Day 12 - Berlin/Prague

So I said in my last post that it was the last full day in Berlin.  Actually, we ended up staying a little longer than we thought today.  I mentioned that we were waiting on the computer, and that it had, in fact, arrived.  The only problem is that they didn't drop it off.  They kept it at the main post office in Berlin because there is a tax on incoming goods.  It's an EU tax they use to make sure people aren't shipping in goods for cheap.  So, in an effort to completely plagiarize another person's blog, I am going to give you the story how Stephanie told it...

"However, the morning they left we went to pick up their laptop.  Ryan had it shipped here because they realized as they went that for what they were doing, it was needed.  It came, but because the value was written as $2000 they wouldn't deliver it (due to the 20% tax that the EU puts on all such shipped items).  I had warned them ahead of time about this, but somewhere in the chaos of it all, the message was lost.  So the German Post was definitely holding the computer hostage.

It just happened to be about an hour away from where we live by public transport, which wouldn't have been so annoying if we hadn't made the trip 1 1/2 times due to my failure to accurately read the hours of operation on the postal slip.  So, yesterday morning we began our second trip there, to find out that the U4 had been shut down and was not running past Schoneburg, and so we had to go back the way we came, catch another line, and head a different direction to end up at the same point.  I got out my phone and alerted the GPS to our whereabouts, except that I am not really good with maps or directions, so I walked us in circles.  Every time I asked anyone where we should go, they directed me through the park, including the man at the city hall with the bushiest eyebrows I had ever seen and a fantastic collection of ear and nose hair - as well as the transvestite who thought I was hitting on her man when I asked for directions, so she sent me the opposite direction that we were supposed to go (once again, through the park.)  Thankfully, Ryan was smarter than all of that and said, "Hey Steph, I think it's this building behind us."

So we get in and register to wait.  That's right, register to wait.  Then we waited.  Then they called us up and told us that the tax would be 250 Euros.  Josh maintained stunning composure the entire time (this is true to character as my cousin Jessie likes to refer to Josh as the most peaceful person she has ever met), but I could see Ryan starting to calculate the extravagant cost of convenience.  Ryan and Josh then did what they do best, discuss why it will work out and why even if the worst case scenario happens, everything will be OK... They call our number, 63.  That's when it started.  I explained that they were backpacking, had the computer shipped, it was obviously not worth $2000 but as Americans we write this kind of stuff for insurance purposes.  They then told me that this was stupid and they should have known EU tax laws before they shipped, and that the American system is stupid.  I then explained to them that as stupid as it is, that was no less the case and that it made little logical sense for two guys backpacking through Europe to send for their laptop to pay $400 in tax on it so that they didn't have to go to an internet cafe and so on and so forth.  After a lot of back and forth, they charged the minimum tax (47.25 Euros) and we were on our way.  Let me just say I was dealing with the two most patient men I have ever encountered in my life, and I was grateful."

So, that's the story of the shipped computer.  This story and many other great little excerpts can be found at cricketjohnson.blogspot.com 

The rest of the day consisted of jelly donuts for lunch, a 4 hour train ride to Prague, peanuts for dinner, and our first night's stay at Sir Toby's Hostel in Prague.  I will talk more about the hostel in the next post.  I think this is long enough.