A LETTER THAT'S NOT A BILL? (Penpals)

Member Name: leeanne160480

Product:	Penpals
Date:	10/04/09 (126 review reads)
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After just reading a review by supersonic75 - my penpal, I have decided to write what I think about this subject.

I first started writing with penpals about 15 years ago. I was 13 year old and I was going on a a school exchange to Germany. So we got paired up with our host family and were encouraged to write before we went to learn about where we were staying and find out about another person of the same age in another country. I ended up having about 15 German penpals at this point you can imagine I couldn't keep up (and at that time probably didn't have all this money for stamps), so it all fizzled out. Over a few years I had a couple, none very memorable and they all petered out. After all we were all growing up, going in different directions and the interests that once held us together were changing along with ourselves.

I decided to start writing to penpals again 2 years ago. Although in this day and age people will think why to write a letter. After all it costs for envelopes, stamps and you have to hope it doesn't get lost in the post, whereas e-mail is quicker and cheaper. There's just something about getting home, finding something that isn't a bill or bad news and reading about what's happening with someone else.

I decided I wanted penpals from Scotland, England, Germany, America and Australia. I looked online and typed into Google Penpals and found a few sites to find a penpal. Some of them were wanting to change you to register and others had other procedures, but I found 2 called www.interpals.net and www.penpalsnow.com (addresses may not still be correct now). You could contact people looking for penpals, or leave an ad yourself and others could e-mail you.

At first there was loads of people wanting to write and others saying they were happy for me to write to them, but to be honest not all of them have worked out. I have 2 from England, 2 from Germany, and an American 1 that likes e-mailing better - but that's ok as well. Also I got a lot of spam e-mail type things such as people looking for money, looking for a wife and so on. I even got e-mailed by someone from england who said she wanted to be my penpal and gave me her address. I e-mailed back to her to say I would write, but she e-mailed me back shortly afterwards giving me her mobile number and saying could I put a top up in it for £10 as she was running out and she didn't work so she couldn't pay it herself. I swiftly e-mailed back to say no, and don't contact me again, which she hasn't.

I tend to write back perhaps 1-2 weeks after I receive a letter, although this can depend on things. I had a penpal that I got a letter back from 2-3 days after I had posted their letter. It was only 1 side of a5 paper stating that they hadn't been up to much, so I found that that penpal relationship wasn't going well.

A good hobby that may not suit everyone, but I like to do it.

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