Links I love: Postcrossing.com
Are you tired of getting bills in your mailbox? And spam in your inbox?
Remember when people sent each other mailed letter? And wrote things? On paper? I do. I loved it. I wrote letters. I write letters still.
Even now, we take shortcuts in our busy lives, buying cards at Hallmark to express our sentiments and signing our names before sending them in the mail. Still, it is the thrill of seeing that hand written address in the mail box that does the heart good.
Well, I recently discovered a wonderful way to expand the fun of regularly receiving handwritten letters from people the world over.
It’s a website called Postcrossing. The whole concept is simply sending and receiving postcards to and from people all over the world.
When you join the website, you write a brief introduction into the database telling just a wee bit about yourself. Obviously you don’t share more than you are comfortable with, but enough so that the person writing you might find a common ground with which to communicate.
You also share any additional languages that you might be able to communicate in, but for now, the common language used is English (it’s the limitation imposed by the creator of the website, but that’s not to say that other languages are not available there).
Then, once you are into the database, you enter a queue and start the process. You request an address which includes a special code to write somewhere on the card, and send your postcard. When your postcard is received, the recipient enters the code you included, and your address is released in the queue and given to someone as the next person to receive a postcard.
The details are more complex that than, but that’s the general idea.
The main point of the story here is that people are communicating all over the world, and only for the cost of a postcard. No great philosophical debates (unless someone strikes your fancy and you keep up a correspondence), just a simple hello from anywhere in the world.
It is a wonderful way to step out of the computer and back into the world.
And last night I requested and was emailed my first address.
My first postcard is to be sent to an eight year old girl in Finland. How precious is that? She said her mom helps her with the reading and she likes little animals.
It makes my grown up lady heart all warm and fuzzy. So I went out and found a very special Atlanta postcard and am going to decorate it in ways that I hope an eight year old girl from Finland would like and send it out as soon as I make it all glittery and special.
I can worry about chatting with people from other nations later. For my first postcard, I am worried about impressing an eight year old girl. The whole concept is making me grin, but I’m also very excited. I feel like *I* am eight again.
via Postcrossing
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