Postcrossing Blog

BraveJ is our spotlight feature today! Ana, from Serbia, is fond of geography, Native Americans and tango! Here’s what she had to say:

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

Some years ago I was into penpalling and one of my penfriends told me about Postcrossing. I liked the idea and I was hooked immediately!

I’ve loved postcards since I was a child. Even before I could read and write properly, I enjoyed looking at the cards that my family received from their friends and relatives. For years I loved to send cards from my holidays to my friends, and to receive them, too! But, that was until modern technology took over and most people just stopped sending real postcards. I missed that and Postcrossing seemed to be the perfect place to quench my thirst for real mail!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Just like many other postcrossers, I also collect stamps. I guess it somehow “goes with the territory” when you’re into postcards or letters. I enjoy beautiful stamps as much as postcards.

I love reading (I’ve always been a bit of a bookworm) and I enjoy wandering around bookstores. Many of them also sell postcards, so it’s a perfect combination! I often use my received postcards as bookmarks and I have this silly habit of trying to match the card to the story of the book I read.

I’ve been doing different kinds of fitness for a very long time and I love it. After many years it’s not so much about keeping fit anymore, but about the positive energy I get from exercising, from interesting choreographs and great music, and the people I meet there.

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

This is the post office closest to my home and I send most of my cards from there:

I also often use this mailbox in the city centre. This photo was taken by another Postcrossing member after our mini-meeting, look how many cards we signed!

I keep most of my cards in boxes and I love going through them from time to time. Here are two of my “treasure chests”:

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

I won’t say anything new if I say that most cards I received are special to me in some way and it would be impossible to show you all my favourites! So, for this occasion, I chose three cards. I’ve been interested in Native Americans since childhood and this card is one of the loveliest I’ve ever received:

Wolves are my favourite wild animals and wolf cards are an important part of my collection. These two wolves are among the most beloved members of my “pack”:

I love cards with tango, there is something indescribably beautiful about this dance. This is one of the very few tango cards I received, so it’s even more precious:

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I can’t say that I have a favourite part, because I enjoy everything – the anticipation of requesting a new address, picking the right card, writing a message, finding wonderful surprises in my mailbox almost every day… Postcrossing opened a whole new world to me. I like to think about it as a way of opening doors or windows to the world. I can’t afford to travel much, so I “travel” through postcards. They introduced me to many amazing places that I may never be able to visit in real life.

But for me, one of the best things about Postcrossing (beside postcards, of course) are the people behind the cards. Since I joined this project and especially since I joined the Postcrossing forum, I met so many nice and friendly people who brought a huge smile on my face with their cards and messages many times. Because of those people, I’m incredibly happy to be a part of the big Postcrossing family.

This week’s spotlight interviewee is lapoussine35, from France! Erin has 2 daughters, is a tea and chocolate addict, and loves to read in her bathtub on rainy days. :) Here is what she had to say:

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

Like many other people here, I came to Postcrossing via penpalling. A friend mentioned Postcrossing to me in a letter and several weeks later, I decided to try it out myself. I love writing and receiving mail but, with two little girls, I find it hard to write long letters anymore. Postcrossing lets me reach out to the world and other people through a wonderful mix of words and pictures.

You could also look at it as armchair travel at its best!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Traveling, science fiction and reading are definite stock answers and truths for me. In addition, I enjoying cross-stitching and making things with my hands. I recently cross-stitched an official card here to a postcrosser who mentioned liking handmade cards (/postcards/FR-144488). It’s my second one and I’m already working on another to send as a RAS.

I’ve also started running again and am dreaming of doing a half-marathon this fall. We’ll see…

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

This is our local post office, conveniently located next to the bakery! Since I started postcrossing, I go there regularly to mail my cards and buy stamps. I’m very lucky to have several great postal workers—they go out of their way to show me the latest stamps, always have a smile and even play with my girls sometimes.

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

I had the worst time trying to pick out only a couple of cards for this interview. Normally I store my cards in boxes and photo albums so that I can easily flip through them and enjoy looking at them. I decided to start pulling out potential cards to highlight here and gave up when my bed started to be completely covered (and my daughters showed up to look through too)!

Not a postcard at all but one of the “unsung” heroes of Postcrossing—a stamp! I’m not a serious stamp collector but I do love neat stamps on my cards and this is one of my all-time favorites. I even received a 3D hologram stamp on an official card from Finland once on an official card!

Postcrossing has brought smiles not only to me but to my entire family! Ticker from Australia sent this great RAS card to my daughter Laura. She wouldn’t put it down for days! (below on the left)

Another RAS but from my friend evitayueh this time. Evita knows about my fascination for Japan and sent me this great spring greeting to brighten my day; needless to say, she succeeded! (above on the right)

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I love the excitement of choosing the perfect card and stamp for people. Since I started postcrossing, I’ve gotten to know the local post office staff rather well and they are very good about showing me the neatest new stamps. I think I get as much, if not more pleasure, out of sending than receiving. I’ve gotten to know several great people here through both the Main Site and the Forum and sending RAS cards is a great way to turn a dreary day into a better one. (Receiving them is also a wonderful part of postcrossing and proof of the community we’re building here.)

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I’m passionate about languages and living abroad. I believe that everyone should take the chance to live abroad at least once in their life. The saying goes that “travel broadens the mind” but living in a different country does so even more by forcing you to reconsider all the little assumptions that you didn’t even know you had! I’m a strong advocate of programs like ERASMUS in the European Union or US-style Junior Year Abroad programs. I was lucky enough to study in Switzerland as part of my education and I treasure that time.

Language acquisition is also a bonus and I find it fascinating how it unlocks your brain from even the earliest of ages. It’s also interesting to look at how the connotations of different words change in different languages. I often ask postcrossers to write a few words or a favourite quote in their language on my cards. The combination of a foreign language, education and living abroad is a real gift!

This week’s spotlight interview comes from marja2006, from Finland! She and her daughter are avid postcrossers, and even her son contributes to the collection! Here is what she had to say:

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

I saw a short story about Postcrossing in the newspaper – I googled to find the link to the pages. This happened in 2006. I have always loved to receive postcards. When travelling was not so easy, people used to send much more cards – now when people travel a lot, there are not so many who would send a postcard from their holiday – even if you asked them to! For a lazy traveller this is also a great way to see the world – you can see places you would probably never visit, and a postcard can show you the familiar places in a way you would never see them if you were there yourself as the weather and the lights vary a lot.

It took about a year before I had enough of courage to go to the forum and join the tags and Round Robins, but then I was hooked with tags and swaps…

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I don’t have too much time for hobbies, but taking photos is one of them. I used to play piano when I was young, just for own fun. My daughter takes me to concerts every now and then (or is it the other way around?) – and tries to keep me up with what’s popular.

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

My mail comes to postbox, which is in the postoffice next to the railway station. In this picture the postoffice is in the left, with the orange and blue colours of the Finnish Post.

Here’s a closer look at the postoffice from outside, with new postboxes for priority mail (the blue boxes) and economy mail (the orange boxes):

I also take my cards mostly to the ladies in my postoffice for cancellation. Here’s a picture of one of the lovely ladies at my postoffice taking care of my mail:

and here’s how it looks inside my postoffice:

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

There are so many postcards which are special and there are so many new lovely cards coming every week, but here are some of them:

This card I received from my forum friend mlysao from Tahiti – she had it made as a maxicard for me with the special cancellation of the solar eclipse – it really warms my heart to think it arrived from the other side of the world as a RAS:

Another RAS card which made me very happy, a card from Shanghai meet-up in 2008, sent by Linying and signed among others by Paulo and Ana, the founders of Postcrossing:

And I am not wondering at all that Paulo and Ana ended up in Slovenia when I look at this beautiful postcard, one of my all time favourites, which I received in my biggest swap ever:

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

Card from Greenland with ID GL-8 was a nice surprise at the time there were not many active users and also cards from Uruguay, UY-32 and UY-45 were nice surprises – neither of them was sent by a local user! Both of them came from a user with Finnish background! :D And I felt really lucky when I received a card from Tuvalu – TV-222 – which was sent to celebrate the Earth Day.

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

Only my own daughter – she had a long break with it, but now as Finland was approaching the id FI-1000000, I got her writing some cards, too, as we read a comment of my postcrossing friend’s daughter of teamwork in Facebook.

I am also very happy of the fact that my younger son sends postcards when going on holidays – not only to me but others as well! And he also buys cards for my collection!

This week’s spotlight interview comes from Bulgaria. dj_christina loves mailboxes and is an avid postcard collector, as you will see by her very neat albums! Here is what she had to say:

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

I learned about Postcrossing from a friend on a travel website, called VirtualTourist. It’s common for people who love to travel to like sending and receiving postcards too. Especially when you don’t have the chance to travel often :)

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I like everything mail related, not just the postcards, but also stamps, and I have a small collection of mail-related objects: such as an English mailbox magnet, Danish mailbox piggy bank; I also love travel and photography.

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

I keep the postcards in files, I have two shelves of them. And another shelf of stamp albums :)

And here is how a typical Bulgarian mailbox looks like, it’s yellow:

And here’s a mailbox piggy bank:

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

It’s very hard to decide which one, I have dozens of favourite postcards!! But I chose this English mailbox one, which has matching stamps on the back! Did I mention I like mailboxes? :) And I like postcards with matching stamps, so this one is the perfect combination. It was sent to me by AllSerene (also on Postcrossing forum). It was very nice of her to read my preferences and send me the perfect postcard :)

What are you passionate about?

I’m interested in politics but this is partly due to my work. I’m passionate about freedom and open-mindedness.

What is your favourite part of the Postcrossing process?

Picking the card, choosing the stamps, oh, and checking my mailbox every day!

Ana (also known as anagahan) is a member from Macedonia, a small country in the Balkans. She loves trains and all kinds of animals, and wishes she could adopt all stray cats and dogs in the world… don’t we all? :) Here’s what she had to say:

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

Well, it was sort of at random. One day, I totally accidentally spotted a blog link about postcard exchange, and all excited immediately clicked on it. By the time then my mailbox had been really neglected so this was like rekindling the old passion. I asked the blog owner if we could maybe trade postcards to which he kindly agreed, and I was full of joy. Then I anxiously started searching for more postcard blogs and on several ones I noticed people posting the question “Are you from postcrossing?” I got curious, looked it up and found it…didn’t register immediately, but once I did, you know the story, you get hooked in the blink of an eye :)

Oh, btw, the blog I mentioned above belongs to Rafal in Germany, another devoted postcrosser. So it is all his “fault” in a way ;-)

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Anything that’s mail related, so I am into philately and also I’ve been into penpalling since the early 90's. (I am a lousy penpal unfortunately).

I enjoy reading, esp. unusual books. I love finding new bookstores, where apart from books I always put my radar on for postcards, without success usually. I love going to the theater or to interesting photography exhibitions. I admire all those moments people are able to capture through their lenses.

I love music, traveling, watching tennis matches, being outside in the sun and the quiet, playing with my two cats, my neighbor’s cats and dogs, trying out new kinds of coffee and chocolate…you know, those very small things which make life really beautiful. And another thing that relaxes me and I truly enjoy is updating my postcards blog: http://thewholeworldatyourhands.blogspot.com

My cats love my postcards too, esp. ones with cats…here, my older one really enjoyed them and even picked his favourite buddy…

and while he wasn’t looking, my younger cat came, and just as he steals away his food, he took all the other cat postcards too, saying “they are mine, period!”

Cats are tough to deal with! :P

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

Well this is my dear mailbox, which when full, is one of the rare things that can make me happy on a bad day…

Unfortunately in Macedonia the street mailboxes are not really operational so I post all my mail directly at the PO. There are around 10 Post Offices which I go to more or less, depending where in town I am, but this is the one I go to most often, being in my neighborhood.

Ok, now when it comes to 'organization’ I am really awful at that! I have both sorted and unsorted postcards. Here are the sorted ones by countries

And the unsorted ones…

huh, ouch…quite a lot. And DON’T ask me where I manage to keep all my letters and stamps too…I love calling my room a 'creative chaos’ :)

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

Maybe this sounds like a cliché, but I love all my postcards, and each of them has something which makes it special.

Pick any, and I’ll give you a reason why I love it.

Coz the postcard for me is not only the image itself, but much more the message on the back, the thoughtfulness, the kind heart-warming words and stories people who don’t really know you, want to share with you, the lengths they have gone to just to make you smile.

What are you passionate about?

Does the passion for trains count? It is a fascination I have inherited from my dad and I still remember my childhood days when he would set up these model trains all around the living room during the New Year holidays.

I LOVE Norway and the entire Northern Europe in general, and I am a huge animal lover and if I could I would probably adopt all the stray cats and dogs in the world. I just wish more to be done regarding animal rights and animal welfare.

Have you met any other members in real life?

Two actually, on separate occasions: Anasty from Russia and BraveJ from Serbia. The three of us still need to find a place to eat cheesecake together :)