Penpalling: why it’s such a great hobby!

In my first article I’ll write about my favourite hobby: Penpalling!

Many people when I tell them I have penpals ask me “but are you still writing by post? Isn’t is cheaper and faster to use email?”

Well, the answer to both questions is: YES! Yes, I’m still writing by post, and YES, definitely it’s cheaper and faster to use email! So why me and so many others all over the world are still writing by mail?? I guess the answer could be different for everyone, like some would say they love to get something other than bills in the mail, or they don’t want to spend all their time in front of the computer, or they find email impersonal, or they like to swap something…for me I guess it’s a combination of all these things and more.

I started writing to my first penpal when I was about 11 or so, and I soon realized I loved the thrill of waiting for the postman and see if that day he would bring a letter from my friend…after a while it became addictive so then I started looking for other penpals. Back then you used to put your advertisement in a magazine and people would write to you…nowadays we are all so worried about giving our address away, we were not worrying about that back then, but if you think about it, anyone could have bought those magazines, just like everyone can be on the Internet today. When Internet and email came out I lost many penpals as many of them decided to write by email to save money or because it was faster, or just because it was a new thing. You know, in the beginning we would get 5 letters but when 1 email came we were excited because it was something new for us…now we get 100 emails and when a letter comes we get all excited!! For me after all these years, it’s still a thrill when the postman comes and brings me letters!

Some of the cutest letters I received recently

Some would say I’m a bad penpal because I type my letters…I admit it’s much faster and if I should write by hand, my hand would start hurting after the fist letter, so OK, I type the letters. This doesn’t mean I don’t put an effort in writing them or that I don’t care about my penpals, it’s just a way to write back faster to everyone. For me it’s not important if my pals handwrite or type, the only thing that matters to me is that they’ll write! Plus, when some penpals have a real bad handwriting, it’s a relief to get a typed letter so you can finally read everything!! Since I don’t really care about email, I tend to forget what was written in the email right after I replied to it, but the letters I remember. I still love to have the real letter in my hands, and I love to swap items, like for example postcards, or stickers, tea bags, articles on my favourite singers….can you get that with an email?? No way!

Postcards I received in a couple of weeks

A penpal can become a real friend, sometimes you feel like you can write your penpal things you wouldn’t say to your real-life friends, you can open your heart to them in a different way, that’s what I found. When my ex husband left me my penpals have been very supportive and it helped me a lot to be able to write my feelings down to them. During the years I met many of my penpals and they always were as lovely as in the letters, and we always had a great time together. And when we would travel somewhere it was nice to say “Oh, I have a penpal there, maybe I can meet her”.

Some other cards I received recently

And penpalling was a great way to learn English for me. When people asks how did I learn to speak English so well I always tell them that after school all I did was translating songs and writing to penpals…that makes you learn the real language, not the perfect polished version you learn at school, but the way the real people talk. If someone had a kid who is studying English I would definitely recommend them to find a penpal for their kid as that’s for me the best way to learn.

My Christmas presents 2015: 90% of them came from my penpals

Boys this post became really long, there is still much I would like to write about penpalling but I will save it for the next posts. What about you, do you have penpals? Ever had penpals? I would love to hear your point of view about this subject!! Keep Penpalling alive!