I got a package slip on Monday afternoon.  Tuesday at school I confirmed with one of my teachers that the package was not at my local post office (where I've picked up other packages) but in fact at customs.  So after I finished teaching I bought a banitsa and a bottle of water--appropriate hydration and sustenance is important when you're starting an adventure.

I made a wrong turn or two and the street the office is on dead-ends into a wear house at one point but after a telephone call to a friend, I got all straightened out and found the post office/customs building.  Once inside, the first thing that happens to me is that I cannot find window 23.  I look around following the numbers twice and then I figure I'd better ask someone. I stop a woman with a big package in her arms to ask where the window is.  She gives me lots of instructions--I understand about 25% but it's just enough to figure out I have to walk down an unmarked hall and then turn a little bit to the left.

[caption id="attachment_656" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Window 23"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-656" title="Customs 1" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/02-10-09_1338.jpg?w=300" alt="Window 23" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

Following her directions, I find it! Ta-da!  I wait in line behind three very big Bulgarian men with my package slip out and my litchna karta (my id card).  At the window, the woman talks to me very quickly and it turns out that I have to fill out the back of the package slip.  I want to tell her that at my post office in the city center someone behind the window always fills it out for me but I don't know how to say that and all of a sudden it makes me wonder if they fill it out in my post office for me and tell me where to sign because it's easier than dealing with me in Bulgarian.<!--more-->

I fill it out and realize that my handwriting in Cyrillic looks like a 7 year old who doesn't know cursive yet.  Meah.  What's a girl to do? The woman take the slip and my litchna karta and studies both for a while.  She gives me back my card and passes the paper work across the desk to window 24.  I move down to window 24.  Here the woman tells me I have to pay for my package.  The first time I think she says 14 leva and I wonder what on earth someone has sent me.  I hand her a 20 leva note.  She asks me if I have anything smaller.  That's when I realize she must have told me 4 leva--not 14. I confirm this suspicion and give her a 5 leva note.

[caption id="attachment_657" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Dark and Damp Hallway"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-657" title="Customs 2" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/02-10-09_1347.jpg?w=300" alt="Dark and Damp Hallway" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

The thing about this set up is--all I know is that the package is from the States.  So frankly, I am going to pay whatever amount she tells me to pay.  For the record, I was willing to pay 14 leva but was much happier to only pay 4 leva.  Even after the money snafu, she mumbles something to me very quickly.  I feel a little bit like I am listening to the teacher in Charlie Brown "mahwa, mahwa, mahwa...."  I ask here where I am supposed to go with the receipt she's handed me and a slip of paper with a stamp on it and some numbers.  Window 30 it turns out.

Standing in line at window 23 and later at window 30, I realize how sad and old the customs section of the post office is.  Things are falling apart.  I snapped some photos with my cellphone camera.  Nothing is new here in Bulgaria but this was depressing.  I couldn't imagine working there.  That and a number of walls were covered with large <a href="http://www.bg.husqvarna.com/node1073.aspx" target="_blank">Husqvarna</a> posters of half naked women and outdoor power tools.  I had a lot of time to check these out as I was waiting for my package.

[caption id="attachment_658" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Shot of Husqvarna Girl"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-658" title="Customs 3" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/02-10-09_1348.jpg?w=300" alt="Shot of Husqvarna Girl" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

My first thought was these posters aren't work place appropriate.  I took a four hour long online  sexual harassment training course at my last job--I should know.  Then I looked around and all of the employees that I could see were women.  Hum.  Then I wondered what the posters were covering up.  These nearly naked women with power tools don't seem like the kind of thing an office of women would decided to hang up unless there was something worse that they were hiding with the posters--like mold, unfinished walls or maybe completely naked girls?

The woman came back to the window with a large box wrapped in white butcher's paper and right away I recognized my Aunt Jane's handwriting.  It was a wonderful surprise.  The thing I most wanted to do was open the box right there in customs but then I would have to figure out how to get the box home.  Instead, I tucked it under my arm and walked 20+ blocks home with the box under my arm.

The whole walk home, I kept thinking: somebody loves me, somebody loves me.  And I had the box as an outward sign of this love.  Stopped at one light waiting to cross, I shook it.  It made a dull clattering noise.  I hoped that nothing had broken it the trip across two continents.  Two blocks away from home, I stopped to buy a coke.  I was thirsty at this point.  The woman in the store offered me a plastic bag for my package but I told that I was almost home.

At home, I took off my shoes, went to the bathroom and opened my package.  Little did I know that in addition to feeling loved by receiving a package, I was also getting a whole box of love.  The package was full of Valentine's Day paraphernalia.  This included five boxes of paper Valentines--the kind we use to give to each other in elementary school, 12 small boxes of conversation hearts and two large bags of conversation hearts.

It almost made me want to cover a shoe box in pink and red hearts and put it out on my desk.  The only problem is that I don't think I'd get cards from anyone else.  It's funny, I used to spend hours pouring over boxes of valentines picking out one for everyone in my class and I'd take mine home to decipher the coded messages (how does this person feel about me?) I couldn't figure out those little cardboard cards then and now I wish for that simplicity.

What a wonderful gift.  I promptly ate too many conversation hearts and washed these down with coke.  In hindsight, this was not the best combination ever.  It gave me heartburn.

But then again, I guess that this is holiday about love, heart break and sticky sweetness.