Packages to France

It was supposed to be a surprise. We wanted to thank our hosts for their kindness and generosity by sending three items to two little boys in France. Thinking it might be easier to send directly from Paris, I used the Apple Store in Paris for package number one. I can understand enough French to figure out what was being asked and thought a transaction was complete. Package number two was sent from the UPS store here in Alexandria - pretty straight forward. Package number three was sent through Amazon's Create Space - two of my children's books that I can get without going through Amazon directly. As usual I began tracking the progress of all three and was getting quite nervous when all the remarks were showing not delivered "because." In the middle of all this I received an email in French and tried to respond. Still not making any forward progress! I was beginning to think the address was wrong and the contact numbers weren't working as planned. In the end we finally sent an email to our wonderful hosts and explained and were sorry for any and all the problems we were creating. What was meant as a pleasant thing turned in to a worry - for us! And hopefully not a headache - for them. The next day we finally started getting "delivered" and "signed for by" and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. I'm still not sure where the hang up was or even if there really was one. Maybe that's just how it goes in France.