On the Romanian Postal Services, With a Twist

Over the last couple of months, there have been several occasions when I've been meaning to make a note of the how annoyingly slow and sloppy the Romanian Postal Services are*, and just how much that bothers me, by getting in the way of my pursuing the Postcrossing path.
I only didn't write anything sooner because I was busy with many other items topping my To Do's, and that just didn't seem to be worth it. Plus, there were just so many other things to rant about, really.

.... And then, this very week, as my levels of annoyance were reaching some sort of a record, all of a sudden, my cards start arriving! On time! A couple of them, in 2-4 days! A-mazing, really! Even more so, as no particular explanation is available as of yet. Further investigation to be undertaken.

* Now, what do I mean by slow? I mean cards such as this one, taking almost 40 days to each another European country.
And what do I mean by sloppy? I mean having to re-send almost one quarter to one third of the cards that I had sent initially, because the first batch never made it. That was -and is, for that matter- quite annoying. And it happened in particular in relation to cards I sent to Russia, China or Ukraine.

Getting the kicks out of Postcrossing

It's as easy as this to get me smiling:

[Postcrossing User] wrote you a message:
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Hello [to me],

Thank you so much for your postcard. I love, love, love it! I went to a Degas exhibition in Rome when I first came over from Australia. I studied art for three years and he was one of my favourite artists. You read my mind.
Thanks again & Happy Postcrossing!

[Signature of receiver]
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Want it? Say it!

Dear All,

As you probably know by now, it brings me great delight to send you cards of various sorts: this time, this is about them seasonal greetings.
A further [and possibly equally great] incentive are the brand new UNICEF cards, of which I've just purchased 2 sets but might get more in case of need.
So! To keep the long story short: Should you like to receive the seasonal greeting paper card this year, please say so: email me your postal address, and I will send. If you're reading this, it's more than likely that you already have my email address :)
-- should that not be the case, just leave a message :)

993 days, 335 sent & 322 received cards later

I dare make a note on Postcrossing:
Firstly, because it brightens up my days, even more so recently!
Secondly, cause I'm not really certain why, but Postcrossing seems to have become of interest only marginally in Romania [current country of residence :)], with merely 200 users. Now, I'm not really sure why things are so, but I think they can change :)
So here's a briefing:

About Postcrossing
What is Postcrossing?

In short: the objective of Postcrossing is to allow people to exchange postcards via mail (real mail, not email) with random postcrossers from around the world. Oh, and it is absolutely free, meaning, if you send a postcard, you will receive one back from another random user (and sometimes, another one from the person you wrote to).

How does Postcrossing work?

It goes like this:

1. You register yourself on the website. You will need to provide your postal address so that you can receive postcards.
2. You request to send a postcard. An address is displayed along with the member's profile. This address will be accompanied by a Postcard ID - a unique code that identifies your postcard.
3. Choose a postcard, write something nice on it along with the assigned Postcard ID, and mail it to the address you were given.
4. Wait, wait, wait. :-)
5. Hoorray! The card arrives to its destination and is registered by the user! Now you too will receive a postcard!

For more details, please check the About section. If you still have questions, give us a shout!

Need I add that Postcrossing's been keeping me company over almost 1000 days and 3 countries now? ... and that it's been created from scratch by my good Portuguese friend Paulo? :)
So get them postcards rollin'!