October 19, 2010: Going to the Post Office

October 19, 2010: After school today, my Hungarian teacher, Balazs visited my office at school to assist me in paying my internet bill at the post office, and I'm really glad he did because I could not have figured it out by myself. One would think that going to the post office would be a rather routine thing -- after all going to the post office in the US, all you do is wait in a long line for the next post office official to sell you stamps or weigh a package to mail, right? Well, Hungarian post offices are different -- radically. A clue that this would not be an ordinary trip to the post office should have been obvious to me when I was told to pay my internet bill there -- at a post office?! In the US we either pay our bills via on-line banking or send a check with the statement to the company itself; the only thing the post office has to do with this is to deliver the check and statement to the company which costs just a stamp. Well, in Hungary, the post office is good competition for a bank, visa center, or insurance card issuer. One first must take a number depending on the kind of transaction to be done at the post office. That right there required Balazs since he obviously knew which option to push to get my number. An electronic sign then showed what number should go to which station. The number we got required a wait of around 20 people ahead of us, and like other institutions, the numbers don't go up sequentially -- they skip around according to the type of transaction to be made. When our number finally flashed, we went to station 07 and I gave the lady my internet bill. I had wanted to pay for it by ATM card, but that would have cost an additional 300 HUF (~ $1.50), so I paid cash. The process took a short time once my number was called, but I'm sure glad that I arranged for the bank to autopay my internet bill in the future so I don't have to waste all that time in the post office waiting for the next station to open up. Below is a picture inside the post office and you can see for yourself how busy it was. Note the video screen above indicating which numbers go to which stations.

picture of post office

After paying my internet bill, we went to the market and I bought ingredients for tonight's meal plus some other items for breakfast. I'm all set for the next few days foodwise at least. Then I returned home and plan on reading and editing the notes that the interviewers made on my interview last week. They've done a very nice job at summarizing my responses to their questions. I guess the next step is for them to post it on the website along with the actual real-time video interview. I'll be famous at Ujpest!