Received card #42

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.