All towns and cities have mailboxes and you can also find them close to railway stations and at airports. They are easy to recognize: yellow boxes with a black postal horn. You have to buy stamps for your letters and postcards. You can get these from post offices, either by going to the counter or drawing them from a stamp dispensing machine. For the latest postage prices, check
the Internet at:
http://www.deutschepost.de.
A standard letter takes up to 6 to 10 days to the United States. Airmail letters are also available and inexpensive. Postage is generally a bit more expensive in Germany than in the US.
When expecting a package, allow two to three weeks for airmail and six weeks for regular mail. There is a special inexpensive rate for books and printed matter (“Drucksache”) that requires you to pack the material in a regulation size box, which can be bought at the post office to be put into a mailbag.
All participants will be given a cell phone number of an employee of the International Office/International Center. This number may be used in case of emergencies 24/7. Therefore we kindly ask you to use this phone number only in a *real* emergency situation – especially during nights or weekends. What is an emergency situation? Emergency situations which might justify the use of the emergency number are for example traffic accident, severe injuries etc. It is certainly not an emergency, if you have missed your last tramway or lost your room key.
In emergency situations please do not forget to call the people who can really
help you as for example police, ambulance or Fire Department.
110 = Police
112 = Ambulance and Fire Department
Both are direct lines, accessible by all public-and cell phones without paying.