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.

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 #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 #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 #37

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

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

Sent card #30

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!! :-)

Received card #22

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 #27

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 #25

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 #23

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.

Sent card #14

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.

Received card #5

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 #1

My first received card arrived on October 9th. What a great surprise! :-) I had thought it would have taken longer - it had only been two days since my first sent card had been registered as received. But it's obviously true that as soon as that happens with one of your sent cards, you're put on the list to receive. As soon as. :-) I was thrilled to get the card, it was a lovely card and it really brightened my day. :-)

The card was sent by Merja in Lappi in Finland. The stamp is amazing, it shows a viviparous lizard lying on a rock, and it's just beautiful. It says in my profile that I like reptiles a lot, and Merja seemed to have really taken that into consideration. So that made me happy. :-)

I have a suggestion on my profile about what people can write on their cards to me - a question for them to answer, specifically. Namely this: What are the the top three things that any visitor to your town ought to see? Merja thinks that in Lappi, what a tourist should be sure not to miss are the fields and forests of the area, lake Pyhäjärvi, and a bronze age burial site that is on the World Heritage list. So I really learned something new from her card. :-)

The card travelled 638 kilometers to get to me, and it took two days.

And here's the lovely stamp. :-) Click to enlarge, to really see the wonderful detail.

Sent card #6

As soon as one of my cards is registered as received, I'm allowed to send another one. So I sent more than my original five before I started receiving any myself.

My sixth card went to Sofia in Turku in Finland. The berry card again ... but she did say on her profile that she likes nature. :-)

I sent the card on October 7th; it travelled 640 kilometers to arrive in Turku after five days, on October 12th.

Sent card #4

Card #4 went to Marianna in Helsinki in Finland. Another pretty new user ... but also a very active one. :-) She does volunteer work in her spare time and so do I, so I wrote a little bit about that.

This card was also sent on October 5th. It took only two days to cover the 789 kilometers from my post office to Marianna's mailbox. :-)