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. :-)

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 #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.

Sent card #31

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 ... ;-)

Received card #20

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.

Sent card #26

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 #22

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 #13

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.

Received card #12

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.

Sent card #15

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.

Received card #7

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.

Sent card #5

I could send five cards to start with, and that's what I did. My fifth card went to Michelle in Richmond, Maine, USA. She likes animals and nature, so I picked this card, which she really liked - apparently she loves 'pictures looking through one thing to another'. :-)

This card was sent on October 5th, travelled 5,442 kilometers - by far the longest distance of the five - and it took a really long time to arrive. I have sent a lot of mail to the US over the years and it's rare for a postcard to take this long. But better late than never. :-) It was registered as received on October 19th, after a fortnight of travel.