The arduous journey of the fiddle

When leaving Victoria I had carefully packed and weighed my bags - my brand new large MEC backpack coming in at a mere 43 pounds of clothes (all that it could hold), my rolling black bag with 50.2 pounds of books, electronics, and more clothes (just below the Air Canada limit of 50.6 lbs), my backpack as carry-on (or as Europeans call it, hand luggage) with 19 pounds of laptop, books, knitting, tea, and documents, and finally, my personal item was going to be my fiddle.

Except that when we got up at 4:15 am we somehow neglected to bring along the fiddle.

Since I was going to Toronto for three days I asked Jeremi if he could try to courier it to Toronto by Tuesday morning so that I could bring it with me on the flights to Germany. He went to UPS, and was told that it would be there by 10:30 am on the Tuesday, a full hour before I had to leave for the airport. Of course it arrived about 4 hours after I left, and we were out $100. (Apparently the time quoted him by the UPS agent was not a guarantee of any sort, so we're just out the money.)

Since the fiddle was now at my parents house, my dad went down to the post office to see about sending it to Jena. I told him to send it the slowest way possible, and only if it didn't cost too much. Well my dad's a big softie, and couldn't bear the thought of me alone in Germany without a fiddle, and he spent far too much money sending it by Xpresspost. He also declared a value of $600, far more than it's actually worth, but figuring that it was better to be on the safe side in terms of insurance cost. He was tracking it (anyone who knows my dad knows he loves to track things online, be they flights or packages or weather), and knew that it had arrived in Jena. And then I received a notice saying the same thing, except it came with three forms attached, one of which had an address and lots of writing. Of course it's all in German, and I really can't read it so well. I put it into Babelfish to try to clarify the situation, and I came up with this:

Tariff interchange point

Notification about the entrance of a transmission with third country commodity

Very honoured post office customer, very honoured post office customer!

We ask you, the customs clearance lying close dispatch note tariff contents over the entrance of a transmission with cash on delivery from the foreign country belonging mail with the customs office (road and place) to request as soon as possible and to fetch the transmission there within seven days against return of the lying close dispatch note as well as collecting main of the necessary import papers (see "report if necessary lying close over the customs clearance of a mail"). Afterwards the customs office raises please the sent documents within this period with that hand written note "acceptance refused" to the German post office, tariff interchange point, back.

-Calculation and/or declared values bring along
-EBAY expression with declared value bring along

They know the missing data or documents - incl. this notification map and their plants - which o. g. convey customs office also in writing. The German post office will represent you during the customs clearance and for you the transmission will afterwards set. Please you consider that in this case a higher expenditure of time can be necessary for the post office customs.

Yours sincerely
your German post office

With the exception of "cash on delivery", all of the boldface is from the original. I'm a bit concerned about the whole "cash on delivery" bit, really, since it's already been fully paid in Canada. I'm really hoping that I just have to go pick it up and that I don't have to pay some sort of import tariff, but I'm really not sure. It's even marked "gift" on the form from Canada Post. I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow morning. I just thought you might like to have a taste of just how confused I am about everyday life here, even with the aid of translation. I also get to have a grand adventure getting to the customs office, which isn't in Jena at all, but rather in Lobeda, this semi-suburb about 5 km to the south of here which is filled with Soviet-era apartment blocks and bureaucy from hell. (Lobeda is also where the Ausländerbehörde or Foreigner's Office is, where I was unable to get my visa in the first attempt because my head was 2 mm too small in my passport photos. I'll be heading back there again sometime soon.) Maybe I'll bring along my camera to record the sights tomorrow. I haven't yet taken public transit this far from town, so this alone will be a bit of an adventure. I might even have a look around for cheap used bicycles if the experience at the customs office doesn't ruin my day.