Pen Pals

[gphi2k]

Have you ever had a pen pal? And I don't mean 'I e-mail BillyMac. We're pen pals!'. I mean old school, paper envelope and stamp friends. Where the person lives in another country (well, not necessarily...) and the only contact you have with them is snail mail.

If you did have a pen pal, how did you meet them, where did they live and are you still in touch at all?

This may not sound exotic, but when I was 9, I was in buffalo visiting my mom's cousin and I met a girl who I really got along with well, so we decided to become pen pals and write to eachother. We wrote consistently for years and years, until we were old enough to talk on the phone (old enough meaning our mom's made us fork out when the phone bill came). Sixteen years later, our e-mails are more frequent than our letters ever were .

Any other pen pal stories out there? I remember way back when, a girlfriend of mine started writing to a girl in New Zealand who she found in the 'do you want a pen pal' section in the back of Bop Magazine. There's gotta be some of those stories out there!!!

[Hootie]

In middle school we had "pen pals" for history class as well as english class for a project. We were supposed to corrispond with two people in foreign countries (we didn't get to pick) and find out about their culture as a part of our history class and then present it...then for english they would check how our letter writing skills were. Boring...but I had 2 pen pals.

One of them was from Germany. I don't remember her name or much about her. I could hardly read her letters but I remember her saying how much she loved 2 Live Crew...which I knew nothing about and my mom shook her head to! LOL.

The other girl was from Denmark and I wrote her and she never wrote me back. So much for learning anything!

Hootie

[AchtungBaby80]

Ooooh, oooooh, I had one! For about five years, I wrote to this girl in France who was the same age as me, and I actually visited her there twice. We got in touch through an exchange my freshman year high school French class did with her class, and we used to write each other about once a month and send boxes of stuff like CDs, candy, stuff unique to our countries, etc. It was beyond cool! Sadly, we grew apart and fell out the last time I was over there so we don't write anymore, but now I keep in touch with a French guy I met through her when I was visiting. Even though I can't talk about hot guys with him, he's a real help when I need to replenish my knowledge of French slang expressions.

[ACEOFDIAMOND]

I had over 100 pen pals at one point. I loved writing to people, but as we grew up there was little time to do so. Now I wish I had those pen pals still, I love getting letters! So much more fun than half the junk that comes in the mail!!

[TechAPhi]

I had two Russian pen pals. One--Vyacheslav ("Slava")--lived in Novosibirsk and the other--Kirill--in Moscow. I lost touch with the former, but still write to the latter.

Kirill and I were "best friends" through the mail. I know it sounds crazy, but if you've ever had a pen pal you know what I mean. He moved to Edmonton to attend graduate school and he now is working in Richmond, Virginia on a one-year work visa.

I met him through a linguistics class I took in college.

Heh, I did the BOP Magazine thing too! That's how I met Elizabeth from New Braunfels, TX. I think I must've been in 4th grade when we first started writing to each other. We still keep in touch every once in a while!

And when I was in the 5th grade, my class did a pen pal project with another 5th grade class from Boston, MA. I met Monica that way. We wrote to each other at least once a month...and eventually the snail mailing stopped when we got to high school and email became the way to go. Years passed, and about 4 years ago I finally made my way to the East Coast and we met each after years and years of writing to each other. What was really cool was that our THEN-SIGNIFICANT OTHERS were with us. I know that every year I can always count on a birthday card from her! She's a sweetie...too bad she lives so far away!

[LeslieAGD]

I had a friend that lived in my subdivision when we were kids...I was like 8, she was 7. Her family got moved around a lot due to her dad's job. She went from Michigan to Florida to New Meixco to Egypt back to Florida to Colorado and finally to New York all in the course of 10 years. Back before the internet, all we had was snail mail. Now, with the wonders of technology, we talk at least once a week on IM.

[Betarulz!]

I have a friend that I met in one week at space camp in the summer before 8th grade (she's now an AGD at Kansas). We started out as just regular ole' penpals. (we had crushes on each other at the time) Finally we both got e-mail, and after a period of very little contact during sophomore year we now e-mail each other consistently. The most awesome part is that we are now going to be counselours together at the same camp where we met 6 years ago!!! That sounds like a story to tell the campers for sure!

[cougar15]

I used to love to get to mail when I was younger so I got a pen pal out of this free stuff for kids book that I bought through a book order. She was from Illinois and we wrote for probably 3 years, but lost touch we went got into junior high. It was fun because she would send me stuff for all the holidays. I still love getting/sending snail mail so I send my friends that go to do different schools "out of the blue" cards from Hallmark when they least expect it with hopes they will do the same back, but they usually just e-mail me back..haha..

[prospectiverushee]

I found this website if anybody is looking for penpals

www.penpalstoday.com


You can look thur the pages and find and write people who are looking for pen pals.

[juniorgrrl]

One of my best friends K-2nd grade moved to Dallas after 2nd grade. She and I wrote letters all through grammar school and on through high school. Finally when she got to college she got an AIM screen name and email address and we've kept in touch (although sparsely) since.

She'd come to visit every other Christmas or so - which was cool. And her dad was a dean at a colelge my cousin was attending, so when my dad died, my cousin got in touch with her family and they flew to Louisiana to be with us.

Now that I think about it, its the longest friendship I've had - 16 years

[AOX81]

I had a pen pal when I was in 5th grade. Her name was Faith Jones and if I remember correctly she lived in New York. I lost her address and we lost touch.

[UDZETA]

I have a few pen pals. One being my friend in Portland Oregon. Another being a friend in lansing Michigan. And the last being my boyfriend in Orlando Florida. I love writing real letters and sending cards. -UDZETA