A Year Abroad: Shipping mishaps.

Yesterday was the date we were supposed to be shipping. We were given the approximate pick up time of 9am-6pm, which meant we were stuck at Candice and Lucy's all day. It ended up just being Candice and I mainly, and we had our laptops so got some work done at least. At about 4pm, the doorbell rang and we were so excited! But, as soon as the guy opened the door and saw our boxes, we knew something was very wrong. He had not expected 6 large boxes by a long shot, only a small parcel…
He wasn't going to take our boxes. Suddenly, there were phones everywhere. He was on the phone to his UPS boss and we were on the phone to our shipping company, Seven Seas. No one at UPS France spoke english and no one at Seven Seas UK spoke French… The driver (who was really very nice) explained to us that UPS only transports personal effects to the US, not to the UK, and apparently Seven Seas pulled a dodgy and told them that we had commercial effects (though at first, UPS told us they had no affiliation with Seven Seas and had never even heard of them). We started yelling at people (haha) out of frustration. We clearly hadn't called UPS, so then who had? The UPS office guy finally 'remembered' a company called Seven Seas and that we did actually have a shipment with them. But still refused to take our boxes. Eventually, after half an hour, we reached a stalemate and the driver had to leave. Candice and I, having been stuck inside all day working, were incredibly frustrated at the outcome. Later that evening, we received another call from Seven Seas, telling us it was UPS' fault and someone will come on Monday to collect the boxes, though she could not specifically tell us what the original problem had been. In short, frustrating day.

But in other excellent news, we had a girls night a few nights ago and broke the gingerbread house up! It was probably the best and softest gingerbread I've ever made! WIN!