Does anyone here live in Milan?

Factual Questions
1

I know this is a very long shot, but I don’t belong to any other communities with people from countries and cities all over the world.

My daughter and I went to a few Olympics events last month. We stayed in about eight places over 12 days and were traveling with just a small backpack each, and all of our mountaintop events were at the beginning of the trip, so somewhere in the middle, we shipped a box of heavy winter clothing home.

To be precise, on February 16, we shipped a box from a post office in Salorno, Italy to my home in Pennsylvania, United States.

I have all of the paperwork, and I can track it, and it seems to have been in a post office in Milan, Italy since February 17.

I don’t speak the language, and I am obviously not in the area. Are any Dopers around who could stop by the post office in Milan or or call and talk to somebody in Italian? I’ll pay handsomely! I just want our stuff back.

2

I’m in South Africa, but I have friends in Milan.

I can contact them, but this is as long as a long shot can get, don’t get your hopes up.

3

Perhaps you should contact your local postal service and work through channels?

4

Oh, sure, I think so, too. It’s pretty much my only shot, so I figure it’s worth a try! Stay tuned, please.

5

That honestly didn’t occur to me (I think of it as totally different organizations), but I’m willing to start anywhere. I’ll stop by tomorrow.

6

I thought of you and your Secret Santa gift experience, actually, but this box contains nothing but clothing. It’s a mystery!

7

I assume the USPS has a process by which they can contact the Italian postal service or that of most other countries.

8

It hasn’t been a month and the Italian Post must have been crushed by millions of extra Oly tourists & athletes mailing similar packages. The US has been particularly slow at clearing small packages Stateside, too.

I wish I thought a visit to a USPS office could help in any way and I’ll eat my hat if anything comes of it.

9

I think the OP should at least start the process of tracking the package.

10

I’m really not all that anxious to receive it; I’d just be happier if I could see some progress. You might be right, though; it seems that “International Standard” takes 10-25 days on average and frequently takes much longer.

11

The box arrived yesterday! Honestly, until @jnglmassiv wrote that it hadn’t even been a month, as though shipping a box from Italy to the United States is expected to take a month or more, it seemed egregiously late to me. All in all it took 42 days. Thanks for your input, everyone.

12

I made a few calls on your behalf. Glad it worked out :wink:

13

That does seem pretty slow, even for Post. Did you notice any more updates to the tracking before it arrived?

14

I probably hadn’t looked in a week, but it took one day to get from Salorno to Milan, and it was in Milan for at least 24 days.

15

Someone suggested that the post office in Milan was backed up after the Winter Olympics. That seems plausible.