2012 letters stats

Hey dear readers!
I sincerely hope you're not allergic to numbers and stats, because this post is full of them! I finally got to make my stats of the year - and believe me, it was great fun! :D I love to make stats, however strange it may sounds, hehe.

So let's get the party started, uh?

Here you can see all the letters I sent (the blue bars) and received (the red bars) each month. Generally I sent more than I received (isn't it always so?), especially during the very first months of the year.

Here you can see the progress. The number of letters I sent and received increased regularly between January and the end of the summer (which is logical, as I got more penpals along the year), and then suddenly decreased from september/october on. So did my free time, actually, son here again, that's just logical. I haven't calculated that, but looking at this graph, I'd say that in average I got around 9-10 letters a month in 2012.

I also made stats about where my letters went to and came from this year:

 As you can tell, the huge majority of my penpals are from Europe. Nearly 90% of my incoming/outgoing letters didn't change continent. Then the second most represented continent is North America, and among the ~10% that went to/came from there, they all were to/from the USA. I don't have any Canadian pals.
I have one penpal in Brazil and one in Malaysia, but their letters represent really, really little of the overall amount of mail I got in 2012.

So as ~90% of my mail travel within Europe, I made a special stat for European mail, to see more precisely where it goes to/come from in Europe.

The biggest part (~20% of both sent and received letters) is from/to Scandinavia. Nothing really surprising here, as this is my favourite part of the world, as you probably already know. I noticed that along the year I got to send and received less and less letters from the North, I don't know why, but many of my Scandinavian penpals just disappeared :(
The second most represented country, are Baltic countries (~15% of both sent and received letters), thanks to my Estonian and Lithuanian penpals who're quite regular writers :) Followed by the UK (~13%), and this is quite a surprise as I didn't think I got that many letters from the UK actually! But I used to have 3 British penpals (before that 2 of them let me down *sigh*) so that must be why. I also got quite many letters from Finland and Germany, and I thought these countries would have been before the UK, but well, I was wrong apparently!

Well, I hope I didn't bore you with my stats! I just had to make this post, you know :D
I hope you got many lovely letters in 2012 and I wish you to get many more lovely letters in 2013!

Love, Tári

Holidays are over!

Yes, Christmas break is now officially over, today I was back at my apartment, and checked the mailbox, finally, after two weeks away from it! There only were two envelopes in it, even if I left it alone for two weeks in a row. But I guess many people don't send letters during holidays season, and also I'm late with my replies, so that explains why my mailbox is on diet ;)

As I told you in a previous blog post, I want to offer myself one month of letters reading for my birthday, so at the moment I don't read any letters, saving them all for my birthday. So, I just took a pic of the two letters I got today, before hiding them in a bag, away from my eyes, because if I start staring at the envelopes for too long, I'll end up opening them before the D-day, which would be a pity!
Here are the pics however ;)

From Ramona, Germany. The envelope is made of wrapping paper! Isn't it a cute idea?

And from Maiju, Finland. It's so thick. I wonder how many pages she wrote... Ahhh, I can't wait for my birthday!!

And now, what I wrote this week. First a letter to Sofie in Sweden. It's not winter paper for once! She said in her letter she didn't like winter so much, so, I used a different paper ;)

And the stamp I used is a common issue for France and Sweden. I found it fun to use it for a letter that will go to Sweden! :P

And finally, many snowy pages heading their way to Ksenia in Ukraine!

I had a surprise this morning when reading the newspaper in the train: I found out that the price of stamps has raised from January 1st on! I didn't know that at all! :O It now costs 0.63€ instead of 0.60€ to send a letter within France, 0.80€ instead of 0.77€ within the EU (+ Switzerland), and 0.95€ instead of 0.89€ worldwide (all these prices are for letters up to 20g) They didn't change prices of letters up to 50g though, which I find a bit strange, but well, I won't complain! The increase isn't high, that's because in France they regularly increase the postage price of few cents, every second year less or more.
I'm curious, how much does it cost in your country to send a letter up to 20g? Has the postage price gone up in 2013?

Love, Tári

Happy New Year!

Dear readers,
I'm writing this post to wish you all a wonderful new year 2013! May this new year bring you much joy, happiness, love, success, letters, and anything you wish for!

(the text on the pic means Happy New Year 2013 in French :) )

Do you take resolutions for the New Year? I perfectly know I won't keep them, but I made my list anyway:

• Schedule my uni work better, instead of always procrastinating it
• Tidy and clean my place more regularly
• Eat more healthy food (at least more vegetables, I already eat much fruit - I love it!)

What would your resolutions be?

Love, Tári