Hello from Slovenia,
I did not get any mail from abroad for at least 2 weeks although I have several trades:
expecting Mexico from May
expecting Canada from end of Nov (2x) and end of Dec
expecting Spain from early Nov (2x) and January (2x)
expecting Germany from January
expecting China from January
Also in the opposite way, mail to Canada from end of November is still somewhere outside (at least I did not get any info that it arrived - @LC-Canada, any news?).
no my cards from the netherlands to germany take mostly between 8 and 14 days too. but some arrive within a week.
but besides my two expired cards my longest card to germany is 4 days on its way now, and i send a loooot to germany. so my cards all arrive.
I (being from Germany) think it’s all completely unpredictable…
My cards to Slovenia arrived superfast (I think I posted both only one or two days after drawing the address).
My sister had a card travelling to China about the same time as me - mine took a good 15 days more. And my card to the USA, sent on 18th december hasn’t arrived yet - the one registered is the replacement card, sent on day 30.
One card from the Netherlands took 17 days to arrive, while yesterday one came from an RR from Sweden, making all the way through the snow in 2 days after being stamped in Malmö. Also GB (RR) took only 2 days.
Russia and Belarus seem to be quite fast, in contrary I could have delivered my one card to the Czech Republic on foot, and at a very slow pace, just a bit more than 100km in seven days…
And: I’m expecting a parcel from the USA, it was posted on the evening of 5th, and already arrived at Frankfurt airport yesterday… Reading about parcels taking weeks and weeks within the US, that’s amazingly fast…
I have the impression that even postcards within Germany slowed down as well.
In my region (south) there is no snow at all and the post gets slower every week… I think that they might have problems with people missing at the post offices due to quarantine or they didn’t expect people to write that much during the pandemic, so they might be swamped with letters and parcels so they can’t deliver earlier. I read that our postal worker here in Germany had to deliver five times more parcels and letters than usual during the last December… it might take longer then
I’m also based in Germany and have noticed some delays in receiving mail from the US over the past few months. Cards do arrive eventually but definitely take longer than they used to. My mail carrier, who is very friendly and usually well-informed, told me that her husband was informed at the sorting center he works at that a lot more mail from those countries now travels by ship across the Atlantic rather than by air mail.
As far as the heavy snowfall and cold snap we are experiencing at the moment are concerned… Unlike other areas in the world (or the US… hello, Wisconsin ) the Ruhr region where I live is just not used to this kind of winter weather so it has a tendency to throw everyday life off kilter for a while. We still only have public transportation at 1/3 capacity at best on Thursday, and the snow fell over the weekend. My mailbox has not yet been filled with anything at all this week, and I have not seen my mail carrier either. I went for a walk through the snow the day before yesterday and found a mailbox that was not frozen shut so I could post some letters and cards, and the first of those within Germany already arrived yesterday, just like they normally would. I guess everyone is doing the best they can under the given circumstances.
The cul-de-sac I live in is knee-deep in snow with a thick layer of solid ice underneath. Very pretty to look at but hard to navigate on foot or by bike… The main road 200m away has been plowed and is free of any ice or snow but lots of cars that were left outside during the icy rain that preceded the snowfalls are still frozen shut (mine is a good example). It is all very pretty in the bright sunlight today, though. Temperatures are supposed to climb above 0°C again at the beginning of next week so hopefully with a little patience, postal delivery will also resume even for unplowed roads like the one I live at.
Yes, weather is always going to slow things down. If mail from the US is coming by ship to Europe that would explain some delays of a few weeks, but not months of delays. Ships crossing the Atlantic don’t take much more than a week to cross but there might be issues with unloading it as it’s destination.
Yes I can attest to that as well.
In my region we aren’t used to heavy snow and lasting temperatures below -2C. My boyfriend from switzerland shakes his head about it daily
When the postlady came yesterday for the first time in a few days I nearly kissed her
Post from US to Poland took 3 months when it was sent by ship in the early days of the pandemic. Cards and letters posted in March, I received in June. I’m not sure they are using ships again (could be) but maybe the post piles up in the international distribution centers until there is a plane available.
There are unexplainable (without further data) delays everywhere. I got cards from Slovenia and Croatia within 2 weeks of posting, while Portugal, Italy and Spain took between 5 weeks to 2 months. It’s just our life now…
I wish some journalist or group of postal workers or their unions would shine more light on the challenges for mail during the pandemic - I’m fascinated by the little bits we find out & would love to know more.