Post Office

We're headed home for Christmas. Yippee! After much debate, we decided that we should have the mail delivery stopped while we are gone. This wouldn't be a question in the U.S., but we don't exactly get a lot of mail here, so we debated whether it could just accumulate in the box. So, this morning - with the help of Google translator - I wrote a little note about my desire to stop mail and gave the dates we would be gone. I headed to the post office and handed over my note to the clerk. She asked me a bunch of questions, and consulted a calendar. Here, I thought my note would be helpful! I'm not sure why I had to reconfirm the dates via a calendar when that was the one thing I knew I had right in the note, but I'm learning not to ask questions (probably helped by the fact that I can't do it in German). Eventually, the clerk handed me a form, pointed to where I should fill it out, pointed to the other clerk, and made her point that when I was done, I should see him instead, as he spoke a little English. He again reconfirmed my dates with the postal calendar, fixed my errors on the form, and told me it would be 10 CHF. I was a bit surprised by the charge, but when I asked around, people were shocked that I'd be surprised. I'm beginning to learn that there's a charge for everything.