Saturday, May 5, 2012

New letters! And a couple interesting little facts...

So it's been over a week since I posted anything! I've been getting ready for my finals for few classes, and prom, and a championships horse show, so I've been pretty busy!

I got letters from 3 new people and places all in one day! It's funny how excited I get when I get mail from new people, or more than one letter: I can hardly sit still for the ride home from the post office!

The first letter is from Kayleigh in Basingstoke, England. She included a pretty postcard, too!
Did you know that college in England is the last two years of highschool, then university comes after that. For those of you who aren't from the US, here we normally say that we 'go to college' after highschool, while the 'colleges' that we usually go to are technically a university. True 'colleges' are small, usually community schools, while universities are larger. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing!

The second letter is from Yana, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has a letter writing blog, too found here.

Lastly is a lovely little package from Marlous, in Malden, Netherlands. She has a letter writing blog here, as well a personal blog here.
Notice something a bit odd about the postage?
It did not cost €190 to send the package: in The Netherlands (I think it may include the rest of Europe, but I'm not positive) commas are used in place of points in numbers! So 10.000 would be ten-thousand, while 10,000 would be ten point zero. Little things like that fascinate me!

A shout-out to all of you who read my blog, thanks!! I have reached 50 followers! Thank you for stopping by, and sending me letters :)

14 comments:

  1. Hey Olivia,
    in Germany you also use commas to seperate the bigger from the smaller unit (as Euros and cents, for example). The point seperates the last three numbers from those ahead so that you can easily see how many millions and thousands something is.
    Take care!

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    1. I just saw something from Italy that used commas the same way, so I guess it's all of Europe! Isn't it weird that here, it's the opposite?

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  2. For me, that "stamp" is really interesing ^^ It show the world is developing in all fields :)

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  3. hahaha luckily it didn't cost me €190! We use commas here to divide the bigger and smaller units. I hope you're happy with my mail!

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    1. Haha that would be one expensive letter!
      I liked it very much! It was fun to look through everything, thanks!!!

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  4. The schooling system is completely different all over England. Some have nursery, first school, middle school and grammar school up until 18 and then college or university depending on what you want to do.

    Other places have nursery, primary and secondary until 18 years and then college or university.

    Then there is also primary and secondary until 16 years, college until 18 and then depending on your course college/university.

    Its so confusing and I don't understand why we don't have one system. I had the first one growing up but in 2000 our council decided to go for the 2nd one and I hate it as school sizes are too big.

    We use dots instead of Commas

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    1. That's interesting. In the USA, everyone goes to Elementary, Middle, and High School from 5-18. Before that, some kids go to pre-school, and after 18 many go to college/university. It's the same all over the country, although some people/places call Middle School Junior High. It would be kind of confusing to have different systems!

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  5. Here in Poland, commas have exactly the same function and you know what? I was really surprised to discover any countries could use it in other way!

    What a lovely bunch of letters you received <3

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    1. I was surprised too! A nice little fact to know if you're going to be buying anything in the US or Europe!!!

      Thanks! I thought so too :)

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  6. You've been receiving some fun mail. Thanks for the letter. I'll reply really soon. :)

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  7. I think your penpal in England did not put enough postage in her letter. First class is not enough on its own for airmail postage.

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    1. Haha really? I have no clue what the first class rate is in England... Well, it got to me okay anyway!

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    2. Apologies, I couldn't see clearly the price on the stamp. I thought it was 1st class (was reading your blog via a smartphone), but the stamp does have a price (about 2 and a half times 1st class) on and I think it was correct postage (there has been a price rise). The colour of first class Queen's head stamp and the stamp your penpal used look similar.
      As for school, I went to primary (5-11yrs old) and then onto secondary (11-18 years old, GCSE at 16, A Levels in the "sixth form" taken at 18, but some left school after GSCE to go to college for their A Levels), and then uni 18-21 for a BSc. (hons).

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