Recently Kanra from The Lunar Descent and I started sending each other snail mail. E-mails and texts are nice and all, but nothing can beat the excitement I feel when I see an envelope or postcard with my name on it lying on the doormat. The mailman coming to our house is one of the most exciting things I know.
Okay, that sounds more pathetic than it did in my head, but believe me: it's awesome to receive snail mail. Just the fact that someone has taken time out of their day to sit down and put pen to paper for you makes snail mail so much more special than e-mail. That a letter travelled all the way from Pakistan to the Netherlands is kind of mind-blowing. Yeah, snail mail is great. But that doesn't mean sending it is easy. There are four major struggles when it comes to snail mail. Let me explain.

I've heard some people say that writing letters is a lost art. They are not wrong. What do you write to someone you text all the time? If something big happens, I text Kanra. If something small happens, I text Kanra. I text Kanra even if nothing happens. A Dutch duck can't swim across the pond without my Pakistani blog buddy knowing all about it. So I sit at my desk, staring at a blank piece of paper and usually end up texting Kanra instead of writing something on that piece of paper that was supposed to be a glorious letter but looks more like an empty piece of paper. What do I write to someone who already knows everything you have to tell? Simple:
Honestly, my letters are of such great quality, they'll blow your socks off *wildly waves sarcasm sign*

When I was a kid, my pen pal was already glad I took the time to write her a letter. If I wanted to make her really happy, I just had to write it on the fancy paper with illustrations of a mouse on it.
Nowadays my pen pal is a blogger and bloggers generally have higher standards than ten-year-olds. Especially when it comes to snail mail. Some add glitters and stickers and illustrations that look like they belong in a museum. Others add dried flowers or leaves or surprises. Then I come along with zero inspiration and basically do this:


Buying stamps is the biggerst struggle of them all. Here's the thing: I have tons of stamps at home, but apparently I need "internation stamps" if I want to send the letter I worked so hard on to Pakistan. To the post office!
By the way, the post office is on the other side of town. It's usually raining. And my only way to get there is by bike. Hurray. At the post office, I discovered that the stamps I had at home were just fine, I only had to add a "priority" sticker to them if I wanted to use them. Not the thing you want to hear after cycling three kilometers in the rain. And so I left with, but with a pack of overpriced stamps in my pocket, because there was no way I was going home empty handed and I didn't want to cycle to the post office in the months to come. On the bright side: my new stamps have cows and windmills on them.