Yes....in a barrel! It turns out that the most cost effective way to get personal belongings down to Dominica is to ship them via ocean freighter. Since I thankfully did not have enough stuff to fill an entire metal container, I used a 75-gallon fiber drum...aka my barrel. I was a little skeptical at first about how this was going to work out, especially because in Buffalo and Ithaca all the people at UPS/any other shipping company looked at me like I was an alien when I asked them about a shipping barrel. But I decided to trust the school and use Tropical Shipping.
On Friday morning, I got in the car at 6:30am, made a quick stop at CTB for some wonderful Hazelnut coffee and then started my drive to NJ. The drive was pretty uneventful, not too much traffic and only one minor monsoon. (Of course the monsoon occurred as I drove through Scranton. I swear that every time I drive through that place, it is raining like crazy). My favorite part of the drive was when I came over a hill and saw the NYC skyline. That doesn't get old! I arrived at the port around 11:30 and was immediately convinced I was in the wrong spot because there were no normal cars. I was literally surrounded by huge tractor trailers on all sides.
After waiting for the 5 trucks in front of me to go through security, I pulled up and told the security guards what I was trying to do. After calling my sweetie multiple times, they finally directed me to the office of Tropical Shipping. The people there were super helpful. I was able to pack the majority of my stuff into the barrel (including some coffee and ramen as well as a WHOLE bunch of index cards). And the best part of the barrel is that it only cost around 150 to ship it, which was WAY less expensive than shipping everything in boxes or then bringing bags onto the airplane.
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| My Barrel |
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| The "official" way of addressing the barrel |
The barrel should arrive in Dominica on August 8th. The caretaker of my apartment complex is going to pick the barrel up from Roseau for me, take it through customs and then put it into my apartment. So hopefully it arrives in tact to Dominica. If it does, I won't feel nervous about having to use the barrel to ship my stuff back to the states.
