Postcrossing Blog

Marianna7 (aka Marianne), is from Germany but moved to the UK in 2001. In this Spotlight interview, she tells us about her life-long passion for letter-writing… and bread-baking! :)

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

I’ve lived since 2001 abroad (not in Germany) and my favorite weekly newspaper is “Die Zeit”. I try to get it, either from an airport or when friends/family bring it on a visit, but very irregularly.

On one of those I found an article about Willi, the German postcrosser who has sent the most postcards from Germany. At the same time I found life pretty stressful, being self-employed and I wanted a positive change in my mailbox (something else than advertisement, junkmail and invoices).

The other reason why I joined is this one: a good German friend of mine and I have been penfriends and friends for 11 years. Our friendship started more with letters, because I met her just before I left Germany. But we developed it over the years and last year, at our 10 years anniversary, we arranged an exhibition with our best envelopes (handmade), statements from letters of these last 10 years and our own arts (I do photography, Daniela does painting). This meant, we both read through the letters of 10 years again, we discussed which statements to use and which not over mail and phone and letters (obviously) and exhibited in Hamburg, Germany. It was a very interesting experience to go public with parts of our private thoughts, doubts, fears, happiness etc… anyhow, the exhibition exhausted us a bit and we are writing now less than before – so I missed the input of written words in my life.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I bake my own bread (buns, scones, croissants, bagels, ciabattas – you name it!). I call it a hobby, because it is a very satisfying work. It is so essential, so basic, but it fills a house with a beautiful smell and everyone comes running and wants some warm bread. I like walking with my sons and my partner most. Photography. Reading. I love languages. Arts!

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

This picture is the picture of my main postoffice in the village – but I go for miles all over the North East to send my mail.

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

RU-884413 a letter, very unexpected and mindblowingly beautiful

NL-1056976 one of the very first cards I received with great words

US-1652878 a handmade card on rice paper

I’ve also received mind-blowing letters and postcards with just a few words, which made me stumble. All words, I receive are precious to me. The fact that a complete stranger writes a few sentences out of his/her soul, is absolutely amazing to me.

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

Yes, my son :-) He is only 8, but a fanatic reader and writer (is true) and he collects stamps. So one day I told him I wouldn’t give him my stamps anymore, because I didn’t want to ruin my precious cards/words. That’s when he joined Postcrossing! The only thing I help him, is a)to get the address of recipient right, b) to send cards on time and c) to help him match the recipient’s preferences.

I’m trying to get my mother on it – she is very old and would have to learn to use the pc, but I am sure it would change her life for the better.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Requesting a postcard. What type of person will it go to? What cards do they like?

I also like the process of finding the right card, though sometimes it takes me days to find one (it’s very rural here and i have to travel far for a card).

And lastly, I also like to receive a card. Who is the sender? After registering, I find it extremely exciting to read the sender’s profile.

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

No, not by the places… But very often I’m surprised by the messages on the cards; the sentences in unexpected letters. I am surprised by the wonderful things other postcrossers are sending. By the passionate words of postcrossers. By the openness of peoples minds towards a complete stranger. I have greatest respect to every cards/letter I receive.

Dianna is the user with most postcards sent from Macau, and she loves it when members decorate them, or fill them with stickers! :)

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

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

I became a postcard lover since my first trip abroad, I enjoy sending postcards to my friends and to myself. One day my friend Staci told me about postcrossing so I become a member. I am so glad about Postcrossings as it has enabled me to contact people who love postcards and to swap with people around the world. We are able to share our feeling and stories with each other. I just love it. Thanks to Postcrossing, I have collected so many beautiful postcards now and have made some good friends!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Yes, I love world travel, hiking, coffee tasting, reading, movies, music, gardening, cooking, quilting and learning other languages.

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

Here are some of my favourites:

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

I received a card from North Korea. :-)

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes, one member from Thailand and one from Macau so far.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

My favorite part is to receive postcards. I really enjoying reading and looking at each one that I get. I also enjoy looking for cards to send to others. I really try to find cards that people will like. Sometimes that can be a challenge.

Russel, (aka SonOfBilly) joined Postcrossing when the project was barely starting, and hasn’t stopped sending postcards since then… as a result, he is the second user with most postcards sent in New Zealand!

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

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

As a young 10 year old boy, an American pen friend sent me a chain letter which promised me 1,000's of postcards if I sent one to the person at the top of the list, put my name at the bottom of the list and sent the chain letter to 5 other people. My Mother said it wouldn’t work and guess what, she was right.

I now travel a lot on business, mainly throughout Asia and in particular China. I have been travelling in China now for 31 years. While travelling I have always sent postcards home to my family and extended family.

Back in 2005, not long after Postcrossing started my ISP sent out a newsletter showing interesting sites and “Postcrossing” was one of them. I immediately joined and have been hooked ever since.

I even try to send postcards while I travel. I also stock up on postcards by buying them in China, Hong Kong and have recently discovered a marvelous bookshop in Taipei called Eslite that has a great selection of postcards from around the world.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Sport plays a dominant part of my lifestyle. I maintain my fitness by walking an hour a day, up to 5 days per week.

Work commitments mean I don’t have a lot of spare time but I always find time to keep in regular contact with my old High School friends with regular dinner evenings. I also watch most of my favourite sports on TV such as Rugby, Rugby League, Soccer (or Football as most of the rest of the world knows it), Motorsport (especially WRC, Formula 1, MotoGP & Superbikes) Tour de France, Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games.

Have been a season ticket holder of the New Zealand Warriors ever since they entered the Australian Rugby League competition back in 1995.

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

Luke, our “Postie” who delivers our mail, rain, shine or hail 6 days a week.

I buy my stamps from the NZ Post shop in the central shopping street of Auckland called Queen Street. The shop is called “Real Aotearoa”. Aotearoa is the maori name for New Zealand and means “Land Of The Long White Cloud”. The photo shows my friendly assistant.

This is our very basic letter box.

This is where I post most of my postcards, on the way to work most mornings, outside our local BP petrol station.

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

One of my favourite postcards was the very first one I received. It is black and white and shows the streets of Canton in China. Now called Guangzhou, it is the City I would visit the most in China. I enjoy all of the postcards I receive but a couple that stand out were of The Great Wall of China, The Colosseum, the Taichung Jazz Festival, Soccer World Cup 2010 and Finnish Nature.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

The sending means more than the receiving. I like to try and and match up the receivers requests with my closest equivalents. I enjoy getting a big thank you when the postcard is received and knowing that it is really appreciated.

I also enjoy finding out more information about the postcard I have received. I will try and add more information to the postcard, either when it is scanned or within a couple of weeks of having received the card. If you have sent me a postcard, please check the image to see if the information is correct.

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

I sent 2 postcards to Tuvalu. The first one was posted from China and my guess is that perhaps they didn’t realise it was a country, so it never arrived. Located in the Pacific, halfway between Australia and Hawaii they were formerly known as the Ellice Islands. Its population of 10,500 makes it the third-least populous sovereign state in the world, with only Vatican City and Nauru having fewer inhabitants. Because of the low elevation, the islands that make up this nation are threatened by current and future sea level rise.

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

The only issue that I take a real interest in at the moment is the world wide decline in mailing. The drop globally between 2008 to 2010 was 14% with one notable exception being China which continues to experience growth but from a relatively low base.

Mailing is expected to decline a further 43% by 2020.

For example in New Zealand mail volumes declined 6.7% in 2009. Slowed to a 4.9% reduction in 2010 but at the same time 7,200 new addresses were added to the delivery network bringing the total network to 1.9 million addresses. This meant the Post was delivering 20% less mail per address than they did 3 years ago.

Jany, (aka jany_gurb) is one of the top postcrossers in Mexico. She is passionate about traveling, walking in new cities and discovering foreign cultures.

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

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

Since I was a little girl I loved postcards, my dad used to buy some of them when he was in another cities, and with the time his postcards became mine.

I was looking in the internet a place where you can exchange postcards in Mexico, and in one page there was “Postcrossing”, I read about it and I was surprise that one web like this exist; imagine you can swap a postcard with someone in another country – to me it was amazing.

So from that day (that was 3 years ago) I became a huge fan of this page!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I like photography, jogging, watching football on TV, reading, listening to music and my passion is travelling. I love walking in a new city and talk with people and know their culture.

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

Here is my mailbox:

These are my mailmen:

Here is where I mail and buy my postcards:

And this is where I keep them:

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

About my favorites: all of them are favorites to me, I think each postcard I received is special because everyone has something specific to tell.
But with the very first one from Finland (left) I saw that it was a trusting postcard web project!!! And my favorite postcard #2 is this Neuschwanstein castle’s postcard (right), since it was my first postcard with this amazing castle.

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

Yes when I received postcards from countries like Israel, Qatar and United Arab Emirates they really surprise me. Those countries are so far of mine that I couldn’t believe that i got postcards from them!!

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes i went to Italy a few months ago and I met DavideGE. He waited for me at the train station and he show me his beautiful city Genoa, also we exchange some postcards. He is an amazing guy I had a great time!!

Today’s Spotlight interview comes from North Wales. FairyFoot, or Mia is a mother and a gardener, and has interesting hobbies such as Geogaching or hosting Toy Voyagers. Here is what she had to say to our interview questions:

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

I was looking for penpals via various websites when I saw Postcrossing mentioned in many profiles I read. I decided to have a look at what Postcrossing was all about and joined immediately. I like the idea of having nice post come through my letterbox and postcards kept my mailbox happy while I was waiting for penpal letters.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I like coastal and forest walks, photographing nature.. I am a penpaller and have made many new penfriends via Postcrossing. I also discovered Geocaching, the GPS treasure hunt, but I haven’t placed any caches of my own out there. I also came across Travelling Toys/ToyVoyagers too and host many soft toy visitors here.

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

Being a ToyVoyager host, I take the toys down to town and take that opportunity to send postcards on their way. This is Frankie Blue:

Below on the left is the letterbox I have in the front door. My nice postman suggested to cover the bottom window in the door to prevent people from seeing mail that may build up if we are away.

Above, on the right, is the little post office I visit out of town to buy the special issue stamps from the nice sub-postmaster. I store my postcards in boxes, and only recently organised by country after seeing toucans in a television interview:

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

I am not a serious postcard collector. One of my favourite postcards has to be JP-171165 The words say it all.

Another favourite is IS-8935 the Imagine Peace Tower memorial to John Lennon, in Iceland, the base has “imagine peace” carved in 25 different languages.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I think perhaps my favourite part of the Postcrossing process is the sending. I usually have a decent range of postcards to choose from at home (and am always on the look out for postcards I think will make someone happy).

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I love growing my own vegetables and fruit down the allotment or in the garden. Anyone got any recipes for pumpkins, marrows, beetroot, redcurrants, whitecurrants…?! I try to grow organically and have stopped buying composts containing peat.