Snail mail penpals
By Porcospino
@Porcospino (31366)
Denmark
May 10, 2019 2:13pm CST
When I was a teenager I had a lot of snail mail penpals from around the world. Many of them were from Europe, a few were from Asia, Africa and the U.S.
There was no internet at that time and most of the letters were handwritten. A few of my penpals used a typewriter, but I wrote all of my letters by hand.
We wrote about our lives and experiences and we described our countries and cultures. I learned a lot of new things that way. Sometimes we exchanged postcards, photos or small gifts.
I wrote most of the letters in English, and but I used German when I wrote to people from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I tried to write letters in French when I had a penpal from France, but I found it too difficult and I decided to use English instead.
Sometimes several months passed between the letters, but it was always exciting to find a new letter in my mailbox.
Have you ever had a snail mail penpal?
7 people like this
7 responses
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
10 May 19
I had a lot of penpals when I was a teenager, but I also stopped. Today I don't write handwritten letters anymore.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
10 May 19
@amadeo That is nice. I don't write letters anymore, but I still write by hand. I have some handwritten notebooks where I write the names of books I liked and things like that (so that I will be able to find them again)
@amadeo (111948)
• United States
10 May 19
@Porcospino I do now and then.Do not want to lose the art of handwriting.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
10 May 19
I also wrote letters I was a kid. I think I was about 10 or 11 when I started writing letters. I enjoyed it very much, and it was exciting to receive letters from friends. I had a relative on another island, we exchanged letters sometimes.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
14 May 19
@Nevena83 I wanted to send a love letter to a boy when I was that age, but I was too shy to send it 
1 person likes this
@Nevena83 (65280)
• Serbia
14 May 19
@Porcospino Yes, it was very exciting. For the first time I wrote a love letter from 11 years old, one boy I liked.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
10 May 19
Yes, it was nice to have many different penpals. When I sent a letter to a place outside Europe I always knew that it would take a while before I got a reply, and I was excited when the letter finally arrived. Did you and your penpals exchange letters for a long period? I had some friendships that only lasted a few months, but my longest friendship lasted several years (a girl from Italy)
1 person likes this
@MALUSE (69390)
• Germany
10 May 19
I had a pen pal from Austria which isn't very exciting because the language there is also German. After exchanging letters for some time he decided to visit me. It was awkward. It turned out that we didn't know what to do or talk about with each other in real life. Our pen pal friendship ended after this visit.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
10 May 19
Sometimes things just don't work out when you meet in person. My friend experienced the same thing. She invited her penpal to spend the weekend at her house, but they had nothing to talk about, and none of them enjoyed the visit. I had the opposite experience with one of my penpals. He was from Germany and we spent a day together during his vacation in Denmark. We had a nice time together.
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
10 May 19
Yes, a long long time ago.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
10 May 19
It was also a long time ago in my case. I had so many when I was a teenager, but I think that I stopped when I was in my early 20s or something like that.
1 person likes this
@kasmakarim (1933)
• Indonesia
11 May 19
Unfortunately I wasn't born at that time. It must be really fun
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
11 May 19
Yes, it was fun to write to people from other countries and receive their letters. Today it is so easy to talk people from other parts of the world, but at that time we had to do it in a different way.
