Postage

I think it's time to admit that Germany actually is not the best country in the world. Case in point: postage rates. I keep feeling that I am getting ripped off every time I put something in the mail here. Today, I went to the post office with a few letters to send to the United States and one letter to send to a location in Germany.

It costs 1.70 Euros ($2.44 American) to send a normal letter from Germany to the United States. On the other hand, a letter from the USA to Germany costs 90 cents. I just don't understand it, I have to admit. It seems like the costs involved in shipping a letter across the Atlantic would be the same regardless of the direction it travels, considering that both the US Postal service and the Deutsche Post handle the letter in their respective countries. It's not like a disgruntled American postal worker is actually putting that letter from mom in my mailbox in Berlin. And it's not like some chic German letter carrier is taking that Christmas card all the way to Grandpa's mailbox in Indiana. So why is it so much more expensive going west? Maybe it has something to do with fighting the rotation of the Earth.

Then there was my four page letter to Hamburg, Germany. I thought I actually already had enough postage on it when I got the post office. There was a stamp for 55 cents on the envelope, which is the standard rate (already high, considering this is equal to about 79 cents American). The envelope had too many pieces of paper in it though, apparently, and I had to put another 35 cents on it. I guess four sheets of paper is more that a standard letter should have?

Now this raises an interesting question. Why does it cost nearly half as much to deliver a letter inside the entire enormous United States as it costs to deliver a letter in a country the size of Montana?