Hello! Have you left a comment on my stationery giveaway post yet? Yes? Good! You can now meet the Penpal of the Week.

Please tell us about you!

Hello to all the penpals out there!! My name is Simona, but all my friends call me just Simo, so I think you can do the same. I’m 16 years old and I come from a city called Palermo, Italy. I’m a student and I’m attending my fourth year of high school. I don’t know yet what I’ll do later, but I’ve got still one year and half to think about it. I live with my parents and I’ve got a younger brother called Alberto, but I’m older than him just for 18 months, so we raised together and – also if we aren’t – people keep thinking we’re twins. I think it’s because we are very close and really in harmony with each other, so I don’t mind this fact.

I love gazing in to space while thinking to something important…

I love animals, and above all I love pets as dogs or cats, but unfortunately my father is allergic to both of them, so I can’t take a four-legged friend. However, don’t be worried for me: I’ll take one when I’ll live in a separate house! Since I don’t own a pet, I pour all my love on my brother and on my friends. I think that they are a huge and important part of my life and I’m really glad I met them during my journey in this world.

Of course, family and friends aren’t the only ones I love… if I must say the truth, they’re just the only living beings I pour my love on, in fact there are many other things I really adore. Do you want some examples? Here you go: books. Yes, I’m exactly that kind of person who can read the same book again and again and again. But it doesn’t end here! I’ve got always new books to read and though they’re never enough!

Three times a week I go to my dance classes. I’ve been dancing for 11 years and I surely won’t stop now. My pointe shoes are such a divine thing for me, and I will never throw my first pair even if I was threatened with death.

My carnival dress: Japanese girl!

As books and dance, music is also a thing I cannot do without. I listen to music everyday. And even if I’m not listening to music, you can be sure I’m singing something aloud, outloud or also simply in my head. I also imagine a soundtrack for my dreams when I’m asleep! But my relationship with music isn’t just passive: I play guitar (I own a classic and an electric one) and I love to re-write chords and tabs of my favoutite songs by myself. Sometimes I also try to write my own music, but I rarely like what I create. Nevertheless, I never stop thinking about playing guitar, and when I listen to music and there’s a guitar solo I always start moving my fingers as if I were playing myself. I’m crazy, I know. Ahah!

I’m also fond of photography and I recently received a reflex camera as a birthday present from my parents, so I’ll be happy to talk about photography and all kinds of visual arts, if you are interested in them.

This is me playing my wonderful electric guitar…

I’m sorry, but I can’t remember what I was playing that moment!

Different cultures, morals and languages fascinate me. I love puzzles to solve and new things to discover, so the higher number of languages I can learn, the better. And it’s the same with other countries’ philosophies, habits, thinking and behaving ways and everything linked with cultural richness and diversity. I think I’m what you’d probably call “a cosmopolitan” (or else “world’s citizen”). I could spend my own life looking for a new country to discover. Or for a new language to learn.

Oh, you won’t believe it, but I was almost forgetting: of course, I adore snail mailing! And that delight I feel when I get a letter and I’m opening the envelope – yes, when I’m just to find out what’s in it – I think I could lose my mind for that moment!

Describe your personality in 10 words!

Hilarious, reflective, insecure, nerdy, truthful, perfectionist, open-minded, unique, creative and talktative!

This is me drinking a Chocolate Frappuccino in Barcelona. I love it!!

How long have you been penpalling? How did you first start? Tell us about your first penpal!

I’ve been penpalling for just 2 years. I’ve always thought that “none does snail mail anymore” and that “penpals are now extinct” with a certain melancholy. Letters have always fascinated me, but I had never wrote and posted one. It happened a day that I woke up and I said to myself: “you MUST find a penpal!” So I talked about it to my mother and she said that I could write to my cousin in France. I’ve never known her, so I accepted. A week later I was sending my first letter and I was really excited! Actually, I’ve never seen my cousin even nowadays, but we still keep in touch by snail mails.

Anyway, after one year of correspondance with my cousin, I started desiring a new friend whom I could snail mail with, so I looked on the Internet and I found out about InterPals.

This is how my penpalling story had begun! And – trust me – it won’t ever end!

Me with my friends Elvira and Valentina at that same Starbucks in Barcelona.

How many penpals do you have now and where are they from?

I’ve got 6 penpals, inclunding my cousin, and they’re from France, USA, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Italy. I simply love them all!

What are your favorite topics to discuss in letters?

I can really talk about everything. I do never put a limit to my topics, because I love to write to my penpals as if I were talking in front of them, just with a bit of magic more. Some general topics I always discuss with my penpals are travelling, music, future, school, friendship, languages, and… I don’t know, really everything!

I really love exchanging opinions or advices on what-to-do, what-to-taste, etc. Or simply talking about what we did during the week.

I think it finally depends on the person whom I’m writing to. As you choose the topic to discuss with a certain friend, I always know what to write about with each of my lovely penpals.

My dear friend Bruna and me. We live in different cities, but

we met accidentally at the airport in Rome, so we took this pic!

What are you looking for in a penpal?

I basically look for a friend. A true one. This is maybe the only thing I care. I’m looking for a life-long frienship and I KNOW that the one who will be my friend and penpal is now reading this interview!

I’m mostly looking for girls or women from any age to… I don’t know, maybe 25 is the right number? I absoutely don’t have a problem with age, it’s just that I think that it would be better to have someone closer to my age, so we’ll have more things in common. But if you’re older than 25 and you feel like we can get on well anyway, then I’ll be glad to know you!!

It’s OK also if you’re a boy, indeed, until you’re younger than 20.

Andrea (another dear friend of mine) and me!

What do you like the most about penpalling?

This is really a difficult question for me. I think that there isn’t just one thing I like the most, but it’s the set of all those things that makes me love snail mails as much as I do! I think there’s something magic in finding out that a person who lives so far away from you and that you’ve never seen can be such a good friend! Nowadays is difficult to find people who share our same passion for snail mails, and it’s awesome to have someone as a penpal.

For me it started like the final making of a deep desire I’ve always had, and even if I already made it come true I’ve no intention to stop penpalling. Because, really, would you ever tell me that an email is more real and warm than a letter?

My brother and me. We were on the volcano Etna, and…

well, we were throwing snow-balls!

In what language(s) do you correspond?

I usually correspond in English, but since I’m Italian I can also write to you in Italian if you like it, and I hope I’ll be able to correspond in Spanish soon!

What are some of your habits in regards to letter writing?

When I’m not studying, my desk undergoes a transformation and it becomes a real smail desk. There, is where I usually write letters. Nevertheless it could happen that I write letters at school when a teacher is missing, or also at the beach, or at the park. It also depends on where I am and how much time I have to write.

Me having fun at the sea.

I can take from an hour to two weeks to write you back. It depends on how many pages I write, on how much homework I have to do, and also if I have some important things to do.

The lenght of my letters can go from a minimum of 2 pages to a maximum of… 1000? I don’t know! The longer one I wrote until now was a 15 pages one. But, you know, I can’t decide to write less or more, it simply depends on you and on those things I already wrote.

I’ve got also the habit of sending postcards, stickers and gifts to my penpals, so I hope you like this kind of things!!

Here is a sample of my handwriting!

Has anything strange/funny ever happened to you since you’ve been penpalling?

At first I thought I would have answered “no” to this question, but then… Well, I’ve actually never received any weird request from any penpal, but you have to know that I love stationery, so when I started writing letters, I also started looking for some stationery. Try to guess what: they don’t sell stationery in my city!! And unfortunately I’m not allowed to buy anything on the Internet, so I’ve finally decided: I’ll create my own stationery!! So, if you become a pen pal of mine, you’ll surely see unique stationery 100% made in Simo!

This is my desk, this is where I write your letters!

Have you met any of your penpals?

Unfortunately I’ve never met any of my penpals. Neither my cousin! Though I’m planning to meet two of them next summer, and I really hope it will really happen!!

Are you currently looking for more penpals?

Yes! I’d really like to find at least 3 new penpals!

If you liked my interview and you feel like you want to know me better and become my penpal, email me at simona_gioe@libero.it!

Thank you Simo! I’m sure all the cool kids will want to write you!