My letters to you - Spencer Reid x OC

01

To my penpal,

It's nice to finally write to you, I got the letter telling me I was going to be writing first when I got home from work and decided to write straight away to keep you from having to wait for too long.

This is my first time actually writing to a penpal, so I'm not sure what to write, so I'll tell you about myself. My name is Spencer Reid, I live in DC and I'm 25. I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was alright. Where did you grow up? Did you move away after you graduated or did you go travelling?

I hope I hear from you soon,
Spencer.

Dear Spencer,

I honestly didn't expect to hear from you so soon, to be completely honest with you my friend is making me take part in this. She works at the post office and they hadn't gotten anyone in town to sign up yet and I think they're working towards their Christmas bonuses.

I should probably also tell you about about myself, my name is Elizabeth Mills and luckily for us we're both similar ages. I'm 23. I live in Cannon Beach, which is in Oregon. It's a pretty small town, less than 2000 people live there, so it's pretty different from DC.

To answer your question, no I didn't grow up in Cannon Bay. I actually grew up in El Paso, Texas. I think I prefer Cannon Beach though. It's a lot quieter, that's for sure, but my garden backs right into the beach and it's great to sit out there at sunrise. I tend to read out there, it's quite calming. Tell me, what is your favourite book? Do you read often?

I hope to hear from you soon,
Elizabeth

To Elizabeth,

It's great to hear back from you, Cannon Beach sounds nice, however you cannot beat the museums in DC. Personally my favourite is the Smithsonian, though there are a lot of others.

This week I was actually allowed to relax a bit, I travel a lot for work so having just one week we're I wasn't hopping on a plane and just doing paperwork is pretty much a miracle. Do you have to travel much for work?

My favourite book is Great Expectations, my mother used to read it to me as a kid, so I suppose it's more the nostalgia of reading it more than the actual content. I do read a lot, though I do read pretty quickly. What's your favourite book?
I hope to hear from you again,
Spencer

Dear Spencer,

I've always wanted to visit the Smithsonian, I've heard it's a nice place to go if you enjoy history, so I'm assuming you're a bit of a history buff.

This week I actually did have to travel into Portland for work, in fact the majority of my job is travelling. I'm curious though, what do you do for work that makes you have to travel so much? It's sounds interesting.

Portland was nice, I went to a pretty weird museum actually while I was there. 'The Freakybuttrue Peculiarium and Museum', and they had a policy that if you wore a costume you got in for free. Me and a few friends who also came up to Portland went together and it was pretty cool. I'll make sure to enclose some pictures of some of the art I saw there.

My favourite book is actually 'The Princess of Cleeves' by Madame de Lafayette, in the original french. There's something about reading a book in its original language that makes it feel so much more alive than when translated. Do you speak any other languages?
I hope to hear from you soon,
Elizabeth

To Elizabeth,

You're right, I do enjoy history. It's a great subject and we can learn a lot from it. I looked at the photos you sent me from the museum in Portland. The art was strange, and definitely lived up to the peculiarium title the museum gave themselves.

To answer your question about what I do, I work with the FBI, so travelling for me isn't particularly fun for me. There are some good parts however, like when we reunite families. What do you do? I'm quite curious. I imagine it has something to do with languages considering you can speak french.

And yes, I am a polyglot. I speak French, German, Russian and a few other languages. Writing them all out would probably bore you. What languages do you speak? Perhaps we could write to each other in any common languages.

I hope to hear from you soon,
Spencer

Dear Spencer,

I'm sorry you don't enjoy travelling. You must like your job at least a little. Even if the work you do is horrible, your co-workers must at least be somewhat bearable. Though maybe one day you can find travelling fun again.

My job actually doesn't involve languages, though I do have a doctorate in Linguistics, so I suppose you could call me Dr Mills. I play chess professionally, so I thought it would be useful to learn a few languages if I ever decided to play overseas. Just so happens I enjoyed languages that much.

Chess is actually the reason I was in Portland last week, it was the Oregon State Open, so I had to defend my championship. A few of my friends I'd met at other opens came to compete. Do you play chess? If so I'd like to play a game with you at some point. You seem like you'd be fun to play with.

I hope to hear from you soon,
Elizabeth

     P.S. I speak French, Russian, Hebrew and Italian. As much as I may not like it, the Italians are unusually good at chess.