Oh, Canada Post!

I was in Niagara Falls last weekend for a reunion which turned out to be an inconvenient time for mailing postcards to friends because the Canadian postal workers were on strike! So I got to buy beautiful postcards of Niagara Falls, and was even able to buy postage stamps at the post office which was conveniently located inside a Shopper's Drug Mart (kinda like Canada's Walgreens, where you can buy everything from cosmetics to Kinder chocolates (!) to funny tshirts).

And then the clerk tells me I can't send any mail at that time because of the strike. She also tells me I can't drop off mail at the mailboxes because they're locked. It was preposterous, but she was telling the truth, as this photo I took of a locked mailbox in Clifton Hill would show you. Note the sign on the slot that says "Temporarily out of service." Even the one just outside the post office was locked. She suggested that I mail my postcards from the U.S. instead. But I said that won't be authentic Canadian mail anymore.

Solution: I got to write one postcard to a friend in Vienna and left it with my cousin in Toronto to be mailed when postal services go back to normal. It did go back to normal a few days ago.

Personal postal issues aside, I hope the postal workers had a good negotiation for what they were requesting. And besides, today is Canada Day!

(See my blast-from-the-past Ottawa post office blog entry here!)