Postal Systems of the World

There's a leap of faith involved for me every time I put a letter in a mailbox or hand a package over to a post office clerk. I love mailing things but I get way too stressed out worrying that it's never going to arrive at its destination. There's so much potential - so many different places along the way - that my letter could get lost. Even though the track record for my mail arriving is very good (the only notable exception being the package I sent to S. in Salt Lake City during my time in Paris, which included a very long letter I spent a long time writing and thinking about, which never arrived; I was (and remain to this day actually) so disappointed it got lost) I never feel completely confident it is going to arrive.

But clearly stressing out over whether my mail is going to arrive doesn't stop me from writing and sending letters/cards/packages, etc. I love post offices. Once I move to a new city, the post office is one of the very first places I find. I don't like post offices as much in Montreal or Toronto though (not sure what they're like in the rest of Canada)because most of them are in Shoppers Drug Marts or card stores. All of the other stuff - especially shampoo, Advil etc. - getting in the way just doesn't feel right; I want them to be purely about the mail.

In the US and France, I'm pretty sure post offices are always only ever post offices and can't be in drug stores. The post office in Berkeley near the campus was always packed - average wait time to get served was probably 30 mins - and I could not go in there without hearing the post office staff yell at at least one of the customers. Finally in my last year living on Hilgard, I clued in to the fact that the North Berkeley post office was way closer to my apt, way less busy, and that the staff did not yell. I lived about a 10 minute walk from a pretty nice post office in Austin. It was often fairly crowded too, but the staff there managed to keep things moving pretty quickly, and never yelled. There was one employee in particular I especially liked, a man with tattoos all over his arms and a gruff - but still nice - manner. He looked more like he belonged in a motor cycle gang than working at the post office, which made me like him even more.

As with cafes, I loved going to post offices all over Paris. There is a 24 hour post office near the Louvre (see picture below). I only ever went there on Sunday afternoons (when all other Paris post offices were closed) but it was nice to know that if I ever desperately needed to mail something at 4 am, I could. (Side note: I wish Toronto had a really big old post office downtown (or even a modern, new post office anywhere in the city) that was open 24 hours. I think a 24 hour post office is a very practical thing to have.)

I always enjoy my walks to the post office, wherever I'm living. Despite my apprehension about the letter getting lost, it feels good to send it off and complete the process I started when I actually wrote the letter/card etc. One of my favourite memories of Santiago is every Sunday writing letters in my favourite cafe, and then every Monday walking to the post office to mail them. The Chilean post was pretty solid but not amazing. One time, I mailed a letter to A. in Berkeley at the same time as a letter to S. in Bordeaux. Unable to find regular scotch tape, I ended up having to buy this weird tape that was sticky on both sides. I used that tape to make sure S.'s letter was sealed properly, and then somehow A.'s letter must have gotten stuck to it either by me when I was paying for the postage, or by the post office worker. In any event, A.'s letter ended up travelling from Santiago to Bordeaux, where S. received both her letter and A.'s. Thankfully, she stuck a French stamp on it and put it in the mail and it eventually reached A. in Berkeley, but it took a very circuitous route! And is a cool story of a letter almost lost...but then not!

Out of all the postal systems I've used, I think England's Royal Mail is the best; it is definitely the fastest. When I was in London once visiting a friend, I sent a little package to my mom and it arrived in 4 days, which is amazing given it often takes 4 days for a letter to get from Montreal to Toronto. La Poste is pretty good too, and I like how in Paris the mailboxes have different slots for Paris, and then the rest of the world, confirming Paris's position as the most important place in the world :) I'm not that impressed with Canada Post. The stamp prices are always going up, it costs A LOT to send packages to the US or France, and its mail delivery is very slow. Plus, I wish they delivered on Saturdays like they do in the States. The US Postal Service is definitely faster, and way cheaper for packages, although stamp prices rise regularly there too. Since it's cheaper to mail packages there (especially since the packages I'm mailing are usually to friends in the States) whenever I go to the States I try to send my packages from a post office there. The last two late falls (December of 2009 in New York City, and late November of 2010 in DC) I've dragged L. to long lined, stressful and tense post offices just so I could mail my packages for cheaper. Our visits in both cities definitely confirmed to me that the post office in Austin is by far the most laid back of all the ones I've been to in the US.

Sometimes I wish that just for a week (I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want it to be my permanent job) I could work in a post office sorting the mail. I'd love to see all the letters and postcards - where they're coming from, where they're going... It would be so fun. But alas, instead I have to content myself with just making sure that I always visit a post office in whatever new country or city I visit.

The very much alive art of letter writing!

My friend J. suggested recently I write a post on the art of letter writing, and wouldn't he know it but I had already been planning on writing a post about stationery and writing letters! Both posts this month will deal with mail: this one on the actual writing of letters and postcards, and the next one about post offices and postal systems.

First, I don't really think letter writing is an art. Or rather, maybe it is but at least it's an art that everyone can do and everyone can appreciate. I love getting postcards/cards/mail from anyone - whether they just write a few lines or they fill the entire card and write really small. In other words, everyone can be good at it and you don't need any special talent to do it!

It annoys me that some people constantly bemoan the lost art of real mail and think no one (particularly some ones aged 30 and younger) writes anymore. I've read too many articles or blog posts joking about whether people actually still know what a mail box is, where to find envelopes and stamps etc etc. It irritates me because it is not all that realistic in my experience - I write and receive letters/cards regularly and every time I go to post offices, they are usually crowded! And while I'm all for and love the internet and email, I still think there's room for both real and email and I don't like the idea that the internet has to replace all forms of hard copy communication.

If you're reading this, you have probably received a letter or a postcard or both (and hopefully more than one!) from me over the time we've known each other. Writing letters and postcards is one of my very favourite things to do! I am content to sit and write my letters and postcards anywhere, but I do particularly love writing in cafes (like in the picture below). I have to admit I sometimes find sending postcards slightly stressful as on some trips I've had to stay up late at night frantically trying to get them all written. It's worth it though because I love putting down on paper what I've been up to, what I think about the place I'm visiting, etc. I also love filling all the space on the postcard - there's always lots to say and I could probably easily write 2 postcards to every person I send one to!

One thing that has made me happy since I moved to Montreal is that A. and I have been sending each other cards and letters on a regular basis. It's been fabulous to get regular mail and to be able to send it so much too. When I was thinking about writing this post, I realized happily that writing letters has been a part of my life since I was a kid. The summer I was 12 I went to overnight camp for 2 weeks at this camp called Celtic on the Bruce Peninsula. It wasn't right on Lake Huron but it was very close and they used to take us there to go swimming almost every day. Even though I haven't been back to Lake Huron since, it is definitely my second favourite Great Lake (after Lake Ontario of course!) Anyway, instead of just letting you pick up your mail yourself or giving it to you in a quiet way, they made this big deal about announcing mail after lunch. Everyone was in the dining hall and they'd call you up for each individual piece of mail. So if you got 3 letters one day, you had to walk up to the front three times. Practically everyone I knew in elementary school (this was the summer after grade six) went to overnight camp and every summer we would write letters. And that summer we wrote a lot... and so I got mail every day. At the time it was cool but looking back now, I imagine some kids who never got mail must have felt pretty left out and maybe the camp shouldn't have made such a big deal about it. I did feel pretty popular and pretty great about mail though :)

The next summer, when I was 13, A. and I had just become best friends and we spent almost the entire month of July together. We had sleep overs or hung out all the time, we talked on the phone every night, we emailed or chatted online regularly (and those were still the early days of the internet) and we wrote long letters to each other too. (There's something special about sending mail to someone in the same city you live in, I think.) I still, to this day, think it's a sign that I'm truly good friends with someone if, in addition to seeing them in person, we also occasionally talk on the phone (in general I talk on the phone less now than I did in high school), send emails, and write real mail.

The main (perhaps only?) downside I see to real letters is that unlike with email, you can't go back and check what you wrote. But I'm sure there are some who would argue that part of the charm in letters lies with their being lost to us forever as soon as we've written them. Maybe the writing and then sending it knowing you won't ever get to read it again makes it more meaningful? That's not to say that email can't be meaningful too. I've printed out some particularly important ones (and I know others who have done the same) but I think the printing out ties in to what makes real mail extra special - there's something about the tangibleness of real cards, and actually holding in your hands what the other person held in theirs, that is significant.

In closing, I'll write about stationery. It is has become, over the last several years, somewhat of an obsession of mine! It used to be that I couldn't stop buying tote bags, but now that's been replaced with stationery. (It also doesn't help that I now bring my knapsack to school every day since my laptop and all my course materials are too heavy for one shoulder only.) I adore going to paper stores! Avant Card in Berkeley is one of my favourites - I used to go in there all the time, and would, without fail, even when I didn't intend to, buy something. I miss that store a lot! I've found a place I really like in Toronto, which is great, the Paper Place. However, my best experiences with buying stationery have been in Paris and Tokyo. Postcards are readily available in most big cities, especially super visited ones like Paris. But the quality of postcards in Paris kiosks is really astounding. Sure there are the run of the mill Eiffel Tower postcards but there are also really cool, interesting, unique Eiffel Tower ones for sale (see below). And many more interesting more stationery (non-Paris related) postcards too. In fact, those abound everywhere. Walking down the street in most busy areas of Paris you'll pass multiple cool postcard filled kiosks. There is one particular store, near Place St Michel that has rack after rack after rack of lovely postcards. I went a little crazy the last time I was there two summers ago and ended up spending almost $40 on postcards. But it was worth it!

As amazing as Paris' postcards are, I think Tokyo/Japan wins for best stationary in the world! I went to the biggest stationery store in the world (at least according to me) in Tokyo - five floors! And every department store has an awesome stationery section too. One day I want to go back to Tokyo and spend an entire day just looking at and buying stationery. I bought a ton and I thought I was buying too much when I was there last year, but now that it's already running out (A. is the lucky recipient of many Tokyo bought cards) I'm regretting not buying more! Things I like about Japanese stationery: 1. They love putting words/phrases in English or French (and sometimes they don't make that much sense). 2. They have their own versions of "our" (maybe it was really theirs first?) fairy tales. For example, I bought some stationery with a cool Japanese version of Little Red Riding Hood on it, and some Japanese version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs stickers. 3. They love strawberry stationery (see below). 4. There is so much of it!!

I hope this post has convinced you (if you needed convincing and hopefully you didn't) that letter writing is very much alive! I'm already looking forward to part two on letters to follow later this month!