My snail mail origins

My story with snail mailing started back in 1988 when I was 10 years old, and my first pen pal was a girl I met on a camping vacation in a small coast location named Palamós in the north of my beloved Catalunya. This girl and I ( and other kids) spent a whole month playing around, bathing in the beach and so on, and she happened to live in Hospitalet de llobregat while I lived near Manresa, the distance between both towns isn't big and trains work pretty well in Catalunya, but well, we were 10 you know!
It was so cool to receive her letters, always in pink paper with the Mafalda character on it.
Few years after I started looking active for more penpals, mostly from another countries so I could improve my then almost non existent english. I soon found a bunch of new friends to write letters with (you know, we had no internet back then, no emails, no blogs, no forums!) I found those new friends thru either music magazines (Kerrang!, smash hits, super pop) or thru FB's (Friendship books). I also started swapping actively, back then I love Bon Jovi (yeah... I was 14 and you know, we all have a past!) and there were a lot of girls (and guys) around looking for clippings and posters of Take That, Brad Pitt or something, and I had no use for those, so I would trade that stuff for Bon Jovi stuff.
I remember chasing the postman in my town, Pepe, during my lunch break at school to see if he was carrying something for me, no mail day always been a bit of a let down, still nowadays, 25 years after.

 With the years I started swapping decorative books and slams, which are very creative and very fun but also big time consumers s eventually I stopped doing both about 8 years ago.

I have met totally awesome people thru letters, there's people I have been writing with for over 20 years now, and those are true friends, I have also met IRL many many of my pals, and always had terrific experiences.

 (In the picture I am posing with my penpal, nowadays good friend Kimberlee in front of the New York Public library in may 2014)

Snail mailing keeps me sane and its a big part of my life.