Postcrossing Blog

Every time we receive one of your lovely friendship stories, we get a huge smile and can’t help but marvel at the power of simple postcards! On today’s post, Nathalie (aka TotosDawn) from the Netherlands tells us how postcards inspired her to travel – and meet her postcard-pals on the other side of the Atlantic!

When I started sending postcards via Postcrossing I never thought that actual friendships could grow and that the people behind the postcards could mean the world to me! But it happened!

On December 22nd 2010 I became a member of Postcrossing. I had heard a lot about the site, and got excited from the first minute I got my first address. I send out 5 postcards and waited behind my computer to see if they already arrived. Finally they started to arrive and I received my first card back!! The person sending this card is JulianChristopher. He sent me a beautiful card of the Sequoia National Park in California. I immediately fell in love with not only sending postcards, but also I wanted to go there because it looked amazing!

Besides sending the official postcards I started to send more and more private swaps and adding postcards to my favorites. Many cards from Blkbird were (and still are!) in my favorite gallery. She send me a message to ask if we could do a private swap! Of course!! It was difficult for me to choose which one of the beautiful cards of my favorites I wanted… One day, a big surprise was waiting for me when I found the private swap in my mailbox: it was an envelope filled with all the cards I added to my favorites send by her! I was amazed to see how sweet someone completely strange to me could be! We started talking and I fell in love again with the beautiful landscapes on the postcards: Colorado!

If before America had never crossed my mind as a holiday destination, now I was checking hotels, flight tickets, rental cars… My love for America only grew the more postcards I got, but it also became more specific. Sequoia National Park, the first card I got, was still in my head and I wanted to see more it. And who better to ask about it than the person who send me my first card? He was so sweet and sent me some more cards and then one thing led to another and we became 'postcard-pals’ and sometimes we spoke on Facebook. I didn’t forget about Colorado either, neither about Blkbird. We kept sending postcards and I fell in love more and more with America.

So when my husband proposed, we didn’t need to think about a honeymoon destination: AMERICA! We planned a roadtrip, crossing all the places I saw on the postcards I loved. But one thing I really wanted to do to was to meet the people who were so sweet to me all this time and had become my friends. I wasn’t sure if they would like to meet me too, I mean, I’m a stranger from another country, who they only knew via Facebook and postcards. But both were really enthusiastic about my plans and we planned the meetings.

First it was JulianChristopher's turn. We planned to see each other in the Sequoia National Park, where else! From the first moment we met I felt so happy and blessed that I had the chance to meet him and his sweet son. I just couldn’t believe that it was real, that it wasn’t a dream. We spend hours hiking and chatting. He could tell us so much about Sequoia, America and so much more. How special to spend time together in the park he showed me for the first time on a postcard as a total stranger!! Time flies and when the moment of saying goodbye came closer I didn’t wanted to say goodbye and felt sad. But no tears when we said goodbye, only a big smile of gratefulness that I could experience this and actually meet the 'stranger-friend from America’.

Meeting Blkbird was just as special as meeting JulianChristopher. Last minute we decided to have dinner the night before we had planned to spend together. We were waiting at the restaurant and she was a bit late, so I was nervous that she wouldn’t come or that she saw us waiting and thought: NO WAY! Nothing of that was true and when we met it was like meeting an old friend after years. No uncomfortable feelings, just chatting, eating, laughing. The restaurant was closing so we needed to go unfortunately but I was more then happy to know that we would meet again the next day.

We planned to go to the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver and the Dushanbe teahouse in Boulder. We enjoyed her 'guided tour’ and company. It was unbelievable how much we had in common. She could have been my mother or sister or twin. She is so alike me that it almost is scary!! No surprise that we didn’t want to say goodbye, so we sat for hours in the car when we got 'kicked out’ of the teahouse. Just talking and enjoying the company. No wonder that when it was REALLY time to say goodbye we both cried. When we drove away, I felt so sad.

JulianChristopher and Blkbird both have a special place in my heart. For them I would return to America without a doubt. When I’m writing this, tears are falling down my cheeks. Tears of sadness that I know that I won’t see them for a long time, tears of happiness, that I had the privilege to meet them.

Who could have thought that sending postcards could actually lead to lifelong friendships!

Good news, everyone! The nice people at the Czech Post are launching this lovely cancellation mark featuring Postcrossing next week!

Isn’t it cute? Its creation was suggested by Mr. Břetislav Janík (aka Bret_Prague), who is the director of the stamp design department… and a keen postcrosser!

The cancellation mark was designed by David Vlček and will be available during next week (24–28th February) at Prague’s Main Post Office, in Jindrisska street 14, Prague 1. A special commemorative sheet, featuring the postmark on a World Post Day stamp will also be available for purchase.

So if you’re in or around Prague, don’t miss this opportunity to have your cards cancelled with this unique cancellation mark! And for those of us far away but aching for a trip to Prague, here’s a picture of their Main Post Office…

Nice, right? I bet we all wish your local post office outlet looked this nice! :)

So, you might remember that last week I asked for your help with some postcards for a conference… and boy, did you ever deliver! :D

Here’s my brother opening the PO box about a week after the initial call:

I’m still speechless at the amount of postcards that tumbled out of that mailbox… it’s like it never ends! Can you believe there were over 600 postcards in there?!

So, I owe you… a lot. Thank you so, so much for your generosity and support. Seriously, postcrossers are THE best! :)

I expect that quite a few cards are still on their way and will arrive in the coming weeks, so I’ve already taken the address down. The audience should be less than 1000 people, so any extra cards will be safely kept for a next event of the sort.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a presentation to work on! The event will likely be recorded on video, so I’ll try to show you how it went in a few weeks. Fingers crossed! :)

BlackDrago (aka Natalie) hails from Sevastopol, in Ukraine. Besides being an avid postcrosser she’s also a devoted photographer and a Star Wars fan! :)

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

It was a post in my friend’s diary on journals.ru. I have always been attracted to something unusual… and what can be more extraordinary than paper postcards in the age of electronic correspondence? And then it turned out that this is a very interesting process, you can see a lot of interesting postcards, stamps, read the people who live on the other side of the planet Earth.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I’m interested in the Star Wars universe – I am the administrator on a site and forum dedicated to this world. I translate short texts and beta-read works of other authors. I like to assemble plastic models of the real and the fantastic vehicles. Photography. Cross-stitching. Sometimes I even manage to find some time for all these things… sadly there are only 24 hours in a day!

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

This is Post Office from which my postcards often hit the road:

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I think that almost all of my cards are favourites!

What makes them special? It’s the fact that someone took the time to read my profile and tried to pick up the card in accordance with the wishes, and wrote something just for me.

I have favorite authors as well, for example, French artist Severine Pineaux. She has a very beautiful dragons and cats.

And if we talk about the subject of cards, there is a series of “Darth Vader and Son” that I really like:

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yep. I participated in postcrossers meetings in Sevastopol and in Yekaterinburg (Russia, Ural), when I was there on business. This is in Sevastopol:

And here we are in Yekaterinburg:

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

Sevastopol.. I really love my city and his great history. It is really my passion and obsession. Sevastopol has always been a military city, the base of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia. I hope that he will once again be such, and not turn into just a resort.

Warships standing in bays and covered with morning fog is one of the most beautiful sights I can imagine.

We were wondering what the Little Mail Carriers had been up to lately, when we received this exciting missive all the way from Idaho! Their host lydacher did a thorough job of spoiling the little guys with splendid views and lots of fun activities! If there was any doubt that the Little Mail Carriers have all the fun…

Hello everyone! Late last year we traveled to Idaho, the U.S. state famous for its extensive wilderness areas, winter sports, and… potatoes.

When we arrived, our mail carrier, Jason, drove us in his truck to Old Town Pocatello. Then he walked us up a hill to our host’s house.

Our host Cheryl (aka lydacher) was in the midst of holiday preparations, so we jumped right in to help! The biscotti were divine – but diving in the chocolate chips was one of our favorite parts…

We were welcomed by the dollhouse family and shown to the guest room. As mail carriers, we had no trouble making friends with the family dog.

The next morning, we ventured out into the snow. We’d brought our bicycle, but the snow was too deep, so the dollhouse family loaned us their 4-wheeler.

Wheeeeeee!

Oops! Ouch… Are you ok, Little Paulo? Maybe that’s enough snow for one day…

While we dried our clothes and took a rest, our host gave us some facts about Idaho, which has only 1.5 million people living in an area of 219,887 square kilometres. Much of that area is designated wilderness, where motorized travel is prohibited. Idaho has more miles of rivers than any of the other contiguous U.S. states and several mountain ranges that include at least 9 peaks that are more than 12,000 feet (3.6576 kilometres) above sea level.

To take a break from all the snow, we warmed up in Lava Hot Springs, a short drive out of the city. These pools are fed by natural underground hot springs and are most popular during the winter, when the freezing air meets the 110° Fahrenheit (or 43° Celsius) water and creates an outdoor sauna.

The next morning, we looked through our host’s postcard collection, which she keeps in notebooks and special boxes, filed by country and theme. We learned that she has taught classes about Postcrossing through New Knowledge Adventures, a continuing education program offered by Idaho State University.

She makes children’s mobiles from some of the colorful postcards she receives, and she also made a platform for an electric train for us to ride with our Lego friends – complete with scenic postcards that reflect the views we should see from a real train. How cool is that?! :D

We helped our host select postcards to send and accompanied her to the post office. Postman Rocky sold us stamps and weighed us on his postage scale. Rocky told us that we weigh about the same as a first-class letter!

Bidding Rocky goodbye, we drove back toward the hills on the west side of the city. We’d taken our bicycle along to do some trail-biking… but instead we just sat on a split-rail fence, watching the trains in the valley below us.

The view was just breathtaking!

During the week, we also visited some museums that are uniquely Idaho. The Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University features an exhibit of prehistoric whorl-tooth shark (Helicoprion) fossils found in Idaho.

Idaho is sometimes called the “Potato State, ” owing to its popular and widely-distributed crop. The Idaho Candy Company makes an “Idaho Spud” candy bar that resembles a potato, and there’s even a Potato Museum that houses the world’s largest potato crisp!

We were invited to some holiday parties where we were welcomed by friends of all ages and got to hang out in the decorations!

And of course, we met some Idaho cats. This photo is for all those postcrossers who love cat postcards! :)

Year 2013 is over, and it’s time to bid our host goodbye… Happy New Year 2014 from Idaho!

Thank you so much lydacher for this amazing stay! On they go!

The little guys are currently looking for hosts for the next months, so if you’ve got a camera and some free time to show them around, leave a comment and we’ll get in touch! :)