Monday, January 17, 2011

Street Addresses

I was having a discussion with some friends about street addresses around the world. One of my sisters made this comment about the addresses in Costa Rica, where someone she knows has a property:

' Costa Rica is one of the worst. No street addresses, so people have to get Post Office boxes or take their chances. Addresses there are directions from the the nearest known place. Like 2 streets east from the train station and 4 blocks south of the American Mall in San Jose. I once had to FedEx a package to a bank there for my friend and and the address was 6 lines long with Mdirections only, so crazy. My friend has a house there and he has no idea what the address is . He says he once saw it and just couldn't bother trying to remember it. You have to pay your phone and utility bill in the local offices or set up your account there with a credit card so you can get it charged monthly.' She went on to say 'It's small enough that they can find you though. It seems to work locally. People get so used to that they don'twant it changed. They go by directions!'

Apparently it's like this in most of Latin America, so courier companies make a fortune delivering things, nobody relies on the mail.

Another friend was saying: 'Some may think the postal codes in Canada and the U.K. are strange enough. In many countries in Europe, the word 'street' comes before its name, so instead of 'Wall Street' you would have 'Street Wall'.


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5 comments:

Barbara Blundell said...

Hi Christine,
LIke the sound of Penne Primavera with Fresh Salmon We seem to have had lots of potatoes in various forms lately so was looking for an alternative for a change.

Nezzy (Cow Patty Surprise) said...

Sure sounds like a heckofa way to try to deliver things! This Ozark Farm Chick had no clue that there were still places with no addresses.

I truly enjoyed your post!

God bless ya from the icy hill and hollers of the Missouri Ponderosa!

Nicola said...

Hi Christine, I just wanted to pop in and thank you for your visit to my blog and your very kind words :0) take care!

Joanna Jenkins said...

I have such a terrible sense of direction I'm pretty sure I'd spend most of my time walking around in circles over there.

Cheers, jj

Kay said...

This post made me giggle because I just insisted that Art put our house number on our house so emergency vehicles could find us easily. He put up chrome over the white paint which he thought was subtle. I told him, "NO." So he was forced to go out and put up black numbers which are more visible. He does agree with me that it makes more sense to put up the black numbers.