills or that magazine you couldn't wait to get your hands on.  I miss Saturday delivery, I miss being able to go to the Post Office on a Saturday or if in Roosevelt Field Mall, on a Sunday. I still anticipate my magazines, especially my FoodNetwork Magazine, it's the one thing I will not unsubscribe to, it keeps me in the loop with what's happening on FoodNetwork as that cable channel is not available here, they do have a Food channel with a few of the FN's stars but it's not the same and the most important is that we don't have cable. 

What I truly dislike about the Post here is that it's a shop, in a mall, on a street, there's no Post Office. Except the Main one in the City.  At the Post you can buy stamps, envelopes, post cards, express mail envelopes, greeting cards, pay as you go mobile phones, printers, stationery, water, candies and chocolates. You can even pay some of your bills, I've seen that in Croatia too. Since we live in a complex of 10 units, there is a brick wall with metal opening in the front and the back, so really anyone can walk by and steal your mail, my biggest problem is that most people don't care that their mail gets wet. I went outside earlier to take the cat to the vet and checked the mailbox and there is a puddle of water inside the box and all of our mail is soaking wet. I mean do we have rent a Post Office Box? Moving's a pain in the ass, much less having your mail forwarded and notifying EVERYONE of your new address. When we lived in Gordon Park it wasn't that bad, but this one is ridiculous, what if we get something important and it's raining for days? The Post man does not come with his little cart walking down the street, nope he's on motorbike and he never gets off that thing. I've read that sometimes, if you get a small package they sometimes just leave a notice in your mailbox to pick up the stuff instead of knocking on your door. Yes I said knocking, there are no bells at this complex. 

This is just a sample of the type of mailboxes some complexes have, this one is pretty decent, I've seen worse on our walks.