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.

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. :-)

Swap #9

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

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

Some very nice stamps too, on the envelope.

Swap #8

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

I sent this card on November 9th.

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

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

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

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

Swap #7

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

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

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

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

Swap #6

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. :-)

Swap #5

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

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. ;-)

Swap #3

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. :-)

Swap #2

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. ;-)

Swap #1

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