Friday, February 13, 2009

Mailing restrictions for Germany

I am anxiously awaiting a package from the US containing ski pants for my trip to Austria next week. I leave at 8am on Monday morning so I am hoping that the pants somehow arrive today. Things are not looking so good. The USPS tracking system shows that my pants arrived in Germany on Wednesday and cleared customs late last night. However, as of yet, there has been no sign of them. :-/ I am still crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

In the meantime, my office mate was trying to help me figure out what company will deliver my package today. While browsing the USPS website for Germany, he came across a list of things that are prohibited for shipping. I copied the list below.

***********************************

Prohibitions (130)

Absinthe.

Arms and weapons.

Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.

Human remains.

Live plants and animals.

Melatonin.

Perishable infectious biological substances.

Playing cards, except in complete decks properly wrapped.

Pulverized coca beans.

Radioactive materials.

****************************

Improperly wrapped playing cards are banned? Seriously, you have got to be kidding me. Are the Germans worried that they have an overabundance of the Queen of spades?

Surprisingly, incomplete decks of playing cards are accepted in France, but prohibited in Spain.

I am rather curious to see if these prohibitions are ever enforced. So someone send me an incomplete and unwrapped set of playing cards.

:-)

3 comments:

Adrianne M. LaFrance said...

did you read about my fiasco at the zollamt? you should add "anti-baby pille" to your list.

i was really amused to get to actually use that word legitimately in conversation, though, even while i was pissed that they sent my whole package back. which, by the way, it now seems has been totally lost. with my brand new pair of glasses and 8 months of my prescription. sigh.

i hope your pants get here! are you actually going skiing, or just snowdiving?

Charity said...

My pants have not arrived....sadness. I had the pants sent to my work address since I am not home during the day. However, packages can not be delivered on Saturdays. I have to leave at 8am on Monday morning so it looks like I am going to miss the pants by a few hours or less! ARGH!!! I found the anti-baby pills to be quite comical but the story stinks.

Adrianne M. LaFrance said...

"pulverized coca beans" = .... crack?