Saturday, November 03, 2007

Working in the City

I was getting fed up with my first post round and the immense amount of cycling up into the countryside so I took on a city 'round' aswell. And when they offered me the neighbouring section of the city of Maastricht it seemed an easy decision to give suburbia a 'boot' and become a "city boy".



So now I am delivereing post to 2 sections of the centre of Maastricht where I can enjoy the river with the fog in the morning, the sun reflecting off it in the afternoon and the sunsets in the late afternoon (now 5pm).

The best part is that my first round is in 'Wijk' . For me one of the most interesting parts of Maastricht. The best shops, the best restaurants, the best bars, but still not realised by most of the tourist population so it remains pretty quiet most of the time. I deliver to art galleries, restaurants; as in: tapas, Indonesian, Japanese, French, posh 5***** restaurants, designer shops, fetish wear shops, antique book shops, Irish bars....you get the picture. And the fun bit is in this part of town you can't pop the post through the door as the place is normally open so you have to walk in and meet the owners and hand over the post.

The second route is mostly student territory and cheapish housing as far as the centre goes but the 'studes' are also intersperced with the old timers. The other day I had a fascinating conversation with an eighty year old woman about which postal company I worked for. And she told me even though I was still lost and having trouble finding the right postal box : "You are lost but you are living in Holland for more than one week I think.mmmm". Quite flattering considering it's taken 12 years to get such comments. Anyway I plan to have a cuppa with the old bird in the next few weeks as her hobby seems to be to look out for the 'postman' each day.



So I am quite sad to say goodbye to suburbia which I have enjoyed delivering to for the last three months but looking forward to getting to know the city and the people better.

2 comments: