putting the knit in shizknitz

A small group of us went on a day trip to Colonia yesterday via Buquebus (bookaybuus) which was tons of fun. The ship was huge, with a Duty Free shop on board (how excited I was until I realized it was priced in USD). Uruguay has their own Peso which is 7 to 1 Argentine Peso. The wine and steak we had there was good too - we did a city tour, very quiet city with cobblestone streets… then we found a party. A river-side (we crossed the big river to get to Colonia from Bs As) party in this huge delapitated building. There was loud music and we had assumed it was a bar, but it was a freakin party of some sort. Dancing, drunk people, and we were obviously totally out of place. It was quite humorous actually. We had a sunset boatride home (this time upgraded to First Class for 27 Argentine Pesos). Dinner at La Cabrera, an incredible restaurant, probably one of the best I’ve had so far (and trust me, I’ve been eating like a King). Today we leave for Salta.

It has been almost a week since I’ve arrived… and this is truly one of the most spectacular places in the world. Although most people in the US probably don’t even know where Argentina is, they certainly are missing out on quite a lot. This cosmopolitan city with great European influence is spectacular in its physical buildings, its people and its fantastic exchange rate with the USD (approx 3 pesos to 1 $). Even the posh malls seem cheap, as mentally I think of everything being on sale (its only a third of the price!) and I’m having ablast with the shopping aspect of it all.

Right now T is on his way. What’s more romantic than having your man fly half way across the world to meet you¿ I’ve got quite an itinerary planned for the rest of our time here, and I can’t wait to get it started.

For those of you who are wondering, we are 4 hrs ahead of the west coast time zone, yes the toilet water rotates the opposite direction when flushing, and yes, I’ve had more to drink in the last week since…. well I can’t remember ever going to class drunk before. Not only do we drink a lot, but we certainly EAT a lot. Let’s just say my loose pants are no longer my baggy pants.

The coffee is good here (more like an espresso), croissants, pizza, and of course STEAK. I can`t eat another steak for at least … hell, I shouldn’t be eating for the next few weeks. I love it here and although I’m a little sad the course portion of it all has come to an end, I’m excited to get everything else on a roll. Salta and Iguazu, here we come!

Finals and upcoming trips haven’t kept me from my knitting - I had a great excuse to knit something baby related when one of my Chinese groupmates had his first son (in China)! I pulled out my Last-Minute Knitted Gifts book and voila! There was Angora Baby Booties under the “less-than two hour gifts” section. It took me a few weeks to get myself together with yarn - Bouton D’or 100% Angora and dp needles (size 4). Not only were they easy to knit, but quick… thank god, I haven’t had a full nights sleep in quite some time.

The Great Taco Hunt… only if I had the time, and the metabolism.

What the heck is going on with UPS? They used to be known for their ground service which was TERRIFIC. If you’ve got a differentiator that works, stick with it. Not only have I had nothing but problems with ground service, its gotten so horrible lately that I’ve had a problem with every package delivery since… well since last fall. Here’s a run down:

1. Oct 17, 05 - my Matt and Nat Order - what a disaster. I can’t remember all the details but it was a ground package that got lost, accidentally shipped back halfway across the US to Ohio, then sent back where I received it about 2 weeks late, then when I received it the box was so banged up the purse came half folded up.
2. Christmas season - I did most of my shopping through Amazon this last season, and of course most of them shipped via UPS. Not only was I not receiving InfoNotice “we missed you” slips on days they claim to have “attempted delivery” some of my packages got re-routed to my neighbor’s work. What a shock I had when I realized that my package had been “delivered” and upon calling was delivered to an address I had never heard of before to a name I’ve never heard of before. They had a contact number which coincidentally belonged to our neighbor who we happened to know (we do live in LA, most of us don’t know each other even if we are neighbors) because they have a dog as well (with the exception of dog owners who run into each other frequently due to walking the dog).
3. All the other issues I’ve run into such as late deliveries and what not that I can’t remember. A few years ago I had one incident where a package that was being shipped with computer parts had been lost, and a lady called a few months later from their sorting facility and mentioned that she found our box hidden behind the sorter machine.
4. But this time, my Franklin Covey order definitely takes the cake.

I ordered a design your own calendar set from the FC site which gave me an estimated printing time of about 15 business days, so imagine the joy when I got their confirmation within the week that it had shipped. Because of my upcoming travels, I had upgraded the shipping to two-day UPS service. BIG MISTAKE.

Last weekend I look to see that it shipped and would be arriving on Tues April 4th. Perfect. I would be around most of the day to wait for the UPS driver. However, that was the worst storm day we had seen all year. UPS driver never arrived. Miffed, I continued to check the online status, but it looked like it hadn’t left the central LA UPS station all day. The next day I was at school all day and again by the late afternoon the package still hadn’t left the central LA UPS station. I called them, to see what the situation was - and they said the package had been lost (there had been no movement in the last 24 hours) and thus I should have the shipper put a tracer on the package. I called Franklin Covey where I spoke to the NICEST rep who not only took care of the tracer, but said that they would re-print my calendar and have it shipped overnight. Now, THAT’s CUSTOMER SERVICE!

I get home to find an InfoNotice from the original order. Shoot, the driver had decided to deliver - so I immediately put through a location redirect to T’s workplace since I knew I wouldn’t be home for the rest of the week. I went online - voila and done, done. Or so I thought.

The next day, Thursday - T runs into the UPS driver inside the complex who only had a package for our apartment manager. Nothing for us, and no InfoNotices etc. In the meantime I’m at school delighted at the fact Franklin Covey wasn’t messing around - not only did it ship overnight, but they shipped it yesterday, which was supposed to arrive today! Except - I get home to find neither package and the strangest activity on their tracking.

That was from the overnighter package - supposidly they made 3 delivery attempts today - except T ran into him and he didn’t have a package for us. The original order - also had:

Again, apparently a delivery attempt was made to a mystery person since T was at home. There were no packages awaiting him at work, either. I called UPS and spoke to a very kind customer service rep who confirmed that my second package was also redirected to the same address as the first - which for future reference will always happen as long as you have one package on redirection. She also said that she would have someone from that office contact me by 10 AM Friday morning to explain the situation and to confirm that it would be delivered.

Friday - no phone call, and no packages, anywhere. They must have dissapeared. By evening they had traveled from Los Angeles to another place in Los Angeles, the other to Gardena.

*sigh* So I called UPS again - the lady was bewildered at what she was seeing on her screen. She again confirmed that the packaged should arrive on Monday to T’s work - and put in another request for someone to call.

I’m in the midst of Finals, I’m stressed, not sleeping, need to knit booties for a friend’s new baby and intolerant of incapable companies like UPS. Why don’t they concentrate on their delivery rather than trying to compete with Fedex/Kinkos with the whole copy service stuff? You have to keep your current customers happy before you can garner new ones.

Now if there’s some way I can avoid using UPS……