Hover a line for its translation; hover a word for its meaning. Tap 🔊 to hear it.
Generate a brand-new dialog on any topic, using this lesson's 0 vocab words — plus any words you add below.
Sign in to generate dialogues. It needs a pass — the first ten lessons of every course are free either way.
The neighbor has your parcel
If a German delivery driver cannot find you, they will very often leave your parcel with a neighbor and put a card through your door saying which one — a system called Nachbarschaftsabgabe, and entirely normal rather than a liberty. You may equally find yourself signing for a stranger's shopping. The alternative is the Packstation, a wall of yellow lockers found outside supermarkets and stations, where DHL parcels wait for a code sent to your phone; they are extremely widely used. Two other habits catch people out. Sunday and public holidays mean no post at all, and Germany has a lot of regional public holidays, so a parcel can simply stop for a day in Bavaria while moving normally elsewhere. And post offices themselves are frequently a counter at the back of a stationer's or a supermarket rather than a building of their own — look for the yellow horn on a blue background, which has been the Deutsche Post mark since the days when the mail actually arrived by horn-blowing coach.