101 in 1001 - Postcrossing

The first postcard I recieved, from Austria

Over the past few months I've been sending and receiving postcards to and from people of various countries around the world. This was for the goals:

• 045. Send postcards to people from 10 different countries on Postcrossing.
• 072. Receive postcards from people from 10 different countries on Postcrossing.

Today, a postcard I sent arrived in Poland and I realised that I'd completed both of these goals! 

Postcard from the US

If you're unfamiliar with Postcrossing, it's a website that lets you connect with people who want to exchange postcards with others from around the world. You are assigned another member of the site to send a card to, randomly, you then see their profile so you get an idea of what kind of postcard they might like, and then you get their address. Each postcard to be sent is also given a number that you write on it so that it can be tracked and registered when received. The amount of cards you can be sent is determined by how many you've sent to others.

Postcard from Japan, and stamps

The countries I've sent postcards to so far are: the US, China, Germany, Belarus, the Netherlands, Russia, Finland, Ukraine, France, Taiwan, and Poland. That makes 11 countries in total, though I've sent more than 11 postcards. To see my list of sent cards, you can click here.

Postcard sent to Russia

The postcards I've received have come from Austria, the US, Japan, Germany, Czechia, Canada, Lithuania, Russia, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. Again, that's 11 countries altogether, though I've received more than that too. To see my list of received cards, click here.

Postcard from Canada; it had a matching stamp on the back

You can also participate in "direct swaps" on Postcrossing, where users who haven't been randomly matched will sometimes message each other to ask if they want to swap postcards. You can turn this option set to "no" on your profile (as I do now), but until recently I had it set to "yes" and so participated in direct swaps quite a few times as well. For some reason, most of these were from Japan (including a Christmas card with extra botanical illustration and marine life cards and origami paper inside and an illustration of a girl holding a penguin), but I also had one from Austria, one from Italy and another from Poland. 

Inside the direct swap Christmas card from Japan

Direct swap card

In addition to those, the first person I got a postcard from (from Austria) sent me an additional one as a surprise, just to be kind, because I said that Vienna looked beautiful in the thank you message to them. So I sent one back, and it ended up being a direct swap too (but not the one I mentioned from Austria before). :)

Fold out, 3 panel postcard from Austria

Even though this goal is complete, I'm still participating in Postcrossing, as I find it really interesting seeing images and reading short snippets from different people from all over the globe!

From Lithuania