A Postcrossing Blog

Received card #42

2010-02-11T22:09:00.001+01:00

My 42nd card came from Germany ... from a town called Kraichtal, that I'd never heard of before. But now I know that it's in Baden-Württemberg. :-)

The card shows various views from around town ... it looks like a beautiful place. Silke and I apparently have some things in common - she is a Keanufan too, loves to read and to eat chocolate. ;-) A sensible person, in other words! :-D

This card was sent on January 20th, it traveled 1,205 kilometers in three days and arrived in my mailbox on January 23rd.

Received card #41

2010-02-10T23:00:00.000+01:00

My 41st card arrived from Näsijärvi in Finland. I'm sorry to say that I had no earthly idea where that was. :-) But now I know that it's not too far from Tampere. You can always learn something new through Postcrossing ... ! :-)

Saara works at a post office - what a perfect job for a Postcrosser! :-) - and she wrote on the card in Swedish, which I of course can read. I can't read Finnish though ;-) but Saara translated the text on the card for me. It says Just for you - personally.

The card was sent on January 20th, and it took three days to cover its 731-kilometer journey; it arrived in my mailbox on January 23rd.

Received card #40

2010-02-09T09:03:00.000+01:00

My 40th card arrived from a town I think I've heard of, but I may be wrong - Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA. It shows a very small section of a place called Mammoth Cave, which is considered the biggest known cave in the world. How cool is that. :-)

Monica is a Terry Pratchett fan like me, and her favorite of his books is Good Omens, which he cowrote with Neil Gaiman. I agree, I really can't recommend that book enough. :-)

The card was sent on January 9th, it traveled 6,905 kilometers in nine days to reach me on January 18th.

The Art of the Postcard

2010-02-08T17:55:00.002+01:00

Back in November, I came across a post on the Postcrossing forum where a member was asking to be sent postcards for a project he was working on. Kerry Jeffrey is the postmaster of the small town of Cornelius in Oregon, and he was planning an exhibition of postcards from all over the world in the lobby of the post office. :-) I immediately decided to contribute.

Since Cornelius apparently is known for its blueberries, I decided to send my trusty berry card. I sent it ... on the 12th of November, I think.

The card arrived safely and became part of the exhibition, which opened on January 11th and which you can see lots of pictures from here. The prize was that everyone who sent a card and included their address would get a card back, and I did, on January 19th. Neat. :-)

A great idea for a local project. I would love to see my post office do something like that. :-)

Received card #39

2010-02-07T23:47:00.000+01:00

My 39th card came from Trimley St Martin outside of Felixstowe in the east of England. From the pictures on the card the latter looks like a very charming town. :-) But it's also Europe's busiest container port - I didn't know that, so I learned something new from this card. :-)

David (who's #2 in the UK!) also told me about a film made in Felixstowe - some friends of his made it, it was called The Lost Sock and was about aliens landing on the pier. :-D I think I'd like to see that film ... ;-)

The card was sent on January 13th and reached me in only three days, after traveling 1,060 kilometers.

Received card #38

2010-02-06T23:06:00.001+01:00

Not too long before receiving this card, I'd done a swap with a Russian, Genia in St Petersburg ... so it was a real coincidence when only a week and a half later an official card arrived from there too. :-) Tania sent this fun card with cute doggies. It's a really nice painting. The title is The February, apparently. :-)

The card was sent on January 4th, and it traveled 1,090 kilometers in 11 days to arrive in my mailbox on January 15th.

Sent card #46

2010-02-05T23:26:00.000+01:00

Part of the Postcrossing system is that you never send to the same address twice, and you never receive from the person you send to. However, at least the latter sometimes happens anyway, as I can vouch for. :-) In early January I got a card from Tanja in Turku, Finland, and then, only ten days later, I pulled her address as the destination for my 46th card. How is that possible? Because Tanja has three PX accounts, but the system thinks she is three different users. :-) So on January 15th, I sent her this card, showing some views of the Vigeland Park, one of the main tourist attractions here in Oslo.

Tanja is interested in seeing things that are special to the sender's city or country, so I thought she would like this card.

It had 640 kilometers to travel, and it covered the distance in four days to arrive on January 19th. Tanja's added it to her favorites, so my assumption was correct. ;-)

Received card #37

2010-02-04T23:02:00.002+01:00

My 37th card was also my first card from Poland. Yay. :-) I had sent to there once, but not received ... so that was really cool. :-) Joanna sent me this multiview card from her home town of Poznán, where she is a university student. A really nice card IMO - a great variety of images on it. :-)

This card was sent on January 7th, and traveled 918 kilometers in seven days to arrive in my mailbox on January 14th.

Received card #36

2010-02-03T23:00:00.002+01:00

Another card from Finland! :-) This time from Nurmijärvi. Now that place I know I'd never heard of. :-) It's just outside Helsinki, apparently ... I have now learned. :-)

This card was a freebie that Pirjo had picked up at a postcard convention. Ooh, a postcard convention ... !! I haven't ever heard of one of those in this country. Those Finns, they really have it going on. Now it's my dream to go to a postcard convention one day. :-)

Pirjo was a little worried that I might mind getting a free card, but I don't ... I don't care whether a card has been bought in a store or picked up for free or made by hand ... as long as it's something that the sender thinks I will appreciate, or something that is important to that person, then I'll be happy with that card. And this card was really pretty too. :-) It's actually kind of fun, because in August when I was at my family's cabin in the mountains, I took lots of photos of mushrooms - for some reason I was really into photographing mushrooms just then. It really slowed us down on hikes. :-D So now I have a lot of mushroom shots that are just lying around. Maybe I should make some postcards with them?? :-)

This card was sent on January 9th. It traveled 779 kilometers in five days to arrive on January 14th.

Received card #35

2010-02-02T23:04:00.002+01:00

My 35th card arrived from Hyvinkää in Finland. A place I don't think I'd ever heard of ... but that's one of the great things about Postcrossing, you learn about all sorts of places you never knew existed. :-)

The card was unusual in that it's printed on slightly textured paper. A first for me. :-) The picture shows some beautiful colorful sunflowers which were very cheerful in a wintry dark & cold Oslo. :-)

The sender, who calls herself DennyDuck, wrote that she was planning to move to Norway a while back, but then got into nursing school in Finland, so she stayed there. But she was planning to move here. It's a small world. :-)

The card was sent on January 11th, or maybe the 10th, and it covered its 783 kilometer journey in two, or maybe three, days :-) to arrive in my mailbox on January 13th.

Received card #34

2010-02-01T09:00:00.001+01:00

My 34th card came from Pempelfort in Düsseldorf in Germany, and it was kind of a surprise to me ... because only a few days earlier, I had already got a card from this same guy. :-D So I was surprised to see his distinctive handwriting on another card soon afterwards. The first card came from a swap on Swap-bot, and nordbaer had noticed the coinkydink too. :-) I was so thrilled with the card, because I had never expected to receive one like it ... I do have The X Files listed as one of my favorite TV shows on my profile, but I'd never thought that I would really get an X Files postcard. But wouldn't you know, someone had one! Yay!! It was a wonderful treat for me and I loved finding it in my mailbox. :-)

The card was sent on January 6th and it traveled 997 kilometers in six days, to brighten my afternoon on January 12th. :-)

Received card #33

2010-01-31T09:00:00.000+01:00

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

2010-01-30T09:00:00.003+01:00

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

2010-01-29T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-28T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-27T09:00:00.001+01:00

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

2010-01-26T09:00:00.001+01:00

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

2010-01-25T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-24T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-23T09:00:00.001+01:00

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

2010-01-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

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

2010-01-21T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-20T09:00:00.003+01:00

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

2010-01-19T09:00:00.003+01:00

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

2010-01-18T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-17T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-16T09:00:00.005+01:00

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

2010-01-15T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-14T09:00:00.005+01:00

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

2010-01-13T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-12T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-11T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-10T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-09T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-08T09:00:00.004+01:00

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

2010-01-07T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-06T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-05T09:00:00.001+01:00

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

2010-01-04T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-03T09:00:00.002+01:00

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

2010-01-02T09:00:00.003+01:00

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

2010-01-01T09:00:00.002+01:00

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. :-)

Sent card #33

2009-12-31T09:00:00.002+01:00

My 33rd card went to Wees in Germany. I have to confess I hadn't heard about this town before, but it's in the north ... so far north, in fact, that Christina (who is half Danish) even works in Denmark. :-) She likes buildings and castles, among other things, so I sent this card, which shows one of the extremely few castles we have here in Norway - Akershus Fortress in Oslo, constructed over many centuries from ca 1200 onwards.

Since Christina says she understands Norwegian in addition to Danish - and that's no surprise, since the written forms of the two languages are pretty much the same - I wrote part of the card in Norwegian.

I sent the card on December 10th. It only had 575 kilometers to travel, but it still took a worryingly long time to arrive ... but finally did on December 28th. :-)

In other news: Happy new year 2010!!! :-)

Postcards from Pomegranate

2009-12-30T09:00:00.005+01:00

From a discussion on the Postcrossing forum, about where to get postcards online, I picked up a tip about the publisher Pomegranate and their online store. They publish a lot of great Edward Gorey stuff, so I was already disposed to like them. ;-) It was mentioned on this thread that they do a kind of surprise package deal ... 200 randomly selected postcards, all different, for a good price. I couldn't resist ... !! :-) Not all the previous customers on the forum were equally happy, but when my cards finally arrived I thought it was a good selection. Very varied, no two cards alike, and good quality cards that I'm sure I'll find happy recipients for. :-)

However, even so, I don't think I'll be ordering from them again. Partly the price - the cards themselves weren't too expensive, but with the shipping to Norway and an extra fee charged by DHL the order as a whole ended up costing too much for my liking. It also took a really long time for the package to arrive. I placed the order on November 5th, then got an email on November ... 13th, I think, saying that my items had been sent, but the package still didn't arrive before December 8th. And the information on the box indicated that it certainly had not been sent on November 13th. >:-( So ... not too happy with that, unfortunately. Probably won't be shopping there again, and can only recommend doing so with reservations.

Anyway, I think I have enough of their type of card now to last a good long while, so it doesn't really matter, I suspect. ;-)

In addition to the surprise grab bag package of cards I also bought some postcard books. V. nice ones, all of them.

Pictures of all the cards I got are in one of my Photobucket albums, here. All clearly labeled Pomegranate. Too many to post all of them here, but here are some of the most interesting ones.

I also got these ten cards as a thank-you present for ordering.

Received card #23

2009-12-29T09:00:00.002+01:00

My 23rd card arrived from an extremely exotic place - Tahiti!! :-o Or to be correct, French Polynesia. This country is extremely rare in Postcrossing terms - my card was in fact only the 91st PX card ever sent from there. Lucky me!! :-) When I saw it, I could hardly believe where it had come from ... :-)

The sender of this card is the 2nd most active Postcrosser in French Polynesia. :-) I couldn't quite figure out where she lives ... Google Maps tell me it's a place called Windward Islands on Tahiti. Not sure that can be right. :-) But I love the card, regardless. It's so pretty, and it's traveled so far! It was sent on November 26th, and it covered its amazing journey of 15,037 kilometers in twelve days to arrive in my mailbox on December 8th.

Wow. :-)

My longest traveling received card so far, hands down.

The three best things about Tahiti, according to Jeminys: the natural beauties of the island, the kindness and friendliness of the people, and the cool lifestyle. :-)

Swap #6

2009-12-28T09:00:00.003+01:00

My 6th completed swap was initiated by me. I was just surfing the site and came across Anca in Romania, who likes to show off her country through Postcrossing - something I can relate to ;-) - and is also interested in swaps. So I emailed her to ask if we could swap with each other, and she sent me a link to her Flickr album where she has photos of various cards she has to trade. So many pretty and interesting ones! I couldn't choose just one ... ;-)

We ended up deciding to swap ten (!!) for ten cards ... and since I much prefer postcards to have writing on them, even if it's only a greeting, we agreed to write a little something on all of the cards, something about the place shown on the card, or whatever we could think of. Anca really went the extra mile and wrote as much as she could possibly make room for on each card. :-)

This wonderful pile of postcards arrived in my mailbox on December 4th.

And I sent these off to Rădăuţi on December 8th. Anca has 16 items listed on her wish list on her profile; I wanted to cover as many of these as possible with the cards I sent and managed to check 13 items off the list. Not too shabby. (And one of the remaining three shouldn't really count - skyscrapers - because there aren't any in Norway ;-).)

They arrived safely too and we were both very happy with the swap. :-)

Sent card #32

2009-12-27T09:00:00.004+01:00

My 32nd card went to China, to Xiamen in Fujian province. The recipient was only 17 years old and quite a new Postcrosser - she's only been a member a little longer than me. :-) One of her two top favorite cards are ones with pictures of pretty flowers on them, so I picked this colorful card to send to her.

On the card I told her a little about myself, since that's what she asked for in her profile. :-)

I sent the card on December 9th. It had 8,594 kilometers to travel and covered the distance in 17 days, arriving on December 26th.

An Austrian surprise

2009-12-26T09:00:00.002+01:00

I got a card from Austria back in October, it was a great Turnowsky card with wonderful little elephants on it. I blogged about this card about three weeks later, here, and I posted the url as a comment on the card on the Postcrossing site. Anita who sent the card read the blog post and decided to surprise me ... with another wonderful Turnowsky card!!

This arrived in my mailbox on December 5th. It was such a lovely surprise, I totally wasn't expecting any such thing. I was so happy to get it. Postcrossers are wonderful people. :-)

I couldn't let a thing like this pass by unnoticed, so I asked Anita to give me her address so I could send her a card in return. Looking at her wish list on her profile, I thought of several cards I could send ... and I ended up with this one, to match her interest in ships, especially 'named sailing-ships'. The perfect card for the occasion. :-)

This card shows the SS Sørlandet, one of the three most famous sailing ships in Norway (the other two are Christian Radich and Statsraad Lehmkuhl, but I couldn't find any cards with either of them). Sørlandet (the name means 'the South Country') is the oldest full rigged ship still under sail in the whole world.

I sent the card on December 11th. It arrived on December 17th and Anita seemed to really like it. Good news all round. :-)

Sent card #31

2009-12-25T09:00:00.003+01:00

My 31st card went to Minnesota in the US ... to a town called Adrian which I had never heard of, but that's perhaps understandable as it's really very small. :-) Laurie didn't have any very specific postcard wishes, but said she likes unusual ones, so I sent her one that I thought she could never have gotten before. :-)

On the card I told her a little about the product that the card is an ad for, Divine chocolate, and about my faith in fairtrade as one of the best ways to change the world.

I sent the card on December 3rd. It had 6,728 kilometers to travel and it covered the distance in 21 days, to arrive on Christmas Eve. A happy Christmas surprise for me ... especially since Laurie seemed to really like the card a lot. :-) She's favorited it and everything. Hmm, come to think of it, that gives me an idea ... ;-)

Sent card #30

2009-12-24T09:00:00.005+01:00

My 30th card went to Finland again - but not to one person, to a whole group of friends who are all Postcrossing together. :-) What a great project. :-) They live in Nurmes and call themselves korttivuosi, which means something like 'card year' ... ? They haven't been learning English for very long, but what a wonderful way for them to help each other learn. :-)

They were interested in popular tourist attractions from the senders' area, so I sent this card with an image from the Vigeland Park here in Oslo.

I sent the card on December 2nd. It traveled 1,086 kilometers in six days to arrive on December 8th.

And in other news, merry Christmas!! :-)

Swap #5

2009-12-23T09:00:00.003+01:00

This swap wasn't initiated by me ... I just out of the blue received an email from Japan. :-) Chiaki wanted to swap postcards with me, and when I looked at her profile and saw where she lived, I was definitely interested. Hiroshima! So I asked her if she could send me a card showing the Genbaku Domu, and she said that of course she could. :-)

On her list of interests, Chiaki has listed the aurora borealis ... something I know that a lot of Japanese are really into. :-) I offered her a card with the northern lights, because of course they are very readily available around here.

I sent this card off on November 30th ... it took about a week and a half to arrive, but when it did, Chiaki totally loved it. :-)

I received this card on December 1st. Wonderful. :-)

Swap #4

2009-12-21T09:00:00.001+01:00

Korea is a country that I'm really interested in ... it's one of the places I would most like to visit one day, if I get the chance. Fingers crossed. :-) So one time I was surfing on the site I looked to see if there was anyone there I could swap a card with. And I found Kyuhyun - she's on the top ten list in her country (7th on cards sent and 8th on longest distance) and she was happy to swap with me. Seeing the words photos of butterfly on her list of interests of course made me think of this card ...

I sent this to Kyuhyun in Seoul on November 23rd, and on November 30th this landed in my mailbox. Isn't it beautiful. :-) Makes me want to go there even more. ;-)

Received card #22

2009-12-20T09:00:00.003+01:00

My 22nd card came from Finland again - from Vantaa, where I've gotten a card from previously as well. The more the merrier, I say. :-)

Alisa, who was thrilled to be able to send a card to Norway - although I was probably more thrilled to get it! :-) - is from Helsinki, but has lived in Vantaa for about two and a half years. She agrees with Sari that Heureka is a place not to be missed. :-) She also thinks tourists to her area should see lake Kuusijärvi and its scenic surroundings, and a place called the Viherpaja Garden Center, where apparently they have a Japanese garden. Ooh, I'd like to see that ... :-)

This pretty wintry card was sent on November 24th, and it traveled 794 kilometers in six days to reach me on November 30th.

Sent card #29

2009-12-19T09:00:00.002+01:00

With address #29 I got a country I hadn't sent to before - Canada. Alison lives in Mississauga in Ontario and likes, among other things, nature, scenery, storms ... so I was inspired to send her my Rondane card, with its dramatic cloudscape and light over the river and the towering mountains in the distance.

On the card I wrote a little about the national park and about my family's cabin in the area.

I sent the card on December 1st. It had 5,952 kilometers to travel and it made the journey in 11 days to arrive on December 12th.

Received card #21

2009-12-18T09:00:00.002+01:00

And with my 21st received card, I could add yet another country to my Postcrossing list. :-) This one arrived from Frontignan, a town outside Montpellier in the south of France.

I love to travel and I mention on my profile where my most recent trip went - at the moment, the south of France. :-) Chloé wanted to know where exactly I'd been. The answer was Carcassonne; in other words, quite close to Montpellier. :-) I sent her a link to one of my blog posts with some photos from this trip.

The card was sent on November 18th, and it traveled 1,891 kilometers in nine days to reach me on November 27th.

Sent card #28

2009-12-17T09:00:00.005+01:00

My 28th official address and a new country for me, Postcrossing-wise. Maria, from the Estonian capital Tallinn, likes cityviews, so I chose this card which shows Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament (bottom picture) and Grand Hotel, a very famous hotel across the street from the Parliament building, in the café of which Henrik Ibsen used to drink his coffee every day, so regularly that people could set their watches by him. :-) As I think I may have already mentioned. :-)

I sent the card on November 30th. It traveled 788 kilometers in only three days to arrive on December 2nd. :-)

Shopping in Oslo

2009-12-16T09:00:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I had two Japanese tourists come to stay on a brief visit ... I took them to some of the most important tourist spots (guess which ones ;-) and of course, while we were there, I took the opportunity to do some postcard shopping. :-)

At the Nobel Peace Center ...

At the Viking Ship House ...

And at the Folk Museum.

Received card #20

2009-12-15T09:00:00.001+01:00

My 20th card was from the US, and, yay, not from Michigan. :-D This really cool vintage card shows an eruption of the geyser Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. Mark from Woodmere in New York state wrote that the leaves were changing color and that Thanksgiving was just around the corner. :-)

The card was sent on November 18th and traveled 5,921 kilometers in seven days to reach me on November 25th.

Received card #19

2009-12-14T09:00:00.003+01:00

When this card arrived I was soo thrilled to see it ... I hadn't gotten any official Postcrossing cards for almost three weeks. I was sad. :-( But of course this pretty butterfly card cheered me up no end. :-) Gabriela from Frankfurt am Main wanted to swap some cards with me ... I was of course interested in that, after what felt like a long drought ;-) so I asked for her address in my response message when I registered the card. Presumably Gabriela will be mentioned on the blog again. :-)

The card was sent on November 20th; it traveled 1,098 kilometers in four days to reach me on November 24th.

Sent card #27

2009-12-13T09:00:00.004+01:00

Address number 27 was in Finland again. Always Finland. :-) But I'm not complaining, because sending to the land of a thousand lakes I know that the cards will arrive quickly. ;-)

Kajoniemi lives in Kouvola where she works as a teacher. Her two main preferences are map cards and pictures of squirrels (she teaches geography and biology :-). Seeing this, I thought that I didn't really have either ... so I went to look at her favorites to see if she had anything there that might resemble something I have. But every single card on her favorites wall - more than fifty - was a squirrel card! :-D I was in a bit of a quandary as I haven't seen either of these two types of card around here. So I decided to look through my stash to see if I had anything at all that might fit the bill. And guess what I found - a squirrel card ... !! :-D

OK, probably not what Kajoniemi has in mind. But I hope she'll like it anyway. The card shows a Sunday strip of the Norwegian comic Kampen Park, in which the two main characters are a gay couple who are also squirrels. :-D Sending it, I was really curious about the response I'd get. :-) I sent the card in an envelope because Kajoniemi asks on her profile that if possible an extra stamp should be sent along with the card, for her collection.

I sent the card on November 25th; it traveled 883 kilometers in five days to arrive in Kouvola on November 30th. Kajoniemi did like it and also understood quite a bit of it as she knows Swedish pretty well. So yay, success. :-)

Sent card #26

2009-12-12T09:00:00.003+01:00

My 26th card went to the US again - to Fresno, California. Eleanor (who I think is quite young? :-) seems to be very interested in sports, and especially in cycling. I've never seen a postcard with a famous Norwegian sports personality (although I haven't looked for one either) but as luck would have it I did have a card with a bicycle on it. :-) Kind of an arty one. I decided to send that; I hope she'll like it. :-) It doesn't look like anything else in her received gallery, so hopefully she will appreciate this addition to her collection. :-)

She asks about people's favorite things in her profile, so I told her that my favorite color is green and my favorite city to visit is York in the north of England. Also, since she mentions that she loves audiobooks, I had to recommend an audiobook to her too - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. An absolutely amazing audiobook that I just can't recommend highly enough. :-)

I sent the card on November 20th. It traveled 8,372 kilometers in eleven days to arrive on December 1st. :-) Eleanor's added it to her favorites now, so apparently she did really appreciate it. ;-)

Sent card #25

2009-12-11T09:00:00.005+01:00

My 25th card went to Tampere in Finland. The recipient, user Hukka1979, is a very active Postcrosser, but doesn't have a lot of information about herself on her profile. So I wasn't sure what to send ... I picked the card below because I thought I'd seen something quite similar in her favorites gallery, but a couple of days after it was sent I realized that it wasn't in favorites, but just in received. :-( So that was kind of a screwup. But I hoped she'd like the card anyway.

I sent the card on November 20th. It traveled 731 kilometers in four days and arrived on November 24th. Hukka1979 seemed like she really did like it. :-)

Update: This card has now been added to Hukka1979's favorites, so yeah, she must have really liked it. :-)

Sent card #24

2009-12-10T09:00:00.003+01:00

My 24th card went to Dusita in Ayutthaya in Thailand. Cool! :-) I've never been to Thailand - the closest I've gotten is southern China - but I'd really like to go there one day. I wrote about that to Dusita; that I know her country is very beautiful. :-)

Dusita loves any kind of postcard :-) but she especially likes birds, flowers and insects. I sent this card with some lovely lavender flowers on it.

I sent the card on November 19th. It had 8,616 kilometers to travel, which it covered in an exemplary eight days to arrive on November 27th.

Swap #3

2009-12-09T09:00:00.002+01:00

This swap again was initiated by me and I came across the user while just surfing the site. I had bought some typically touristy cards while shopping a few days before and one of them fit really well with Danhong's profile - she likes cards with black and white photos, and she's also interested in portraits of royalty.

We exchanged addresses and I sent this card on November 10th. It is an official portrait of Harald V, the currently reigning king of Norway.

On November 17th, I received an email from Danhong while at work, saying that my card had arrived and thanking me for the swap. When I got home that afternoon, this card had arrived in my mailbox from Sydney, Australia. :-)

Danhong was just on her way to a big adventure - the day after my card arrived she traveled to Peru :-o to spend several months there visiting with friends. (It's summer vacation in Australia now. :-) Oh, she's so lucky!! I dream of going to Peru one day and seeing Machu Picchu. :-) When she read this on my profile, Danhong offered to send me a card from Peru too, if she could find one (and a post office ;-). Aw, that's so sweet. I told her she is under no obligation to do so, but that I will really appreciate it if she manages to find a card for me. If she does I will of course send her another card too. Fingers crossed. :-)

Sent card #23

2009-12-08T09:00:00.002+01:00

This card is special to me - because although it was my 23rd sent card, it was the 20th of my cards that was registered as received. And when that happened, my 'card allowance' went up by one. :-D As of the arrival of this card in Espoo in Finland, I could have six cards traveling at once instead of five. Yay, me! :-D

Mia wanted a card from my town and she wanted to know what I like best about my town. I sent her a card showing two of the most famous (and one of them the most important) buildings in Oslo, and I wrote that something I really love about Oslo is that it has all you can want in a city, but it's also quite small and compact, so that it's easy to get around. It also has a wonderful public transport system, which is very important to me, since I don't drive. :-)

I sent the card on November 17th - it seemed like forever since I'd last sent an official PX card! :-D - and it traveled 773 kilometers in three days to arrive on November 20th.

The building in the top picture is Grand Hotel, in the café of which the great Henrik Ibsen used to drink his coffee every day, and the lower picture shows our Parliament building, Stortinget.

Swap #2

2009-12-07T09:00:00.001+01:00

My second successful swap was also initiated by me, but actually not as a swap ... I just wanted to do something nice for a new Postcrosser. But that made him want to do something nice for me too. :-)

I was just surfing the site when I came across this user's profile. Kjell lives in Trondheim and collects stamps with frogs on them. He asked a rhetorical question in his profile - maybe there are postcards with frogs, too? He had never seen any, but he was open to the idea that there might be. :-) Coincidentally I had such a card in my collection, so I emailed him and told me that if he would send me his address, I would send him a frog card. :-)

He answered me almost immediately and was more than happy to give me his address. He also asked me to send along mine, so he could return the favor. I sent this card on November 9th.

On November 12th I got a letter and some photos in reply. V. cool reptile photos! It turned out that Kjell is a reptile fan like me. He'd taken the photos himself on vacation. I will do something fun with them ... but that'll be a story for another blog post. :-)

And seeing as how turtles are some of his favorite reptiles, I may be sending him another card one of these days too. Watch this space. ;-)

DIY postcards, option #2

2009-12-06T09:00:00.002+01:00

So, the first place I tried having postcards made from my own photos didn't really deliver the product I was hoping for. I won't be buying from that company again. So I needed ;-) to find somewhere else to try ... I really love the idea of cards made from my own best shots. As long as they're the quality I want. I decided to take a closer look at the company that had made the card I got from Sonja in Iceland - moo.com.

Moo looked really professional and inviting at first glance. I also really liked the fact that in both of the standard postcard packages they offer - 20 or 60 cards - you can use as many different images as you want. Ie, if you buy 60 cards, you can get 60 different ones, 60 identical ones, or anything in between. I really really like that. :-) I uploaded 12 different images, so that I'd get five cards of each photo.

You can also add a text to your cards - a greeting, an internet address, your snail mail address, whatever you want. This text will be identical on all cards though.

I placed the order on October 10th, and it took about a week and a half to arrive. The price was good ... shipping included I ended up paying between 5 and 6 crowns per card, which compared to store prices here in Norway you cannot complain about. A regular tourist postcard will normally cost 8 or 10 crowns.

But the price is actually less important than the quality. I mean, I'll pay for quality. And if the cards don't look good it doesn't matter if they're cheap. When these cards arrived, however, I was very far from disappointed. I was in fact very impressed. :-) The quality of these cards is really excellent. Wonderfully strong and bright colors, beautiful details, thick cardboard ... really the same quality as actual photos. I couldn't be happier with these cards, and I will definitely be buying from Moo again.

This time I don't have to include the actual photos in the post, because the cards themselves are the same quality. :-)

Swap #1

2009-12-05T09:00:00.001+01:00

Private swaps are quite common on the Postcrossing site ... members can check a box on their profiles to indicate whether they are interested in these or not. If they say they are, you can send them an email and ask them to swap with you. Of course I've been trying this out. :-)

When I post about swaps here I will only count the actually completed ones. My first ever PX swap was not initiated by me, but by another user - I agreed to the swap, emailed back my address, sent the card, then never heard anything more. I haven't received anything from her, not even a response to my email asking if she's gotten my card. And she's still active on the site. >:-( But I won't be counting swaps like these, and after this post will not be blogging about them either. It's not a big deal, these things sometimes happen and you've just got to let it go. But only completed swaps will get their own blog posts here. :-)

My first successful swap was initiated by me. I found this user, Simona in Lithuania, after just surfing the site. Her profile was interesting - I'm an Elvis fan too ;-) - and she wanted to swap stamps. I kind of collect stamps too - very small scale, but still - and I thought I'd quite like to get some Lithuanian ones. I had plenty of extra Norwegian stamps lying around that I could send. I also had a card showing an interesting animal, which is on her list of interests. I emailed her to see if she was interested, and she was, so I got some stamps together and sent them off to Lithuania.

The card I sent, on November 7th, shows one of my three pet turtles, Raphael, a male red eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, out on a walk on the lawn outside my apartment building.

Simona sent me a lovely multiview card from Klaipeda, which is the nearest larger town to where she lives. It looks like a very charming place. :-) The card arrived on November 10th.

I also got these great Lithuanian stamps. And I learned from this swap that Lithuania in Lithuanian is Lietuva. You can learn something new every day! :-D

Received card #18

2009-12-04T09:00:00.001+01:00

My 18th card arrived on November 5th, from Ulm in Germany. I was a little confused by the German stamp at first, because the picture on the card made me think it was from Barcelona. :-D Very unusual architecture, certainly. However, Tanja, the sender (who is in Germany's top ten - I'm impressed!), said that it's a house in the region of Ulm. An apartment building designed by the Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and so it's called the Hundertwasser House. I think it's beautiful, I'd love to live in a house like that. :-)

Tanja, like Ana, included her address on the card, but she didn't just want to be sent a card back ... she wanted to swap some cards with me, ie, exchange postcards between us for a while. Of course I was up for that. :-) Tanja visited Oslo on vacation some years ago and I guess she'd like some cards from here. She'll be mentioned on the blog later too. :-)

The card was sent on November 2nd, so it covered its 1,282-kilometer journey in just three days.

Sent card #22

2009-12-03T09:00:00.001+01:00

On November 6th I sent my 22nd card ... to Lancaster in Pennsylvania, USA. Erin is a librarian who is open to all sorts of postcards ... she specifically mentioned that she likes handmade cards. I didn't have any of those, but I was inspired somehow by her profile to send one of my own cards ... a very pretty one, if I do say so myself. :-)

Since Erin loves to read I had to mention BookCrossing again. :-) When the card arrived she said she'd never heard of it but was going to look into it. I hope she does! It's one of the very best things online, IMO. :-)

The card traveled 6,109 kilometers in 10 days and arrived on November 16th.

Received card #17

2009-12-02T09:00:00.002+01:00

The third and last card to arrive on November 4th came from China. Yay. :-) I love getting cards from China - I had an amazing time there on a three week round trip some years ago. I did not visit Huang's home town of Guangzhou, but a number of other cities.

The card Huang sent shows a view from the Xiaoqikong Park in Guizhou province.

It was sent on October 23rd, and it traveled 8,477 kilometers in 12 days.

The stamp on the card was beautiful - it showed a gorgeous dragonfly, which is my favorite insect, I love these creatures. :-) This was quite a coincidence, since I had actually forgotten to add dragonflies to my favorites list on my profile. (I've fixed that now. ;-) So I was just really lucky. :-)

Received card #16

2009-12-01T09:00:00.003+01:00

More fun on November 4th. :-)

This card came from Alex in Oldham in the Manchester area. He is the #5 Postcrosser in the UK, so that was kind of cool. :-) The card he sent wasn't entirely local, it was from Cheshire, which Alex said is near where he lives ... and it certainly has some very pretty images on it. The 'charms of Cheshire' indeed.

The card was sent on November 2nd, and it needed only two days to cover the 1,056 kilometers to Oslo. The Royal Mail is very efficient when it chooses to be. ;-)

Received card #15

2009-11-30T09:00:00.001+01:00

My 15th card arrived on November 4th - again, a great Postcrossing day. Three cards on the same day. :-) This one came from Carlijn in Leiden (which I had in fact heard of! :-). She'd chosen a card with a famous painting by the celebrated Dutch painter Jan Vermeer, and she thought I might have seen the movie inspired by this painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring. Indeed I have, and I've read the book too - both are very good. :-)

The card was sent on October 31st, and it traveled 945 kilometers in four days to reach me. :-)

Received card #14

2009-11-29T09:00:00.003+01:00

My 14th card came from Brazil - from Rio de Janeiro, a place which I was excited to get a card from as I have friends there and hope to visit one day. :-) The photo on the card isn't from Rio, but from Teresópolis, a much smaller town not far away. It's famous in Brazil for its natural beauties ... part of it is a national park and it has a number of beautiful mountains. A lot of skiing going on there. :-)

Ana says that the top things to do in Rio are to visit the Sugarloaf mountain and to see the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Mount Corcovado.

Ana included her address and said she'd be thrilled if I would send her a card in return. (She wants to visit Norway one day, because she really likes cod. :-D) This is something that happens every so often with official Postcrossing cards, that people ask to be sent a card back ... some PXers are against the practice and others don't mind. This was the first time I'd had such a request, and I decided to go along with it. Ana had made a real effort with her card to me, she's young and enthusiastic :-) - I sent her a card back, although I can't quite remember which one. But I sent something. :-)

The card was sent on October 22nd. It traveled a very impressive 10,393 kilometers in 12 days to reach me on November 3rd. (Part of a really good Postcrossing week, I got two cards on the 3rd and three on the 4th. :-) My longest traveling received card by far up to now.

Received card #13

2009-11-28T09:00:00.001+01:00

Now here's a coincidence for you ... o_O

As I've said before, the US is the second biggest country on Postcrossing ... so when I received my second card from there as my 13th card, I didn't think anything of it. Until I logged on to register the card and, get this, discovered that this second American card was from not only the same state, but from the same city, as my first one! :-o This one too came from Grand Rapids, Michigan. :-D What an incredible coincidence. :-) The sender this time was Stephanie, who told me that the top three things to see in Grand Rapids are the Frederick Meijer Gardens (a botanical garden - I'd love to see it! :-), the Voight House and the Calder Plaza.

The card was sent on October 22nd, and it traveled 6,324 kilometers in 12 days to reach me on November 3rd.

My postcard collection - the golden oldies

2009-11-27T09:00:00.008+01:00

I used to have an enormous collection of free postcards ... and I mean really enormous ... way before Postcrossing was even invented. Postcards I didn't really do anything with, but mostly just let pile up. One time years ago I tidied up this pile and got rid of some of it ... the really useless ones. :-) You know, the kind with writing printed all over the back and no space to write anything ... and really glaring ad-type artwork, for things that I didn't even like. So a lot of it, like maybe half, got thrown out. But I kept the rest. For no reason, I didn't really use them for anything. But I kept them - thinking, I suppose, that one day they might come in handy. Yay me! :-D That day did finally come. By then of course I'd forgotten where I'd put this stash of going-on-vintage postcards, but as I was going through some desk drawers the other day looking for something else entirely, suddenly they turned up again. :-)

Not all of these are freebies - some are actually touristy cards that I must have bought at some point, and look at picture #5, I've even got lenticulars. I'd totally forgotten about those. What fun it is to find cool stuff you'd forgotten that you even had. :-D

And a few days later, again looking for something else, I found even more cards ... ! :-D More lenticulars ... ! :-)

My postcard collection

2009-11-26T09:00:00.004+01:00

Of course since I started this new hobby I've started to amass lots of postcards too. It's too time-consuming to have to go out hunting for a postcard for each new address that I get ... and at my local mall the selection of cards available isn't that good (and also kind of expensive). So I've been going through bits and pieces that I've had lying around, and I've been out shopping too. Another thing I love shopping for, that was really what I needed. ;-) But it's giving me yet another reason to want to go traveling again ... I will so be buying lots of postcards the next time I go abroad ... !! :-D

These are (mostly) cards that I've acquired since I became a Postcrosser, or at least relatively recently.

Sent card #21

2009-11-25T09:00:00.002+01:00

My 21st card is still on the road to Glasgow in Scotland. Its recipient is Annie (or Qiqi? :-), a young Chinese woman who comes from Shanghai but lives in Glasgow, where she is a student. I've been to Glasgow too, although just as a tourist ... I had a great time there and would love to visit it again some day. :-)

Annie likes bright and colorful cards so I sent her the pink flowers with the yellow/green borders. When it arrives I hope she will like it ... :-)

I sent the card on November 3rd. It had 994 kilometers to travel, and I hope to hear it's arrived any day now.

Sent card #20

2009-11-24T09:00:00.005+01:00

My 20th card went to Taiwan ... to Taipei again. I'm a little ashamed to say that I don't think I can name one single other city in the whole of Taiwan. :-(

Elaine is a student and has quite a varied list of interests. I decided to send one of my own cards again, this one showing the impressive roofs of Gol stave church at the Folk Museum here in Oslo. This would fit both her interest in specific architecture and in 'distinguishing characteristics of my country' ... stave churches were once common all over Scandinavia and in the north of England as well, but are now extant only here in Norway.

As Elaine says she loves to read I told her a little bit about BookCrossing on the card as well. :-)

The card was sent on November 3rd, and it made its journey of 8,704 kilometers in 15 days to arrive on November 18th.

Received card #12

2009-11-23T09:00:00.002+01:00

My 12th card was from Washington state in the US, but it came from Canada. :-) Kimu lives in Kelowna in British Columbia, a few hours' drive from the American border. On her most recent trip she went to Washington, where she obviously did some postcard shopping. :-)

The card shows a map of the Cascade Loop, which you can read some more about here.

Kimu sent the card on October 22nd, and its journey of 7,032 kilometers took 11 days; it arrived on November 2nd.

DIY postcards, option #1

2009-11-22T09:00:00.006+01:00

Well, maybe not entirely DIY, but you get my drift. :-)

One of the very first Postcrossing cards I received was one that the sender had had made from one of her own photos. That this was possible hadn't really occurred to me before, but of course, it's a brilliant idea. I have quite a few very good shots that I would love to do something more with than 'just' posting them on my blog. :-) So I started looking around for someplace where I could have some of these made into postcards.

I first thought I should try to find some Norwegian option, and some googling led me to Ifolor.no. I'm not sure that I'd ever heard about this company before. They advertise photo products of the highest quality. Their prices seemed pretty good, so I decided to check them out. They offered a ten-pack of cards from each photo uploaded. I used two different photos, and I ended up paying about 130 crowns (postage included) for 20 cards.

Production and shipping was quite quick, my cards were in my mailbox after one week.

The quality however ... meh. I wasn't entirely happy with the quality. The print is too grainy and the color reproduction isn't as good as I'd hoped. I've been using the cards, of course - they're certainly good enough to send, and I've gotten very positive feedback on them - but I will not be ordering from this company again.

My original photos.

The postcards. They actually look better photographed than they do in real life. :-D

Sent card #19

2009-11-21T09:00:00.002+01:00

My 19th card went to Bochum in Germany ... to Ann-Christin, who collects pink cards. :-) I looked through my collection to see if I had any cards that could be construed as pink. Not really ... but I did have one with a picture of pink flowers. :-) So I decided to send that and hope that it would be found worthy of Ann-Christin's collection. When it arrived she did say that she liked it, so here's hoping. :-)

I sent the card on October 31st, and it traveled 964 kilometers in five days to arrived on November 5th.

Received card #11

2009-11-20T09:31:00.001+01:00

My 11th card came from Hoogland in the Netherlands. Another Dutch town I'd never heard of. :-) Floor sent me a card with a pretty and evocative and very Dutch image ... she thought it fitted the season - almost Halloween. :-)

According to Floor, the three best things to see in Hoogland are the local zoo (which I think may be some kind of petting zoo?), the St Joris church and its tower, and the town wall. Ooh, I love town walls. I wish Oslo had one. :-)

This card was sent on October 27th, and it covered its 925-kilometer journey in three days.

Update: As we see from the comments on this post, Amersfoort Zoo is a regular zoo with lots of different animals (some of them extremely cute! ;-) - visit them online here. :-)

Received card #10

2009-11-19T14:25:00.001+01:00

My 10th card arrived from Graz in Austria. Anita sent me an adorable Turnowsky card with lots of little elephants on it. I love elephants, and they're one of my favorite things mentioned in my profile. Aw. :-)

Anita answered the question in my profile, and in her opinion the top three things to see in scenic Graz are the clock tower, the fortress, and Castle Eggenberg. So here's hoping I'll get to see those things one day. :-)

The card arrived on October 30th after travelling 1,461 kilometers in three days.

Sent card #18

2009-11-18T15:10:00.000+01:00

My 18th card went to Germany again - to Anne in Emmerich am Rhein. She was interested in seeing the places people come from and hearing something about them. The places, that is. :-) I picked a card made from a photo I've taken, showing a scene from the Folk Museum here in Oslo, complete with Norwegian flags and all. On the card I told her a little about the Museum and about our national day, May 17th, when the picture was taken.

I sent the card on October 28th, and it made its 940-kilometer journey in three days to arrive on Halloween. :-)

Sent card #17

2009-11-17T10:45:00.001+01:00

My 17th card went in roughly the same direction as the 16th. :-) Gabrielle lives in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. She's not too impressed with her country though. In fact she is/was quite down on it in her profile, saying that there's little to be proud of in present-day Ukraine, that it's only their history that is great. As an ESC fan I could of course not let that stand, so I just had to remind her of some of the wonderful entries Ukraine has sent in recent years. (Not this year's entry, though, no. *shudder*)

She wanted to see 'some view of my land' :-) so I decided to sent yet another of the cards I have had made from my own photos. This one is a very lucky shot that I took on a day-long hike to the Vulu valley in Rondane national park, showing one of the wild reindeer that live in the area.

The card was sent on October 28th, and it took five days to cover the 1,632 kilometers between Oslo and Kyiv; it arrived on November 2nd.

Sent card #16

2009-11-16T22:08:00.005+01:00

My 16th card went to a pretty exotic location - Russia. But not just anywhere in Russia ... to a place I had never ever heard about in my life before. o_O Elena lives in Yoshkar-Ola, which is the capital of Mari El, a republic in the Russian federation, the existence of which was news to me. Had you ever heard of it?? :-) I read up on it online and felt quite proud of myself for learning something very new that day. :-)

Elena wanted to be sent a phrase in my language, and she was interested in pictures from nature ... so I decided to send this card, with an adorable frog on it and a few words in Norwegian that mean How are you doing?

I sent the card on October 24th. It had 2,178 kilometers to travel. It took forever! It actually expired and I started to give up on it ... but on January 9th, it finally arrived!! 78 days! :-D That's a record for me. I was SO happy to get that email. :-)

Sent card #15

2009-11-15T09:31:00.000+01:00

The 15th address I was given was in the US; in Ojai, California. Thousands of kilometers away. :-) Kate talks in her profile about liking clouds, nature scenes, changing light ... so when I saw her profile I immediately knew I had to send her my Rondane card, below. I wrote about the area and my connection to it. She was quite interested, and emailed me when she received it to ask for more information. I answered her questions and sent a link to my blog ... and later I did see someone from her area looking around the blog and looking at pictures and so on. Neat. :-)

This card was sent on October 23rd; it traveled 8,609 kilometers to reach its destination after 11 days, on November 2nd.

Sent card #14

2009-11-14T09:24:00.000+01:00

My 14th card went to Finland again. The recipient, Heli, has no information at all on her profile (at least she hadn't when I pulled her address out of the bag, and she still hasn't now at the time of writing this) so it was hard to know what to choose for her. I picked a card that is an advertisement for a product I really really like, Divine chocolate. I sell this chocolate as part of my volunteer job, it's delicious, and it's guaranteed fair trade. :-)

I sent the card on October 22nd; it traveled 731 kilometers to arrive in Tampere five days later, on October 27th.

Sent card #13

2009-11-13T09:15:00.002+01:00

My 13th card was sent to Poland ... to a town I hadn't heard about, called Reda. It's a small town in the far north of the country, almost on the coast. I was happy to send to Poland as I was there on vacation in March of this year and had a really good time. :-)

The recipient, who calls himself s2 on Postcrossing, mentions several interests on his profile. One of them is architecture, and he also wants whatever the sender finds interesting and/or eye-catching. So I decided to send a card that I have left over from one of my trips to Brussels in recent years, showing one of the spectacular buildings on the beautiful Grande Place. I really like Brussels and I hope to go back there before too long. :-)

I sent the card on October 20th. It traveled 745 kilometers to arrive three days later, on October 23rd.

Sent card #12

2009-11-12T09:02:00.002+01:00

My 12th card was sent to zinnober in Germany. There wasn't a lot of information in his/her profile, so I had pretty free hands to pick a card ... I decided to 'choose one that tells something about my interests'. :-) I sent another card I've had made from one of my own photos - one of the best shots I took this summer, showing my mother on a hillside in Rondane, the oldest national park in Norway, where my family has a cabin in which we spend part of every summer.

zinnober wants people to draw a little star on their cards to him/her, so of course I did that. :-)

I sent the card on October 20th. It traveled 1,164 kilometers to arrive in Nuremberg on October 28th.

Received card #9

2009-11-11T08:49:00.001+01:00

My ninth card came from Henry, an American living in Japan. He had managed to fit in a lot of writing on the card ... because in his opinion he and I have a lot in common and he wanted to share some of that with me. So much so in fact that a second card arrived a few days later. :-) And he's right, we do have a lot of things in common. But more on that later - I hope Henry will be mentioned again on this blog. :-)

The card showed a beautiful scene from Henry's home town Tokyo ... a shot from the Imperial Palace. Very Japanese. :-)

The card was sent on October 13th, and it traveled 8,430 kilometers to reach me on October 19th. Of all my received cards thus far, this had traveled the longest distance.

Sent card #11

2009-11-10T09:03:00.000+01:00

My 11th sent card went to the Netherlands again - to Winsum in the north. Janine didn't have a lot of information on her profile - she likes music and horses, but I didn't have any cards with either of those :-) - so I sent a card that I would have liked to receive myself. Do unto others, etc, and you can't go wrong. :-)

I sent the card on October 17th; it traveled 776 kilometers in five days to arrive on October 22nd.

Received card #8

2009-11-09T10:00:00.002+01:00

October 16th was a great Postcrossing day for me - I received three cards on the same day. Happy day! :-) The third one, my eighth received card, was from Torres Vedras in Portugal. Portugal is one of the few countries in Western Europe that I haven't visited (yet), so it was great to get a card from there.

Simão wrote that he works in the local museum, where dinosaurs like the ones on the card are on display. What a cool job. :-) I'm interested in reptiles, that's why he picked this card for me. There's even a turtle on it if you look closely ... ;-)

The card was sent on October 12th, and it traveled 2,696 kilometers to reach me on October 16th.

Received card #7

2009-11-08T13:39:00.004+01:00

My seventh received card was my first American one ... the second of those, in a way, because I'd also sent a card to Richmond, Maine, earlier. Actually not a lot since the US is the second biggest country on Postcrossing. But I'm not complaining, of course. Variety is the spice of life. :-)

This card came from Grand Rapids in Michigan. Debbie, the sender, is a single mother of a four year old boy, and she told me that she's recently been getting more and more into reading with her son. Awesome!! I'm sure she mentioned this because I've got a lot about books and reading and BookCrossing on my profile. I was happy to hear it, because I believe reading is so important, especially to children who have their educations ahead of them. Read to your kids, people!! It makes so many things so much easier for them in their lives. I was happy to hear what Debbie had to say.

The card was sent on October 7th, and it traveled 6,324 kilometers to reach me on October 16th.

Received card #6

2009-11-07T22:54:00.005+01:00

My sixth received card came from somewhere quite exotic to me - Minsk in Belarus. Masha who sent it had looked at my profile and hadn't managed to find a turtle card, but hoped I would like a lizard card instead. Of course! I love her card with its - to me - very unusual artwork.

She told me about what Minsk looks like in the fall and how she loves the beautiful autumn colors. :-)

The card was sent on October 7th, and after travelling for 1,216 kilometers it arrived in my mailbox on October 16th.

Some stats

2009-11-06T23:50:00.003+01:00

These are my stats after one month of Postcrossing. Me so happy. :-)

Click to enlarge, the pictures will look much much better then.

Received card #5

2009-11-05T10:20:00.000+01:00

My fifth received card came from Vantaa in Finland ... where, according to Sari, the three things no one should miss are the science center Heureka, an old stone church and what I think is like an open air museum kind of place, maybe outside the town itself.

Sari likes dragons and so do I, so she sent me this v. cool shiny dragon card. :-D That little white spot isn't supposed to be there; the card got a little damaged in transit, unfortunately.

The card arrived on October 15th after traveling 794 kilometers in three days.

Received card #4

2009-11-04T09:52:00.002+01:00

The fourth card I received came from Nico in Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht in the Netherlands. A place I'd never heard of. :-) I have been to the Netherlands several times, though. Nico wrote that the weather was bad there on the day he sent the card - it was windy and rainy. So taking that into consideration I think I preferred crisp and sunny Norway just then. ;-)

The card was sent on October 12th, and it traveled 975 kilometers to reach me three days later, on October 15th.