Postcrossing Blog

Meet las424 (aka Lila), who lives in the United Arab Emirates. She’s a self-proclaimed stationery addict, and likes to take trips to discover the places featured on the postcards that she receives… isn’t that an excellent idea?!

Here is what she had to say:

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

I’ve been exchanging letters with my best friend from high school for over a decade now. Three years ago, she sent me an article about how there are still people out there, like us, who are keeping letter writing alive. The article also mentioned Postcrossing, and the huge number of postcards sent by postcrossers. I was intrigued, so I visited the site. Five minutes later, I signed myself up! I was skeptical at first as I couldn’t imagine actually receiving postcards from random strangers, but a few weeks after sending out my first 5 cards, lovely postcards started trickling in – a nice end to busy workdays!

I’ve been writing letters since I was little, so sending out postcards seemed like a natural extension of a hobby – how could I not get hooked?! I love how a small rectangular piece of paper can bridge the huge gap between me and a complete stranger living a very different life in a very different part of the world. We postcrossers are ambassadors of our individual countries, mailing out postcards to make the world a smaller, more peaceful place.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Traveling is a big hobby of mine – I try to go on a few short trips a year to explore different places. Postcrossing has inspired me to visit places which I wouldn’t ever have considered before such as Tallinn, Estonia. There’s something magical about seeing something on a postcard then seeing it in real life. It’s also nice to get advice from postcrossers on what to do in their country – it’s like having 400,000+ expert travel advisers to consult.

On the left are postcards I’ve received, and on the right are photos I’ve taken of the same places.

I received EE-100335 from user HelleVee – such an enchanting view of Tallinn’s Old Town! The Grand Place card came from users cdnstar and Cindy79 when they were in Brussels. User Gogge1 sent DK-12918, a nice view of Nyhavn.

I am a bit of a stationery addict – I’ve got enough letter sets, cards, stickers and pens to last me a decade or two! But every time I enter a stationery store, inevitably, I’ll walk out with something.

Lately, photography has started to interest me – I’m a complete amateur, armed only with my iPhone, but it’s nice to try to take photos similar to those on viewcards :)

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

Clockwise from the top left, you can see 1) where I mail my letters, 2) PO boxes, 3) a close-up of the mailbox, and 4) the inside of the box in which all my stamps are stored.

In the UAE, we don’t get mail delivered to our homes. Instead, we can either get a private PO box, or get mail delivered to our workplace. Every day, on my way home, I make a trip to my PO box to see if anything has come in, and to drop off any letters or postcards. If it weren’t for Postcrossing, I certainly wouldn’t check my mailbox more than once a week!

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

What a difficult decision! There are so many cards which have made an impression on me – either for the picture on the card or the message, or both. One of my favorite types of cards are those which depict the four seasons. There are times when I long for autumn and spring – here, we have ‘winter’ which is nice and cool, around 12 to 25 degrees Celsius, and summer which is very hot, around 30–45 degrees so I do like to see cards showing the differences in seasons. I’ve received a few gorgeous ones:

AT-63204

DE-934658

NL-744880

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

Before the friend who unintentionally introduced me to Postcrossing got married, I created an account to collect postcards wishing her and her fiancé well. A year later, right before her wedding, I sent her a box of these postcards. She was so touched by all the warm wishes of people from all over the world. In addition to the postcards being displayed at her wedding, she presented all her guests with blank postcards to jot down their thoughts and wishes for the bride and groom.

A few years ago, my mother brought back some gotochi cards from Japan. They were so cheerful and fun that I began collecting them. In the process, I’ve managed to turn most of my relatives as well as a few friends in Japan into gotochi card collectors.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

For the most part, I love getting sending out cards. From the thrill of requesting an address, to going through someone’s profile to gauge what the person is like, to finding a suitable card for that person, to picking out the perfect stamp combination, then finally writing out a message! When I first joined, I barely had any postcards, but three years on, I’ve become quite the expert in touristy cards from Dubai, and have accumulated quite a collection, so many that one of my new year’s resolutions was that I wouldn’t buy a single postcard this year except when on vacation. We’ll see how long that lasts! I also enjoy introducing Dubai to postcrossers, and giving them a flavor of what the city is like.

The Postcrossing Forum is also fun as it’s a great place to exchange postcards with other postcrossers, and find people who share many of my interests, from people who like long messages on their postcards, to trying out teas from different countries! The Round Robins are VERY addictive.

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

My second postcard was from Finland – I was so surprised as I knew so very little about the country, it seemed so exotic and far away to me at the time! I visited Helsinki for the first time in October, and loved it! Naturally, I visited the central post office there and marveled at the huge selection of postcards in the post office store, and how pretty the stamps were! Is it just me or do all postcrossers feel that post offices in foreign countries are a tourist attraction?