My 2-year old nephew in Australia loves getting postcards. He already associates me with frequent traveling. I’m referred to as “Tim Hong Kong jet plane.”

So before leaving Italy today, after a fantastic week in the Umbrian countryside with our Sovereign Man Total Access members, I set out to mail him some postcards. What I got, among other things, was a useful lesson in Italian bureaucracy.

In Hong Kong, on the rare occasion I need to mail a letter, I put a few coins in the vending machine on the outside wall of the post office. Space is a prized commodity that costs a lot of money in Hong Kong, so post offices are small and efficient.

Here in Rome, the main post office at Piazza San Silvestro is in a majestic old building with imposing architecture. There were acres of cavernous space inside that could have been much better used by high-end retail shops earning a profit. Instead it goes to Italy’s famously slow, inefficient, loss-making postal service.