Hopelessness of a new Postcrosser with long travelling cards

Because of the pandemic, mail around the world is very slow at the moment. I do understand how frustrating it must be for you. Hopefully one day soon you will receive a lovely ‘Hurray’ message when one of your postcards is registered. And then you will know that your name and address have been given out and a postcard will be on its way to you.

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Thank you very much for your warm reply.
Hope Hurrays will arrive as surprise in my mailbox.
Making connection with people is wonderful.

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It is hard being patient at the beginning, but do not despair. In the last year my median time to recieive a postcard from China was about 80 days. Half took less time than this, and half took more. It was a little quicker to send a card to China.

Hopefully one of your cards will get to its destination soon. As soon as this happens , there will be one in the air to you.

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Hello, I don’t think you need to be sorry for venting your feelings :slightly_smiling_face:

I see that you’re from China and to my knowing, mail from and to China could take a long time (my first official card from China took 70 days) . Due to pandemic it’s normal for mails to come late. After 60 days, you will get new slots to draw addresses.

I don’t know how postcrossing handle postal monitor for China, but for Indonesia the system only allow countries that are serviced by airmail, and gladly in general my sent cards took less than 1 month

Hopefully soon your cards will arrive! Patience is a virtue

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Thank you very much.
In fact all I hope is those cards do arrive more than getting the same amount back.
And your data helps a lot in getting my mind prepared. Thank you.

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Hello @Treeinwinter, and welcome to Postcrossing!
I completely understand your frustration with waiting so long. It was almost 6 weeks before my first cards arrived, and even after they arrived, it was a slow trickle for at least 3 months.
So, I eventually joined some of the round robins where I could send and receive more cards, meet more people, learn more about how things were going on elsewhere during this pandemic.
Please check some out! For example, there is the Month of Letters where you might ask if anyone wants to exchange with you. Maybe you will find some shared interests on the Many Themes page? I really appreciated the Birthday RR! And, there’s a brand new Mail Art RR worth checking out. So many others!
Be patient, have fun, and dip into Postcrossing beyond the official cards. You’ll have even more fun!
Helen

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Please, don’t feel discouraged for this.
You have done it right, sending your 5 cards.
Waiting is probably the worst part.

I can tell you my own first experience with Postcrossing, the same as yours. I waited long for my first card, becuase the sender forgot he had asked for an address, and sent it weeks later.

Sending hugs from here and wishing you the best.

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Thank you very much, catchycat.
Thanks for your information and I do get depressed these days because of the slow postcards.
And I’ve persuaded myself into being more and more patient! Thanks. :grinning:

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Thank you for your suggestions Helen.
That’s very nice of you and many threads and projects you mention sound quite interesting.
I can’t wait to have a try!!
In fact I do find a class from a European school to send postcard to from the forum and I hope it will arrive soon as well.

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One of my postcards is traveling to China now (51 days). The girl is a beginner, she sent her first postcards on October 23 and still has not received any. :pensive: I’m so sorry. She’s probably worried about it too. I hope she has enough patience.
I wish you to get a postcard as soon as possible! The forum is quite fun. You can have some fun here while waiting.

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Thank your for your reply Saouri!
Patience do pay, I believe.
Wish you the best!!

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Thank you very much for you reply.
Hope the Pandemic can be over as soon as possible and we all get happier postcrossing.

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Hi @Treeinwinter! I’m also a newbie here. I signed up a day before you and I understand how you are feeling right now. Like you, I also requested all 5 addresses at the same time and posted all the cards the following week. I’m hoping that the recipients would also receive it as soon as possible but as I got to read more information and learn from the people from the forum, I now understand that postal services as of this moment is immensely affected by the pandemic and the suspensions of incoming or outgoing mails vary from each country.

In my case, the first card I sent was received in US after 2 weeks then in Russia after 3 weeks. I also sent another 1 to Germany and to my surprise it only took around 9 days which is the fastest on my record. Unfortunately, the other card I sent to Italy is taking so long it’s around 40 days already and I don’t know what happened to the postcard. Since I also don’t have any control of it once I posted it, all I can do is really train myself to be patient. For my received cards, I only have 1 as of current. So, it is really obvious that there is a huge delay in the mail system and postal services.

Like what others suggested here, I also joined the forum for exchanging postcards or just sending one like those who are requesting from the schools and I’m also participating in the games and lotteries. So far I’m having fun whilst waiting for my official cards to arrive to the addressees. I hope your cards arrive to their destinations soon so you will also receive in return. Patience is really the key.

Happy Postcrossing! :ok_woman: :relaxed:

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Thank you Carmela, especially for you patient reply!! :grinning:
Now I’ve persuaded myself that it’s a great training of patience.
Hope my postcards can be as fast as yours.
Happy Postcrossing! Thank you again.

I live in a country with a good postal service. Lucky me.
But I can feel your frustration and I feel with you.

I send you a PM.

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My cards to China seem to take the longest but they have always arrived eventually and I have received many lovely cards from people in China. All I can promise is its worth it ! Hang in there xx

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Thank you kind Sabine!!!
Best Wishes.

Thank you friend from Suffolk!
Hope the world is free of pandemic soon and we can communicate with each other more quickly!
That’s where the charm of postcrossing lies.

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I just received two cards (Forum: stamp related to postcard tag) which were postmarked from China in August 2021! I am not sure if that was a time of suspension of mail between our counties, but they did finally arrive. Other cards from China have arrived in much shorter times. I hope you see some mail in your mailbox soon! Sending a PM.

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About a year ago, nothing arrived in the USA in less than 50 days :rofl: And my norm for Russia used to be a month, it has become so fast lately!

Italy is very erratic. Could take 10 days, could take 2-3 months. I sent LOTS of stuff to Italy (outside of official postcrossing, so arranged privately) in the first two weeks of December and they all started to arrive in the last week or so. I had started to wonder if I should resign myself to having lost about 10 envelopes! Even though I know mail is sslllooow. Also December and January have a lot of holidays so in Italy there are two full weeks when nothing much happens across Dec./Jan.

My first sent cards took 30-40 days. So there you go. I have a gazillion cards on the way but most of them are pretty slow. Unfortunately China can be very slow but on the way in and way out. So nothing to do but wait.

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