Received card #33

My 33rd card arrived from Saint-Quentin in France. My, let's see, second card? from France. And like the first one, I don't think I'd heard about the town it came from, but couldn't say for sure. :-)

This unusual and really neat card was sent by Corinne on January 7th. It had 1,217 kilometers to travel, and it covered the distance in only four days to arrive on January 11th.

Sent card #45

My 45th address was in the Netherlands ... oddly enough, having sent what feels like a lot of cards there ;-) this was the first time I'd be sending to Amsterdam. So that was cool, because A'dam is a great city and I've really enjoyed all my visits there.

Laura is interested in various things to do with art and culture and folklore and traditional crafts ... that set me to thinking and I dug this card out of my stash. It seemed to be perfect for Laura. :-)

This card shows a detail from one of the most magnificent items that were found in the Oseberg ship grave - a decorated bucket. :-) It's from ca 830 AD. A beautiful work of art.

I sent the card on January 11th, it had 914 kilometers to travel and arrived after seven days, on January 18th. Laura liked it a lot, so yay. :-)

Sent card #44

My 44th address was in Australia - I was happy to see that, because I'd never sent a card down under before. :-) A new country to add to my list. :-)

Glenda is a pretty new Postcrosser and hadn't gotten a lot of cards at the time, so I was happy to send to her. She doesn't have a lot of information on her profile though - nothing listed by way of likes and/or dislikes - so I decided to send her this flower card. I figured that that couldn't possibly offend anyone. :-)

I sent the card on January 9th. It had an amazing 13,839 kilometers to travel, and it covered the distance in 11 days to arrive in Craigie in Perth on January 20th.

Here's a fun coinkydink: A while back I got this great card from Belarus. Check this out - Glenda got another card in the exact same series from a totally different person in Belarus on the same day she got my card. :-D It's a small world after all ... !! :-D

Swap #11

My 11th swap was initiated by me, just because I came across Bridget's profile while surfing the site one day and really liked her screen name - PoetryCat - and also quite liked her profile. Plus, I had a card that I thought she'd really like. :-) She was interested in swapping too, so I sent my card off to Atascadero in California in the US on November 11th. So fun to send to someone there - it's the sister city of Roanoke, Virginia where a good friend of mine lives. :-)

It took a really long time before anything was sent in return, because unfortunately Bridget got sick in the meantime. But AFAIK she's doing better now, and of course I didn't at all mind waiting ... especially not when it turned out that when her end of the swap did arrive, I got three cards instead of one! :-o First the lovely home made dragonfly card and the American bison on January 7th, and then the desert landscape on January 9th. Fantastic. :-)

Since she was so sweet and sent me two extra cards, I decided to send another one back to her. I sent this one on January 12th. It hasn't arrived yet, or at least I haven't heard anything from her to indicate that it has, but I think she'll like it. :-) It matches one of the first items on her list of interests perfectly. :-)

I got this card at the Folk Museum here in Oslo ... it shows three women in bunad, traditional Norwegian folk dresses, standing in front of the original gate to the Museum, back when it was the Collections of King Oscar II.

Sent card #43

My 43rd address was in Gera in Germany ... a town I don't think I'd heard of before. Germany's a big country. :-) Isabel lists landscapes on top of her list of preferences in postcards, so I decided to send her my own Rondane card. On the card I told her a little about the area and my family's connection to it.

I sent the card on January 7th. It traveled 1,009 kilometers to be registered as received after 11 days, on January 18th.

V. cool when this card arrived - it was my 40th card registered as received, and after this I can have 7 cards traveling at once. Yay. :-)

Swap #10

My 10th swap was initiated by the other user ... he, or maybe it's they, saw this card that I'd sent to Finland and emailed me asking me to swap them one of those. Fortunately I had more of these cards ... which are actually freebies from way back. The photo on them shows one of the beautiful granite statues in the Vigeland Park here in Oslo.

Postcrossing user KMBK is actually a postcard museum ... it's in ... Hegyfalu, I think, maybe. :-) The museum was established in 2001 and I guess they're constantly looking for new items to display. I was happy to contribute a card from Norway, and I sent it on December 15th. On January 5th I got back not just one card, but two from Hungary. My first card from there - neat. :-) If you're a Postcrosser and you want to contribute to the museum's collection, I'm sure they'd be happy to hear from you. :-)

Received card #32

My 32nd card came from Turku in Finland, which was really nice because I have a BookCrossing friend who lives there, and even though I've gotten more cards from Finland than from any other country, this was the first I'd gotten from Turku. So that was really nice. :-)

Tanja sent a typical tourist card with a nice view from the harbor, which again was very nice since I've never been there myself. But my friend I guess has probably seen this very view. :-) She - ie Tanja :-) - wrote that Turku is the oldest town in Finland, founded about 800 years ago.

The card was sent on December 30th and arrived in six days, on January 5th, after a journey of 640 kilometers.

Sent card #42

My 42nd card went to Emily in Johnstown in Pennsylvania in the US. She doesn't have a lot of info on her profile, so choosing a card was kind of tricky ... :-) I picked an art card showing a flower, which I figured couldn't be wrong for anyone. :-)

The card shows a painting called Chrysanthemum by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.

I sent the card on January 5th. It had 6,219 kilometers to travel and arrived after 15 days, on January 20th.

Received card #31

My 31st card was my 2nd from Belarus, and also the 2nd bird of prey card I'd received in a short time. Neat. :-) This picture is from the Biosphere Reserve Belavezhskaya Pushcha, which is partly in Belarus and partly in Poland, and is also a Unesco World Heritage site. It sounds like a wonderful place. :-)

Natalia from Minsk chose the card for me because I like wild animals and nature. Good call. :-) She sent the card on December 30th and it traveled 1,216 kilometers in five days to reach me on January 4th.

Swap #9

This swap was initiated by me and the other user both. :-) I was just surfing the site and I came across this card, which I thought was just beautiful ... so I commented to say as much, and added it to my favorites wall. Soon after I got an email from the sender, Genia in St Petersburg, asking if I wanted to swap. Sure! I asked if he could get me the card I'd favorited. Obviously, if he couldn't, no problem, he could just send something else. He wanted a card showing some of the beautiful nature here in Norway. I picked this one, from northern Norway. I sent it on December 17th.

On January 4th, I got an envelope from Russia ... I was surprised to see an envelope, because I had just been expecting one card. But Genia had sent two, because he thought it was a little sad that his card of the Bronze Horseman wouldn't be a surprise to me. So he'd added another card too. How sweet! :-) I'm thinking of something else to send to him in return. :-)

Some very nice stamps too, on the envelope.

Sent card #41

My 41st address was in Russia ... my second card to Russia, but this one to Moscow, so rather less exotic than the first one. :-) Alexander is interested in anything to do with postal history, such as post offices, letterboxes, stamps ... so I decided to send this card, which shows all the stamps that were released in 2005 by the Norwegian Mail.

I didn't have any of these cards newer than 2005, but I was hoping he'd like this anyway. :-)

I sent the card on January 2nd. It had 1,649 kilometers to travel, and took 34 days to arrive on February 5th. When it did, Alexander said it was perfect. Yay!! :-)

Received card #30

My 30th card arrived from Sweden - and, weirdly, this was the first card I'd either received or sent from there. I'm sure it's not very rational but I just feel that since Sweden is practically next door, I should be getting some either cards or addresses :-) ... but then again, why should I? Sweden is in fact below Norway in Postcrossing terms - we're 28th in terms of activities, while they're 'only' 34th. And I've never gotten either a card or an address from Norway. :-)

Anyway, I was happy to get a Swedish card, that's the point I'm getting at. Emma's profile I'd actually looked at before, and - seriously - thought that at one point I may well get a card from her. She is the #1 Postcrosser in Sweden. And yeah, I was right, here's the proof. :-)

This fun Christmas card was sent from Tumba at Christmas :-) and arrived on New Year's. It had traveled 406 kilometers ... a new record for me, the shortest distance any of my received cards has traveled. :-)

Sent card #40

My 40th card went to Austria - another country I hadn't sent to before, or at least, not officially. :-) Elfriede appreciates any card she gets and has never received a postcard she didn't like. :-) I sent her an art card, and I sent it in an envelope so that she could use the stamp to add to her stamp collection ... because like me she would never remove a stamp from a postcard, only from an envelope. ;-)

I sent the card on New Year's Eve and it had 1,351 kilometers to travel, a distance it covered in five days to arrive in Vienna on January 5th.

Received card #29

My 29th card arrived from Tartu in Estonia. I'd sent to Estonia before, but hadn't received from there, so that was nice. :-) The card itself wasn't from Estonia though, but from Gran Canaria. :-) Heli had just been on vacation there, in a toasty warm 25 degrees centigrade ... only to return to 24 below in Estonia. o_O I would have preferred the Spanish temperature too ... ! :-D

The card was sent on ... the postmark says December 27th, but it was written on the 24th, and of course there are some holidays in between there, so it's hard to say when it was mailed exactly. :-) But it arrived in my mailbox on December 29th, having traveled 931 kilometers.

Received card #28

My 28th card came from Australia via Germany. :-) Melanie from Speyer had been down under recently and of course had shopped for postcards ... and I guess she picked this great card for me because I mention reptiles on my profile. Check out this thorny devil ... !! :-D

This card was sent on December 21st, and it covered 1,187 kilometers in eight days to arrive on December 29th.

Sent card #39

Card #39 would be going to Lithuania ... another first country for me. Beata lives in Vilnius, the capital, and is a new Postcrosser. She had two cards listed as sent but had received none, so my card would probably be her second or even first card. Yay. :-)

Beata likes nature and wants to see something interesting and perhaps not well known about the sender's country, so I picked this card with a view of Rondane national park. My own shot. Rondane is the oldest national park in Norway and very famous here, but I don't think it's very well known in Lithuania. ;-)

I sent the card on December 29th. It had 1,046 kilometers to travel and took a fortnight to cover that distance to arrive on January 12th. It was the first Postcrossing card Beata had received, so yay. :-)

A plethora of postcards

I spent Christmas with my parents at their house in Bærum outside of Oslo. On my last day there my mother brought out her stash of postcards - some of which are getting seriously on in years ;-) and said I could pick the ones I wanted. She is a Postcrosser too but a very slow one ... I signed her up and she hasn't been quite as hooked as I'd hoped. But there you go, all the more for me. :-) I didn't take all the cards, far from it, even though I know how it must look ... :-)

Sent card #38

Card #38 turned out to be my third Postcrossing card involving Spain ... I have received one card from there, sent one, and now I got to send one more - to an area I at first thought I had visited once upon a time, but then I realized that in fact I have not. :-) The only time I was in Spain I was very young, only about eight years old, so my memory sometimes fails me. :-) Arturo lives in El Campello near Alicante, and the entirety of his profile text is in Spanish ... so that was a bit of a challenge for me, but I managed to make out that he loves getting postcards and that he's aspiring to a big collection of them :-) and that what he likes the most is reading the cards when they arrive and thinking of the journeys they have been on. I know how he feels! :-) I picked this very touristy card which shows six different views of Norway ... mountains and fjords. :-)

I sent the card on December 28th. It traveled 2,516 kilometers in one week to arrive on January 4th.

Sent card #37

My 37th address was in Finland again ... in that nation's capital, Helsinki. Auli has a huge list of interests on her profile, and on it I found one thing we have in common - we both love chocolate. ;-) So I picked this delicious card to send to her. When it arrived she found it quite tasty-looking too. ;-)

I mailed this card off on December 28th. It had 789 kilometers to travel, which distance it covered in only three days to arrive on December 30th. Impressive! :-)

Postcards for Christmas

I even got some postcards as Christmas presents - one from a Postcrossing friend, but most of them from a friend who I don't think even knows that I am a Postcrosser. So what an incredible stroke of luck. :-)

The full color card is from my best friend and shows the building in which our constitution - the second oldest constitution in the world that is still in use - was drafted and signed. My best friend lives almost in the neighborhood. :-) The black and white ones are from my American friend Vickie Holt in Roanoke, Virginia ... they show various moments from the history of Roanoke, from the period 1890 through 1942. How cool is that. :-)

Thanks to both of them, I really appreciate it. :-)

Sent card #36

My 36th card went to Taiwan just before Christmas. :-) Kai-Jen is from Taipei and is a pacifist - and as soon as I read that, I knew exactly which card to send to him. :-) On the card I told him a little bit about myself, and also included the greeting God jul og godt nytt år, which is Merry Christmas and a happy new year in Norwegian. All according to Kai-Jen's wishes, of course.

This card was bought at Tronsmo, the best bookstore in Oslo ... and, according to Neil Gaiman, one of the best in the whole world. :-)

I sent the card on December 23rd. It had 8,704 kilometers to travel, and arrived on January 8th, after 16 days. Kai-Jen liked it a lot. :-)

Sent card #35

My 35th card went to the Netherlands again. Loes lives in Leeuwarden (Mata Hari's home town ;-) and has a really great profile on Postcrossing. :-) Not sure I can explain why but I really like her profile. :-) She's a pretty new user and my card would be the first PX card she'd receive; I got her address on December 21st; I requested an address right after Loes' first sent card had been registered as received by AnnaR in Finland. I love watching the Postcrossing system in action like that. :-) It's the third time this has happened to me and I think it's so great every time. :-)

I sent Loes one of my own creations from moo.com. I hoped she'd like it. :-)

I sent the card on December 22nd. It had 805 kilometers to travel and took a long time to get there - 16 days! It arrived on January 6th. But I guess the Christmas rush may have played a part there. :-)

DIY postcards and more

I love my postcards from moo.com that I wrote about in an earlier blog post. Moo also has other great products that I was very interested in. So when they offered a free shipping deal on orders made in November, I couldn't resist. :-) I got some more postcards ...

... some stickers with my own photos too, nine different ones in a booklet of 90 ...

... some of their MiniCards, which are about half the size of standard business cards and can be printed with the photo or artwork of your choice on one side, and with whatever text you want on the other. They come in packs of 100, and I uploaded 49 photos, so I got two of each design + a couple of extras. :-) On the text side (which of course you have the option of leaving blank) I put the urls for my main blog, my Youtube channel, my photostream on Flickr and a couple more places. :-) Adorable MiniCards ... !

... that come in a box for easy storage. And I bought a holder to carry them in, too. V. handy. ;-)

And finally of course I couldn't resist their Mosaic Frame, which lets you create art *cough* out of your MiniCards. It's just too cool. I had to have it. :-)

I ordered all of this on November 30th, and my order arrived in two packages, on December 15th and 16th. Pretty good in the Christmas rush. :-)

And just to make it absolutely clear, I totally love all my new stuff and am genuinely impressed with the quality this company delivers. I recommend them strongly to anyone considering purchasing this kind of product.

Received card #27

This card arrived on December 18th, but wasn't registered till the 22nd. My computer was still in the shop and on top of that, I was sick and couldn't go in to work, so couldn't register it there either. But I registered it the first chance I got. :-)

Mandy is an American, she comes from Ohio, but she lives in Nanjing in China where she works as a teacher. She's in China's top fifty. Nice. :-) She wrote that she chose this card for me because I like pictures from nature. And, yeah, wow. An amazing animal. I've seen them in real life a couple of times, but only in captivity.

According to Mandy, these are the top three things to see in Nanjing: Purple Mountain, Confusius' temple and the downtown area/city center. :-)

This card was sent on December 1st, and it traveled 7,897 kilometers in 17 days.

Received card #26

This card as well was registered the day after it arrived, because my computer was in computer hospital. :-)

Elvira lives in Bayreuth in Germany. I'm sorry to say that prior to receiving this card, almost the entirety of my knowledge about her home town came from watching documentaries about the Third Reich. :-( But now I've read up on it a bit, so now I know at least a little bit more. :-) The card is absolutely brilliant, I love it - look, elephants!! :-D African plains elephants, it says on the card (in German :-). It looks vintage, I love it. Someone read my wishlist ... ! :-)

The card was sent on December 12th, and it traveled 1,110 kilometers to arrive in my mailbox on December 17th.

Postcards from Sandvika

I grew up in Bærum outside of Oslo. The closest town-like assemblage of buildings to where I lived, and where my parents still live, is Sandvika. (The words town and village don't really apply to Norwegian settlement structures. :-) It's not much of a place - without its giant mall, the biggest in Scandinavia by number of stores, there wouldn't be much left to speak of. ;-) But as it is there are a lot of people stopping by there every day ... so of course there are some postcards available. Not a lot to choose from, but still. On a recent visit I picked up a few of these.

Top left: Løkke bridge across the Sandvika river, famous for being painted by the French painter Claude Monet on his visit to Norway. Top right: an aerial shot, but not entirely up-to-date ... the mall has been expanded since then. Sheesh. Bottom: the local shoe repair shop. The owner, Ingolf Kristiansen, is something of a local celebrity, he does a lot for the community and is an all-around unusual fellow. :-)

Received card #25

My 25th card arrived from the Netherlands on December 16th, but I couldn't register it till the next day because my computer had a bug and was in the shop. :-( It was a lovely card though - all about chocolate, which both I and the sender, Maud from Leek, absolutely love. :-) At first I thought the card was from a place I had visited myself, the Chocolate Museum in Brussels ... but a closer examination revealed that it was from the Chocolate Museum in Bruges, where I have not been. Those Belgians ... ! :-D

The card was sent on December 8th and traveled 797 kilometers in eight days.

Swap #8

My 8th swap was initiated by me. I was surfing the site and when I looked at members in Macau - just a random click that led me to the listings for that country (I mean, administrative region) - and I was quite surprised when I saw that Dianna, who's #1 on both counts in Macau, is interested in swapping cards. Usually people in the top ten aren't - they have enough sending out their official cards, I'm sure. :-) But Dianna wanted to trade, so when I saw 'fruit trees' on her wish list on her profile I emailed her and offered to send a card with an image from the apple orchards in Hardanger in the West Country here in Norway. She was thrilled by the thought of a fruit tree card from Norway and agreed to the swap effusively. :-)

I sent this card on November 9th.

I was very happy to receive this beautiful card on December 14th ...

... and more than a little surprised to receive this on the following day, December 15th. Two cards for the price of one! How sweet! :-)

This card is from Taiwan - I wonder if maybe Dianna was on vacation there? :-)

I will be sending Dianna another card - I have one in mind already - so she will be mentioned on this blog again. :-)

Sent card #34

My 34th card went to the Netherlands again. Lots of Dutch people on PX. :-) Jacoba was a new member, and now that I've learned to 'read' the site properly I could tell exactly what had happened ... she had signed up and requested an address, sent the card and then just waited. The card took 13 days to arrive, and just after its recipient, Chigusa from Japan, had registered it, I requested an address, and Jacoba's was at the top of the list. :-) My card was the first ever Postcrossing card she'd receive. How cool is that. :-)

Jacoba lives in Britsum, which is either in Leeuwarden or very close to it - and she wanted to see a picture from my area. She also wanted to know what a tourist to my town should be sure not to miss. I sent this card with a picture of one of the many granite statues in the Vigeland Park, and told her something about the park on the card.

I sent the card on December 13th. It had 805 kilometers to travel and made the journey in six days to arrive on December 19th. Jacoba's first Postcrossing card, and she really liked it. She said she'll be sure to visit the Vigeland Park if she ever comes to Oslo. ;-)

Swap #7

My 7th swap was initiated by the other member too ... I got an email out of the blue from Matteo in Italy who wanted to swap a postcard for a stamp. The stamp was a Norwegian one that he claimed existed but that I had never heard of. :-D At first I was tempted to just dismiss the whole thing, but a quick Google search never hurt anyone ... and of course he was right, there was such a stamp. :-) It was released on October 8th, World Sight Day, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Norwegian Association for the Blind.

Matteo lives in Guastalla, not far from Verona, so I asked if he could send me a card from the latter. Sure he could. :-) This arrived on December 11th.

I sent the stamp off on December 12th, in mint condition of course, and it arrived safely on December 21st. A nice addition to Matteo's collection, I hope. :-)

Matteo may turn up on this blog again, since we may do some more swaps in the future, if there are any other Norwegian stamps I can help him with. Or maybe - since we are both huge ESC fans - there will be an interesting postcard or two available in Oslo this coming May ... ? ;-) There will definitely be ESC commemorative stamps, so I'm pretty sure I'll be hearing from Matteo again. :-D

Received card #24

My 24th card came from Denmark, where I hadn't gotten any cards from before ... or sent any cards to, for that matter. There's something weird about Denmark - there are more Danes than there are Finns (OK, not a lot more, but still) but even so there is nowhere near the same amount of activity in Denmark as there is in Finland, absolutely nowhere near. Not on Postcrossing, and I've seen the exact same thing on BookCrossing. It's so weird. Though maybe it's the Finns who are the weird ones? ;-)

Anyway, a Christmas card from Denmark. Solveig is #1 on both number of cards sent and longest distance sent from Denmark. More than 1,100 cards. Impressive. I guess having that many cards going out means you don't have time to write much on each one. Which is a big reason why I won't ever be in the top ten list. ;-)

This isn't really a postcard, but actually a notecard ... so it's square and because of that hard to photograph well. I couldn't manage a picture without all that table surface in it too. Alas. :-)

This card was sent on December 2nd and traveled 483 kilometers in one week to arrive on December 9th. I think that must be the shortest distance any of my PX cards has traveled so far. Still no cards to or from Sweden ... :-)

One thing that was really great was that Solveig had sealed the envelope with this 'Hopenhagen' sticker. Obviously the climate conference in Copenhagen was coming up when she sent the card. It's a very cool sticker and I really appreciate getting it. :-)