Postcrossing Blog

Anke (aka MacKittens) hails from Germany and like her username says, she loves cats! She heard about Postcrossing on one of Schöning Verlag’s paperbags and has been with us ever since! :)

Here is what she had to say to our interview questions:

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

I have always enjoyed buying and writing postcards. I like pretty pictures. Then I saw an ad for postcrossing on a paperbag for postcards, liked the idea and I immediately signed up. I then checked my e-mail account every 5 minutes for a Hurray message. I was so impatient! I am much more relaxed now. I only check my account every 10 minutes.

Writing postcards is also tradition in my family. I think my father writes about 10 postcards per week to family and friends and my mother sends greeting cards with beautiful pictures she took herself. I sometimes use her pictures on my postcards – professionally printed of course.

I work as a teacher at a vocational school – so I enjoy being around people. I like to get in contact with them. Now with Postcrossing I have the chance to get to know people from all over the world. I love it. It’s fantastic.

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

This picture shows my postwoman. She is THE BEST! My street is the very last on her trip so I get my post very late in the afternoon. But if I happen to meet her earlier that day she often tells me excitedly that I am going to receive some wonderful postcards. She likes it best when I receive postcards with cats. Just like me she is a cat-person. And if she has the time she even reads the message on the back. I like that. It is nice that even other people enjoy my postcards.

Have you met any other members in real life?

I have been to five postcrossing meetings here in Germany so far. The very first meeting was in Hamburg in August 2013 where I met frisendeern, mondkind and schlafmohn. We have been such good friends ever since and try to meet at least twice a month. I cannot imagine a life without them now!

Last year, they persuaded me to come to the International Postcrossing Meeting in Bielefeld in organized by the most wonderful nordbaer. I was so scared at first but I quickly felt welcomed by everyone. As I said: postcrossers are kind people! Now I am addicted to meetings.

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

Postcrossers are such kind people! I am often overwhelmed by the effort the sender made to please me. Just one example: In my profile I wrote that I am a huge fan of Ryan Gosling and I have received so many handmade cards with pictures of him! Thank you!!!

But to be honest: every postcard I receive is special. It is so interesting to read about the sender’s life. Rosie sent a postcard with the Prince Edward Island on it telling me that she was on holiday there – her first holiday in three years! Her job in a musical company kept her so busy. Sanna from Finland tells me that in autumn you can see many moose on the roads which can be quite dangerous; Angela from Taiwan writes about her sausage dogs who likes hugs – especially in winter; Katalonia from Finland writes that her oldest children have just moved out and she thinks it is exciting but on the other hand she also feels sad; Bonnie from China tells me that pandas are their national animals and they always look fat, and love to sleep all the time except when they eat bamboo; Maria from Russia admits that she just sat down at her desk to do some work but instead writes a postcard to me; Evy’s favorite movie is Amélie; and Judith from China is excited because it is her very first postcards she sends with Postcrossing – and these are just a few examples of the many wonderful cards I have received so far. I really liked this one from Lydia, who agreed to let me share it with you:

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

I inspired my mother-in-law to join postcrossing. Now, whenever I come across a postcard with camels it goes directly to her address. She is even planning to do an English course when she retires so that she can write longer messages.

I also created a school account. Now I tell my students about postcrossing and have them write postcards. First, they usually look very skeptic. Writing is not really their “thing”. But then I show them the postcards we have received so far and let my students read them out loud. They soon enjoy the idea of Postcrossing and want to write at least one postcard. I encourage them not to write in German/English but in their mother tongue which makes them so proud! We have got a lot of foreign students. The postcards we receive at school I exhibit and there are always students standing in front of the pinboard during the break and reading the messages.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

I once received a postcard from Madagascar! The ID was MG-118. My lowest ID ever! Kate sent the postcard and told me that Madagascar is the fourth poorest country in the world and that she runs a charity there for poor children to go to school. Surprisingly the postcard took only 13 days to arrive!

What are you passionate about?

I am passionate about my job. I like working as a teacher! My students are 16 – 25 years old. I prefer working with older students :-) At school I organize work placements abroad. They are funded by the EU so the students don’t have to pay anything. So far we have sent students to Birmingham, Portsmouth and Malta. But I just made a contract with a lovely lady from Tampere and another lovely man from Stockholm! So soon we will also offer wonderful Finland and Sweden as work placement destinations, as well as Poland because my father works there a lot and knows a lot of companies there.

I love organizing this! I believe in the importance of a united Europe. Getting our countries closer together is so important! Learning about foreign culture and language is fundamental for a better understanding.

And I am always so impressed by the language skills in foreign countries! In Scandinavia the people speak such fantastic English. When I compare that to my students I feel rather embarrassed. A huge barrier in Germany for improving one’s English is that ALL foreign movies or TV series are in German. I hate that so much! On German TV all the TV channels are in German. I know from other countries that they only use subtitles. That is such a huge mistake we make here. I wished there would be at least one channel on TV using only German subtitles… Sometimes I am impressed by the language skills of some students and when I ask them how they have learned such good English they tell me: Online role playing games :-)

We’ve had the pleasure of meeting LadyP1964 (aka Penelope) on several Postcrossing meetups. She has a bubbly personality and a contagious laughter that cheers everyone up! :)

Here is what she had to say to our interview questions:

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

I used to play “Human Pets” (a Facebook game) and auctioned off postcards to get points to feed my pets (something you will only understand if you were a pet yourself). Someone there told me about Postcrossing – I have to admit though, that I don’t remember who.

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

This is my postman Michael:

And here’s one of my postcard walls:

And you can see my meetup photos on this gallery.

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

I have just looked through my complete collection (which is here btw) and I really cannot decide which is my most favourite card. I think I often have a favourite card received this week but of all time? Impossible! There are only few cards which I don’t like. Most of those can be found in my “others” album but that doesn’t mean that all cards in my “others” album are not liked. Sometimes people send me cards that don’t fit into any of my normal collection categories but I still think they are great. They are the cards that end up landing on my postcard walls. I have postcard walls in my kitchen and in my ironing room (I’m sure many men will joke and say that’s where we women spend most of our time – in my case its true, but mainly because that’s where my postcards are!)

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Job, partner, teenager, dog, cat and I organise a travelling envelope group on the Postcrossing forums – doesn’t actually leave much time for other hobbies.

I do like to visit new places and I have discovered that Postcrossing helps me there too. I like to go to meetups in various towns. That way I get to see new towns, meet postcrossers and buy postcards to swap with others.

I love playing various board games too and a whole group of friends get together every 6 weeks at each others houses to have a games evening.

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

Yes, a friend of a friend asked about my collection and after browsing through it, she signed up to Postcrossing and also joined me at the meeting in Würzburg last year. Her username is barfusstramperin.

My son got slightly addicted too. His Postcrossing name is Pixelpups. He sometimes joins me at meetups and that’s when he pulls his addresses to send. His cards are all stuck to his wardrobe:

Have you met any other members in real life?

I have met several postcrossers before as I have attended meetups in Würzburg, Nürnberg, Köln, Frankfurt and Bielefeld. I have had mini-meetings in Mainz, Berlin, Luxembourg, Salzburg, Bad Schwartau and Wiesbaden. In fact, once I had a mini-meeting somewhere on the motorway near Kassel. I stopped off on my journey for a cup of coffee and posted “I’m here” on Facebook. Another postcrosser replied within minutes that she worked up the road from where I was and would be with me in 5 minutes.

andrea209 (aka Andrea) lives in Bielefeld, and is a regular at the Postcrossing Bielefeld meetups. It was there that she first introduced us to her curious hobby: bottle-cap collecting! Her massive collection is now in the tens of thousands specimens, from 147 different countries… very impressive!!

Here is what she had to say:

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

It was a family-meeting around Christmas when my sister and her kids told me about postcrossing. And my sister showed me her first postcards from countries I never expected to get postcards from. So when we come home (it was around midnight) I started my computer and signed up right away.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My husband and I have a very crazy hobby – we collect bottle-caps. Yes, your are right; these little things you find on beer-bottles, soda, pop or something else. You want to know more? Feel free to look at www.asippel.de. As other Postcrosser support our collection we now have bottle caps from Iran and North Korea.

And I love to paint. More than 100 of my sent postcards are painted ones and I’m very happy about every postcrossing-profile which asks for handmade cards.

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

After being a member for some time I find out that I love very colorful cards or paintings by some special artists, like Leonid Afremov (I’m still waiting for my first card) or Victoria Kirdiy. And I love lighthouses and teddy bears. As I received so many gorgeous cards it’s hard to say which one I like most…….

My husband gave me this rack as a birthday present – the perfect place to keep and show my received cards.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman or your postoffice!

This is my favorite mailbox. Just next to the shop where I buy all my stamps.

Have you met any other members in real life?

Oh yes, I have met a lot of other postcrossers and every time it was wonderful. I’ve attended all four International meetups in Bielefeld (the meeting-point is just 2 km from my home), also meetups in Cologne, Münster and Soltau.

Last year I also organized the first meetup for postcrossers from Bielefeld and surroundings. And since we had so much fun we will meet again next spring!

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

Yes, I have, up to now 4 people. My sister-in-law and her sister and also two ladies I met when I stayed at a rehab in 2010. And 3 of them are still active postcrossers!

Last weekend, we brought the Little Mail Carrier’s cousin along for a trip to Cologne, where the latest Postcrossing meetup took place. He was really excited about it – here is his account of the day! :)

Hi everyone! Last weekend, I travelled to Cologne (or Köln, as they say in German) to see the city and meet the local postcrossers… I didn’t know much about the city beforehand, so the first thing I noticed was their huge Gothic cathedral, right in front of the train station!

Whoa… look at that! It’s just… massive! Did you know it is a UNESCO World heritage site, and the most visited landmark in Germany? I couldn’t wait to get inside and have a closer look…

I could have spent hours there, just wandering around, admiring the stained glass windows, tiled floors and golden relics…

The Hohenzollern bridge that crosses the Rhine just in front of the cathedral was also quite impressive! All the fences were covered in love padlocks… how sweet!

But enough of culture and sightseeing – it was time for shopping! We hopped on Isagv's backpack and off we went!

Our first stop was at the Maus shop! You might have seen this orange mouse on German postcards before… he’s really famous around here! Maus stars in a beloved children’s cartoon called Die Sendung mit der Maus (The program with the mouse) which first aired in Germany in 1971. We hanged out for a bit, and I tried to get him to share the secret of his success, but he didn’t talk much…

After that, it was time for proper postcard shopping! Cologne has a neat postcard shop, the Walther Königs Postkartenladen. Inside, thousands of postcards awaited the eager hands of the many postcrossers…

When all our bags were filled with postcards and our bellies started to rumble, we headed down to the riverside for mealtime. The food was nice, but everyone was more interested in the postcards! As soon as the plates were cleared, we all started to write, sign and stamp the many many postcards…

… which were then sent on their way around the world, to the mailboxes of other eager postcrossers and friends!

When it was finally time to say good-bye and head off home, my cheeks were hurting from so much smiling and smiling! A big thank you to everyone who attended for this lovely experience – it was great to meet you all!

Group photo by Isagv on Flickr, where you can see more photos from this meetup.

Would you like to meet other postcrossers too? Check the forum for future meetups in your area – or if there are none, just start one!

Some months ago, while touring an underground bunker in Berlin, I was treated to a rare sight: a mini-demonstration of Berlin’s old pneumatic dispatch system! And that got me thinking… were there other pneumatic mail delivery systems in the world? What could we find out about them? If you’re curious too, keep reading!

The story of pneumatic tubes starts with William Murdoch, a Scottish engineer, who invented them in the 19th century. Developed later by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company, these tubes used pressurised air to propel cylindrical containers throughout systems set up in certain buildings or sometimes, entire cities. During the second half of the 19th century, the pneumatic post system was implemented in post offices and telegraph offices of several large cities to quickly deliver letters and telegrams between themselves, banks, stock exchanges, and ministries. This method was found to be much more convenient and quicker than transporting letters in horse-drawn carriages or depending on human messengers.

Control Panel of Prague’s Pneumatic Post system

In 1853 the first system was built, linking the London Stock Exchange to the city’s main telegraph station; in 1861 it transported mail from the Euston railway station to the General Post Office and Holborn; in 1865 the Rohrpost was developed in Berlin, spanning 400km; in 1866 Paris created their system, a total length of 467km. Other cities like Vienna, Prague, New York City, Munich, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, Naples, Rome, Milan, Melbourne, Marseilles, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, and Chicago soon followed.

Some systems became rather complex and effective, but were eventually surpassed by more modern methods of communication and transport, and were mostly abandoned during the 20th century. The Paris network was in use until 1984, finally replaced by computers and fax machines. One lasting pneumatic post network still exists in the Czech Republic, known as the Old Lady of Czech telecommunications. Prague’s network of tubes extends 55km and was still used for delivering letters and parcels until 2002, when a flood rendered it inoperative. The current owner is gradually repairing and preserving the system, in hopes of using it as an educational experience and tourist attraction. Today, hospitals, banks, nuclear reactors, and some airports still have uses for these systems, and have updated and refined its technological ability.

Check out the blog pneumaticpost.blogspot.com to learn more interesting facts about these tubes and about the subculture of “steampunks” who cherish it so. The blog also features a many tube maps, like this one of Prague.