Getting an answer from New Zealand about sending leather has been entertaining.
I think the query I submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry (MAF) was eaten by the troll under the ethernet bridge.
I called the Chicago Consulate, and was directed to the NZ Customs service website, which directed me back to MAF.
I called the New York Embassy, and was given an email for MAF, but apparently my brain did not distinguish between eff and ess when spoken with a New Zealand accent, and furthermore my brain was not fully engaged to catch that I should probably be sending to an address at maf.govt.nz, not mas.govt.nz.
I was also given a phone number for MAF . . . in New Zealand. Fortunately, I noticed the f/s thing and tried e-mail again to maf.govt.nz before finding out how much it costs to call NZ. I did, however go so far as to look up the time differential to, IIRC, Christchurch (1:30 pm today CST is 7:30 am tomorrow there).
Yay! Finished/tanned leather can come into NZ! There is a little ambiguity in the response, such that it could be interpreted that a finished bag is ok, but just a chunk of leather is not, vs. tanned leather ok but raw skin not, but in either case we're good.
Now to pick up and fill out customs forms, and figure out just how much shipping for the Beer Gut is going to be, so I can bill the customer (who I've let know where we are in the process).
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Yard Dinosaurs
1 day ago
Making international calls is one big strength of having a VoIP line instead or as well as a more traditional line.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2005 when I needed to make hotel reservations in London, and couldn't do so over the web, I was very glad to have our Vonage line - and now it would be even cheaper since the UK is now free in their service.
Alas, loaning your our VoIP connection wouldn't have helped much - getting to our phone would probably have cost more than the call.