Postcrossing Blog

Today we bring you a heartwarming and international friendship story, made of many postcards, emails, meetups attended together… and Kofola, a soft drink from Czech Republic!

Anni (aka stetsflauschig) tells the story:

"So I want to share about my longest Postcrossing friendship, which is still holding up! 😊

I think it started in 2014, when I organized the first Postcrossing meeting in my city, Dresden. Back in those days my username was Fireblossom. My dear friend Vladena (ybur) attended the meeting with her two daughters and some other Czech postcrossers. It was such a lovely time and I was invited to join a Czech meeting in the same year, which I did. Everybody was so wonderful and welcoming, which was an amazing thing for me because in that time my mental health wasn’t good and I was a bit afraid about the long trip and all the people I didn’t know yet. But there was not a single bad moment and everyone was so kind, especially Vladena. She took care of me like a mother would, which I am so thankful for!

Vladena and her daughters also invited me to visit them in their home city, Prague, which I did several times in the following years. It became tradition that she would come to Dresden when I hosted another meeting, and I joined some other Czech meetings as well.

From the start, we developed a little fun thing about a Czech drink named Kofola, which I really love! Vladena would always bring at least one bottle to Dresden to make me happy, we would exchange cards from holidays and write a lot of emails. I was updated about the birth and growth of her first grandchild, and shared pictures and events from my life with her, too. It almost felt like she would be an aunt of mine, party of my “real” family, a wise and gentle woman which I could talk to and that would always think about me and send me a card or email that often arrived in times when I really needed something to cheer me up.

In the following years, the Dresden meeting grew bigger and bigger, one year we had more than 70 participants from 4 different countries… Vladena sometimes didn’t have time to join us, but when she did, it was always a true highlight to meet her again in person and just spend some nice hours together. In 2020, we had to cancel the meeting because of the pandemic, which was really sad, and in 2021 I moved away and therefore stopped hosting the meetings. We stayed in contact nonetheless, exchanging emails and cards. Even though it sometimes would take one of us several weeks or even months to respond, it always feels like I just met her a few days before when a new email or card arrived. We are currently trying to meet up again in Prague, I wanted to visit her and her family again for a long time, but life keeps us quite busy. But there is a lot of understanding and I am sure, next year we will make it!

This friendship has been truly precious for me and I will try to keep it up and meet her again as often as possible. It is one of the reasons why I love Postcrossing so much, because I learned a lot though her and all the wonderful people I have met in the meetings, especially the Czech ones. It is a special way of bringing people from different nations together who share an interest, which many people nowadays may just smile about, but the Postcrossing community is still strong and so wonderful! For me, attending the meetings, especially in another country, were a big step in overcoming my fears of traveling so far and meeting strangers. Strangers became friends, like Vladena and I did, and I still feel very close to her, even if she is far away – but when a card from her arrives in my mailbox, all that distance doesn’t matter at all."

Thank you Anni and Vladena, for sharing your story with the community! 😊

If you’ve made some good friends through Postcrossing, let us know — we love hearing these stories and sharing them here on the blog, now and then.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a friendship story on the blog, and we miss them!

A while ago, postcrosser Nan (aka NanPC) sent us a very nice message to let us know about a remarkable friendship she started with Sébastian (aka Seb_Hcd) and his family in France! As it often goes in Postcrossing, it all started with a postcard… but we’ll let Nan tell the story!

"I received the above card in May 2019 from the sender in Caen (in Normandy, France). When I registered it, I remarked that my uncle had been involved in the D-Day invasion. From there, the sender, Sébastien and I began an email correspondence. He told me about his deep understanding of what the Allies had done for his country and I shared pictures from my uncle’s photo album. Sébastien and his family sent me memorabilia from the D-Day celebrations. We exchanged more emails and photos and gifts. I saw their New Year’s decorations and they asked for a photo of our Thanksgiving meal. When his family went on vacation, I got pictures and more postcards. Once we became Facebook friends, I saw what a devoted marathoner he was.

When my daughter became seriously ill in 2020, they kept up with the medical developments for the next two plus years through our CaringBridge webpage.

Last fall, he let me know that he was going to run in the New York City Marathon in November and then the family would be taking a few more days to visit Washington DC. At last we could meet up, since I live an hour from there! My daughter and I met them for a lovely dinner in DC. Their two teenagers were just as nice as they could be. It was fun!

When I mentioned my intention to visit the Normandy beaches, they invited me to stay with them. Sébastien wanted to show me the historical sites that he has known and treasured since he was a teen. I made that visit some months ago. I was overwhelmed with their hospitality and kindnesses. His sweet wife, Ange Elique drove us everywhere (he had a broken leg) and took a week of her vacation time to host, entertain and feed me. She even gave me handmade gifts.

Although we do not have command of each other’s languages, we used interpreting devices on our phones and did fine.

Postcrossing has led to a friendship that would not have happened any other way. I am deeply grateful and wanted you to know what transpired because of a simple postcard."

Thank you Nan and Sébastien, for sharing your friendship story with us! :)

What about you? Have you made some nice friends through Postcrossing? If you feel up to it, write to us about it — we’d love to hear it!

Today we bring you a friendship story that went beyond borders to bring together Carrick (aka geocarrick) from the USA 🇺🇸 and Milad (aka orange_memo) from Iraq 🇮🇶! Carrick tells the story of how they first got in touch, and eventually met.

Milad contacted me the first time back in September 2010 asking for direct swap, and since I never had received postcards from such a rare country like Iraq, I was thrilled! We swapped a couple of postcards, which I received in November 2010.

I mentioned to him that I’ll send him a postcard from Shanghai World Expo 2010 since I was going there. At the time, I enjoyed visiting the Iraqi pavilion and tasted the famous Iraqi dates over there.

On July, 9th 2011, and much to my surprise, I received Milad’s mail address through the Postcrossing system and mailed him the “Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum postcard” (US-1200218) which he received and registered on July 20th, 2011.

Milad and I kept writing to each other through Postcrossing from time to time. We both enjoy swapping postcards, penpaling and traveling, making new friends and learning new languages and cultures.

On May 2012, Milad wrote saying that his sister and her family were moving from Baghdad to Anaheim (California). At the time I lived close to Anaheim and my postbox was there too, so he wrote to tell me the news and let me know he was going to send some postcards with his sister for me. I met his sister and her family in December of 2012, and got another set of beautiful postcards from Iraq.

We kept exchanging postcards and news from time to time, and on April 2016, Milad let me know he was going to try his shots and apply for a visit visa from the American Embassy in Baghdad. In order to do that though, he needed a sponsor letter. I decided to help him and provided him with an invitation/sponsor letter, and after a lengthy process and much anticipation, Milad was granted his visa and came to California. We were very excited to finally meet on Sep. 22nd 2016. We went to Rodrigo’s Restaurant in Anaheim-CA for a nice dinner (Milad’s first time trying Mexican food) and two days later and on Sep. 24th 2016 I took him on his first-ever visit to Disneyland resort to celebrate his birthday.

We always tell our friends and fellow postcrossers that it’s truly a small world, and how postcards and Postcrossing can shorten distances and build friendships. It’s been almost 4 years since we first met in real life, and we’re still talking about that. We’ve had trips to Disneyland twice and to OC Fair

Thank you Carrick and Milad, for taking the time to tell your story! We love hearing about the friendships and connections that postcards bring to life. 😊

In September 2012, Jeanette (aka TBJean) in Denmark and Rosita (aka rositahtc) in Hong Kong did a direct swap, each sending one postcard to each other. But life goes on, and after receiving their nice cards, both girls slowly forgot about each other.
Then, a year later, Jeanette moved to Hong Kong for a school exchange… guess what happened! :)

Here’s Jeanette with the story:

One day when I was living in Hong Kong, I left home later than usual to go to school, and got on the mini bus. Three girls from my school got on the bus as well, and took the three seats around me, one next to me and two in front. The two girls in the front pushed the girl next to me to start a conversation. Her name was Rosita, and we shared our contacts on a piece of paper.

After school that day, we were chatting online, and I randomly asked whether Rosita knew if I could buy a tube at the post office, for sending home posters. Rosita was passionately telling me about the post office, and that she had a postcard and stamp collection. Wanting to share mine with her, I sent her a picture of my wall back in Denmark, where all my postcards from all over the world were hanging, and she told that she liked posting postcards as well! We both realized that moment that we were both postcrossers :)

Suddenly, Rosita remembered that she had once received a postcard from Denmark, and decided that she had to send me a picture! When she found the postcard and turned it around, she noticed that the senders name was Jeanette, and then compared the writing to the note she had got earlier in the morning time…

Rosita immediately called me, and screamed into my ear: “Jeanette, do you live in a city called E-S-B-J-E-R-G?!”, to which I answered “Yeah, how do you know that?!”. She screamed again: “We exchanged postcards a year ago!!”

It was so surreal that we decided to have breakfast together the next day before our school’s sports day!

We still can’t believe what a huge coincidence it is, the fact that we met so randomly that morning on the mini bus! It is now more than 6 months later, and here we are, sitting in a restaurant, having a drink and deciding to share this story with our fellow postcrossers.

We say that it was meant to be, but of course it is up to you whether you want to believe in that.

Isn’t it a fantastic story? :D If you’ve also had an “happy accident” related to Postcrossing, we’d love to hear about it!

Sometimes, mail has really good timing, don’t you think? It makes us smile at the end of a particularly bad day, or sometimes… it serendipitously put us in touch with the right people at the right time! I’ll let Loli-ts, the recipient of a very timely postcard tell this lovely friendship story:

"This is the story of a postcard and two people… I’m Loli-ts (aka Dolores), living next to Barcelona, in Spain. On February 5, 2014 I received a beautiful view of Prague from azuzanka (aka Zuzana), from Prague in the Czech Republic.

Postcards are magical windows. It’s always a pleasure to see a piece of the world, and to read the handwriting of someone that you have never met, saying warm words and inviting you to look through the window of her or his eyes. So, I was happy to read the message from Zuzana… yes, specially happy this time: she said she was coming to Barcelona just some days later!

When I registered the card, I also invited Zuzana to ask for advice about their visit to Barcelona and, of course, to meet each other when she were here. And yes, we did!

We made a nice walk from their hotel through the Old Town of my city, discovering the spirit of the district, some hidden spots and secrets of story… and specially, we discovered new friends. Postcards and Postcrossing where a main subject of our conversation. And of our photos too!

Thanks to Postcrossing, Ana, Paulo and all the people who work to make possible this great project and so many wonderful experiences as this one was!"

Text: Dolores T. (Loli-ts); Photos: Tomás H., sent by Zuzana A. (azuzanka)

Thank you Loli-ts and azuzanka for sharing your story with us! :)

What about you? Do you have your own Postcrossing story? Do share, we’d love to hear it!