My first two cards were a Meowth and a Geodude. I still have the Meowth but I traded the Geodude at some point :( I think my favorites are the Meowth, my Mewtwo from my history teacher, my Reshiram EX from my friend, and a random Kabuto card that happens to be in German.
I remember I was in 6th grade and one of my friends was like “hey want a bunch of cards?” And he pulled out a blue pencil case full of them. I never knew how to play the game either. I just collected them too. There was one dude who had a whole deck of EX pokemon and he gave me the Reshiram just cause. He was like literally “pick one” it was so surreal. But yeah I tried to play Pokemon for real with a friend and neither of us understood it