Greece: Donkey

Alina from Greece sent me this donkey card:

The donkey (sometimes referred to as an ass) is a domesticated member of the horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African wild ass. The donkey has been used as a working animal for at least 5000 years. There are more than 40 million donkeys in the world, mostly in underdeveloped countries, where they are used principally as pack animals. Working donkeys are often associated with those living at or below subsistence levels. Small numbers of donkeys are kept for breeding or as pets in developed countries.

A male donkey or ass is called a jack, a female a jenny.  A young donkey is a foal.  Jack donkeys are often used to produce mules.

Asses were first domesticated around 3000 BC, or 4000 BC, probably in Egypt or Mesopotamia,  and have spread around the world. They continue to fill important roles in many places today. While domesticated species are increasing in numbers, the African wild ass and another relative, the Onager, are on the endangered species list.

Source: Wikipedia

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United States: Knight

This vintage card was sent by Misty from Ravenna, OH:

The Vigil - From the painting by John Pettie, R.A., in the Tate Gallery. The newly created Knight is kneeling before the altar of S. John's Chapel in the Tower of London, keeping his vigil preparatory to a life of Knight-errantry. His armor, dedicated to the service of chivalry, lies before him. 

This is a card I immediately liked, not in the least because my husband likes knights and stuff. I really like history and historical cards, so this was definitely up my alley.

I couldn't find out too much about this painting, other than it was painted by John Pettie (as the card info told me) and that he painted it in 1884. So I'm really glad for the description on the back that told me what was depicted. Pin It

Great Britain: HMS Victory

Sandra from Portsmouth, Great Britain sent me this one:

Launched in 1765 and now in dry dock at Portsmouth, the magnificent H.M.S. Victory mounted 104 guns and carried a complement of 850 men.

As the card says, it's a picture of the H.M.S. Victory, and Sandra wrote this interesting message on the restoration of the ship:

This world famous ship is currently undergoing a major refit. She recently had her main masts and all the rigging removed. The work will take about 10 years to complete as it is very specialist work. A lot of her will be completely rebuilt. Only about a fifth of the ship is still the original 18th century vessel.

I didn't know it takes that long to restore ships!  Then again, I didn't know much about this ship or ships in general  (hardly anything at all really), so I read up on it.

She was mainly known for being the flagship of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She was also used by others, such as Keppel at Ushant, Howe at Cape Spartel and Jervi at Cape St. Vincent, all of which were before the battle of Trafalgar.

She's been a harbor ship since 1824, and preserved as a museum ship in dry dock at Portsmouth since 1922. The H.M.S. Victory is the oldest naval ship still in commission, although the USS Constitution is the oldest one that is still afloat.

She was built by Chatham Dockyard, which is located on the River Medway and has been a visitor attraction since it closed in 1984; and was based on the H.M.S. Royal George.

She spent the first 13 years (!) dismasted and roofed over because they Navy didn't have any use for her. It wasn't until 1778 that Admiral Augustus Keppel decided to use her as his flagship. From then on she saw lots of action until 1824, when she was moored.

The original sails from when she was in the battle of Trafalgar have been perserved and are also on display.

Two little bits of trivia in closing:

* It is said that originally the ship was set to be broken up, and that when Thomas Hardy got home and told his wife that he had signed an order to do just that, she burst into tears and sent him back to rescind it. Whether or not this story is true, the 1831 duty log that has the orders has that day's page torn out.

* Now that the ship is on display, only one of the guns on board is an original from the Battle of Trafalgar. The other ones are fiberglass replicas, because the weight of the armaments on board would damage the structure of the dry dock without the support of sea water to help keep her afloat.

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Germany: Lion King

I received this card from Anja, from Gelsenkirchen in Germany:

As a big Disney fan, I absolutely loved this Lion King card! Of course, I love every card I receive, but Disney is one of my favorite themes.

The Lion King was released in 1994 and is the 32nd movie in the Disney Classics series. It tells the story of the young lion cub Simba, born to Mufasa, who is the King of their pride lands. His father shows him their territory and explains that after he dies, Simba will become king and tells him about the responsibilities. Mufasa's brother, Scar, would've become king after him had it not been for Simba, and out of anger, he sets up a scheme to kill both Mufasa and Simba. He personally made sure that Mufasa died, but Simba survived, so Scar makes him believe that his father's death was his fault and that the pride will blame him for what happened. Simba flees, and meets Timone, a meerkat, and Pumbaa, a warthog. He befriends them, and stays with them in the jungle until he's an adult.
Under Scar's rule, things have gone downhill in the Pride Lands, and the herds started hunting elsewhere. Simba's childhood friend, Nala, stumbles upon him in the jungle, and begs him to come back home to the Pride Lands and take his rightful place as King to put a stop to Scar's rule that is causing all the animals to starve. Simba eventually agrees and fights Scar over the kingdom. He learns his father's death was Scar's fault, which gives him the extra push to win the fight and become the rightful King. In time, Simba and Nala have their own son, continuing the Circle of Life.

I was quite surprised at all the big names that are in the cast line-up of the movie: Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick (young and adult Simba respectively), James Earl Jones (Mufasa), Jeremy Irons (Scar), Rowan Atkinson (Zazu), and Whoopi Goldberg (Shenzi).

One thing I've always liked about Disney movies, is that as a kid, they were fun stories to watch, but as I grew older I started noticing the stories they were based on, and the life lessons hidden in them. What I take away from this movie is that Simba was trying to run away from his responsibilities, living it up with his two friends Hakuna Matata, no worries!) while the herds he was supposed to take care of were starving. In the end, he went back and did what he had to do, and the herds flourished again.

Now all that's left to do is to start singing (you know just reading the words got the song stuck in your head!):

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Netherlands: Mickey and Pluto

Ans from Purmerend, the Netherlands, sent me this cute Disney card:

Who doesn't like the world's most famous mouse and his faithful dog!! Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks way back in 1928, and made his debut in the black and white cartoon "Steamboat Willie". Walt actually got the inspiration to use a mouse from a pet mouse he used to have on his farm, and originally wanted to name him "Mortimer Mouse" but his wife Lillian convinced him to change it until he finally settled on Mickey.

The first Mickey Mouse cartoons didn't have sound, but once sound started being used in cartoons, Walt personally did the voice of Mickey until 1946. Somebody else took over for the cartoons, but Walt still personally voiced Mickey for the original Mickey Mouse club. Right now, the voice of Mickey is Bret Iwan.

Aside from cartoons, Mickey also had his own cartoon, video games, has his image on tons of merchandise and is of course the favorite host at the Disney theme parks. He even has his very own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame (located on 6925 Hollywood Blvd. if anyone's wondering).

Mickey got his pet dog Pluto (his full name is Pluto the Pup) in 1930. Officially he's a mixed breed, but is modeled after the English Pointer, which is most likely because one of the main artists owned one of these himself.  He is the only one of the "big Five" (next to Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald) that doesn't wear clothes. He also doesn't talk, which is also different from the other main characters.

In the same year he made his appearance, the minor planet Pluto was discovered, and it is rumored that Mickey's pet dog was named after the newly discovered planet, although this hasn't been confirmed.


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Taiwan: Yilan

This card was sent all the way from New Taipei City, Taiwan by Tina:

Tina said it shows an abor in Luodong Sports Park, Yilan, and that she thinks it's very special even though it is not a historically important spot.

Luodong is a town in Yilan county, that is mainly known for this beautifully landscaped sports park. The name of the town is derived from a word meaning "monkey", and is a reference to the fact that about half a century ago, there was a very large population of monkeys in that area.

Yilan county is in the northeast corner of the country and gets its name from the aboriginal Kavalan tribe. Pin It

China: art

I received this colorful art card from Riddle who lives in Shanghai, China

Unfortunately, the card was sent without a message, and there is no description on the back of the name of the painting or who painted it. I would've liked to know more about it.

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Netherlands: dachshund

From Carla who lives in Raalte, the Netherlands:

This is an adorable card, and combines my love of dachshunds with something typical for the country: the wooden clogs or "klompen" as they call them in Dutch. Since I have two dachshunds myself, it's not that hard to see why I love the dachshund in the card, but it's great to see the combination with the more artistic clog.

Clogs are wooden shoes, and are found in many different countries in Europe (the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and several more). The exact origin of these shoes are hard to determine, because wood eventually rots so there aren't that many clogs found in excavations. Plus clogs that were no longer fit to be worn, were oftentimes just used as firewood.

The oldest wooden footwear that still exist today, are found in the Netherlands and date back to the 1200's. They look surprisingly similar to the style that they still around today, even though most people no longer wear the wooden clogs in everyday life. It has become more of a traditional thing now. Some exceptions are farmers and gardeners, but mainly people have replaced them with the more lightweight leather or synthetic ones.

In the Netherlands, the "klompen" have officially been accepted as safety shoes as an alternative to the steel capped boots. They are effective against sharp objects and some concentrated acids, but since wood cracks rather than dents, they are actually safer than the steel capped variety since they don't have the risk of putting a lot of pressure on the toes in case of a serious accident. It also makes for easier removal of the shoe.

Well, I never thought of clogs doubling as safety shoes, but there you have it...  Until next time!


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Lithuania: sand dune

From Almis in Vilnius, Lithuania:

             The card shows some sand dunes with the setting sun creating light patterns on the sand.

I love the playful patterns of light on the sand! So pretty...

Lithuania is the largest of the three Baltic States. These are three territories that gained independence from the Russian empire after WWI, and the other two territories are Estonia and Latvia. It borders Latvia, Poland, Belarus and a Russian enclave. Vilnius is the capital of the country, as well as the largest city in Lithuania. The first time Vilnius was mentioned as the Lithuanian capital was in 1323.

The Lithuanian lands were united in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1253, which was the largest European country during the 14th century, including present-day Ukraine and Belarus, as well as parts of Poland and Russia. For a while, Lithuania and Poland formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, until 1918, when Lithuania became a sovereign state again.

During the 1940's, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, with the Soviet Union occupying them again after the war. Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to declare its independence in 1990. They are a member of NATO, the European Union and the Council of Europe. They are also listed as "Very High Human Development" on the Human Development Index of the United Nations.

Vilnius is known for its Old Town, with beautiful architecture, which was classified as UNESCO World Heritage in 1994. In 2009, Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture.                                                                         Pin It

Brazil: food

Today's card is from Flavio from Ribeirao Preto, Brazil

Just looking at it makes me hungry :)  The text on the card reads:

A melhor carne. o melhor trigo, os melhores recheios. Esfihas ou kibes, de todos os tipos e sabores. Venha saborear nossas delicias arabes feitas com carinho para voce e sua familha!

 According to Google translate (and a little bit of my own common sense) it translates to:

The best meat. the best wheat, the best toppings. Sfiha or kibes of all types and flavors. Come taste our delicacies Arabs made ​​with love for you and your family!

 "sfiha" and "kibe" are Arab dishes that have made it to the Latin American countries during the early 20th century.

Sfiha is a pizza-like dish. Traditional sfiha are open-faced meat pies made with ground mutton. In Brazil, they are often folded into triangular pastries.

Kibe is made of burgul (crushed grains), minced onions and ground red meat, usually beef, lamb or goat. Most often they're in the shape of a torpedo and fried, but they can come in ball shapes or patties as well. It's one of those dishes that come in several variations.

I guess I might need to try some new dishes, from the pictures it sure looks good! Pin It

Poland: puppies

These really cute puppies were sent by Natasha from Gdansk, Poland:

I'm not sure of the breed of Bonnie and Clyde, but they look adorable!

Gdansk is the most important seaport in Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, or Pomerania Province.

Settlements in this area date back to the 7th century, possibly earlier. In 980 they built a stronghold there, connecting Poland to the trade routes of the Baltic Sea.

In May 1457 the city got the Great Privilege, meaning they were granted autonomy within the kingdom of Poland. This gave them independent jurisdiction, legislation and administration. In return, they had to allow the king to stay there for 3 days a year and allow him to choose a permanent envoy from eight councilmen they proposed.

The main industries are shipbuilding, food processing, and chemical industries. Since most of the world's amber deposits are along the Baltic coast, amber processing is also a big part of the local industry.

During the summer, the area is a big tourist destination. Some of the main sights are the city gates, the prison tower and torture chamber, Long Street and Long Market, and some historical churches.

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Finland: cute dog

From Riita, living in Kajaani, Finland:

It doesn't show in the picture, but the card sparkles, and it adds to the cuteness.

There's not much I can really tell about this card, so I'll focus on the place it was sent from.

Kajaani is the capital city of the Kainuu region, and one of the cities founded by the Governor General of Finland in 1651. In those days, the area was very rich in wood, and so the main industry was tar derived from pine woods.

Until the Russians blew it up in 1716, there was a castle in the city called Kajaani castle. It functioned as the administrative center, military stronghold and prison. The best known prisoner of this place was Johannes Messenius, who was accused of, and charged with, conspiring with king Sigismund and the Jesuits. He was so known for writing the Scondia Illustrata (detailing Sweden's history) while he was imprisoned. You can still see the ruins on the island. It's listed as the smallest stone-castle in Europe, as well as the northernmost castle in the world.

Nowadays the important industries are sawmill and lumber. The paper industry used to be a third big one, but since it was no longer profitable, the paper mill closed in 2008. The military base Kainuu Brigade is the largest garisson in Finland and also a big employer. Pin It

Spain: Palma de Mallorca

Back to the sun: a card from Elaine who live on the island of Mallorca:

I like how with this nightview you can see all the reflections in the water. The big building is the cathedral of the city Palma de Mallorca. According to Elaine, it sits right by the water so it can be seen from the beach.

The full name of the city is Palma de Mallorca, but it often gets shortened to just Palma. It is the major port on the island, as well as the capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. These Balearic Islands (an archipelago just east of the peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea) form a province of Spain. The 4 main islands are Mallorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The two main languages are Catalan and Castilian Spanish.

Palma was founded (together with Pollentia on the other side of the island) as a Roman camp where there used to be a Talaiotic settlement, and saw several Vandal sackings, was reconquered by the Byzantine, colonized by the Moors and finally incorporated under the Crown of Aragon by James I.

Now the 4 big islands are popular tourist attractions, but there are a lot more very small islands surrounding these bigger ones. The huge rise in tourism though has equally brought a rise in immigration. The number of visitors grew from 500,000 in 1960 to more than 19,200,000 in 2001 (not counting the 1.5 million that came by boat rather than plane).

One of the biggest factors for tourism is the nice temperatures year round: on average 16C (60F) in winter to 29C (85F) in summer.

Next to the obvious attraction of the beach, some of the main sights are of course the cathedral, the Placa d'Espanya, the Old City and the Banys Arabs (Arabian Baths) Pin It

Belarus: Minsk

Another country to add to my list :) Today's card is from Andrew, who lives in Minsk, Belarus:

The card shows the sculptural composition "Independent Belarus" at Nezalezhnasti square. In the image on the right you can see the sculpture and its surroundings, the picture on the left is a close-up of the sculpture that shows the inscribed plaque on it. Nezalezhnasti square translates to Independence Square.

Unfortunately I don't read Russian, so I'll trust Mr. Google  on trying to find out more. Which turns out to be extremely limited. I finally got a vague description that says it's a text praising Lukashenko.

Lukashenko refers to Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, who has been serving as the President of Belarus since July 1994. According to Wikipedia, there's been some issues with his government when it comes to International Law and Humand Rights, and is under sanctions from the European Union for Human Rights violations. Belarus is referred to as "the last true remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe."

After he won the elections back then, he tried to reunited the Slavic states and create the Union State. After a referendum in 1996, the Constitution was changed, giving Lukashenko a lot more power and in effect turning the presidency into a "legal dictatorship". The U.S. and the European Union refused to accept the legitimacy.

He got re-elected in 2001, and during this term a referendum was passed that eliminated the limit on presidential terms, so he got to run for president again afterwards. The country grew economically, but that was largely due to importing Russian oil cheaper than market prices, and refining and selling it to Europe.

In 2005 he ran again for president, and opposition groups wanted one candidate that everyone could rally behind to create a stronger opposing force. Lukashenko threathened everyone going to opposition rallies would have their necks wrung. Of course he won again, and all 25 European countries declared these elections fundamentally flawed. Russia however claimed they were biased. Lukashenko admitted that he had rigged the elections against himself to show a result that seemed more western (as in: not as obvious that everyone voted for him, but making it look like the opposition actually had a decent amount of votes.).

You know, this gets quite repetitive, he did the same things in the next elections, and won again. Some of his opposition candidates were under media attacks from Russia, and two actually got beaten by police officers, and then abducted from the hospital they were receiving care at.

So as of January 2011, he's under a travel ban, meaning him and a bunch of his associates are not allowed to travel to European countries.

As I see these facts here in front of me, I've decided that's all I'm going to say on the subject. They're the facts I got off Wikipedia. I have a feeling adding personal feelings and opinions to this mix can only mean trouble and that's not what I want for my blog (if anyone even reads my ramblings that is).

Until next card




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Germany: Wehr

Moni from Stuttgart, Germany sent me this card from her hometown Wehr in the Black Forest region here in Germany:

WEHR- suedlicher Schwarzwald 290 - 900 m. Erholungsort zwischen Hotzenwald und Dinkelberg am Augsgang, des nach Sueden offenen, romantischen Wehratales - mit Stausee. Sportflugplatz Huetten im Bild rechts oben.

According to Moni, this town is on the southern edge of the Black Forest, very close to France and Switzerland.  The picture looks like it was taken from a plane, but if I imagine being closer to the ground, it reminds me a bit of where I am living here in Bavaria. There's still a lot of open fields and trees around here as well. That's one thing I love about living here: the balance between towns and nature. Towns are clearly defined, and around them there's fields and trees and wildlife still. Not like so many places where everything's been built full to where you can't tell where one town ends and the next begins if it weren't for the city limit signs.

Wehr and Stuttgart are in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, with Stuttgart being the capital of the state. Some other bigger and well-known cities are Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Mannheim and Freiburg.

There is one lake in this state, Lake Constance or in German it's actually called the Bodensee. It was formed during the Ice Age by the Rhine Glacier. This lake is the connecting point between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It was first mentioned by a Roman geographer around 43 AD. He saw that the Rhine flows through two lake and named them Lacus Venetus (Obersee, or upper lake) and Lacus Acronius (Untersee or lower lake). Later it was named Lacus Brigantinus for the Roman city of Brigantium, which is now known as Bregenz.

When I was about 18 (give or take a year or two, I don't remember exactly), my parents took me and my brother to this lake on one of our summer trips. I still think back on that trip with very fond memories (but to be honest I treasure all of my memories of our trips). We were staying on the German side, in a city named Lindau. It's actually a peninsula jutting out into the lake.

One of my favorites memories from that trip, is one night that me and my dad were walking along the lake, and I know he treasures that moment just as much as I do. It was just him and me that night, my mom and brother decided to stay behind as it was getting late and we were actually walking back to our hotel. My dad and I decided to go up the path along the lake just a short while and then turn back. At one point we looked out over the lake and were amazed by the way it looked. Neither one of us knows the exact circumstances that triggered it, be it the way the moonlight shone down on the water or something else, but the whole water surface looked like a shimmering rainbow, extremely pretty. We told my mom about it when we got back to where she was waiting and actually went back up that path a few nights while we were there, but we never saw those colors on the water again.

My second favorite memory of that trip was going to the town of Salem (no, not the witch hunt one, that one's in the U.S.). There's this park there (for lack of a better word) called Affenberg. It's a wooded area of about 20 acres, with only an outer fence spanning the perimeter. Nothing unusual, until you learn that there's about 200 monkeys (Barbary apes) who have free range of the terrain. No fences, no ditches and no cages. You can walk on a path through this woods and actually touch the animals. Or sit on a bench watching a small group of monkeys a little ways out, only to realize that one of their fellow monkeys decided to come sit next to you. At the entrance as you start your tour, you get a big handful of specially prepared popcorn that you can feed to the monkeys. It was definitely a highlight of out trip!!





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Netherlands: Assen

Trea from Assen in the Netherlands sent me this card from her hometown:

She wrote a message explaining why there's a person on a motorcycle featured on the card:

Hello, this coming week is TT-week in Assen. Every year during the last weekend of June we have the Moto-GP at the TT-circuit. Thousands of motorcyclist fans visit the city at this time. All week long there's a festival, music lots of beer and of course lots of motorcycles. It is THE week of the year.

So I figured out that it had something to do with motorcycling races, but still had no idea what TT stood for... Off to Wikipedia I went.

TT stands for Tourist Trophy, and is part of the MotoGP World Championship. The Assen TT-circuit is known as "The Cathedral" of motorcycling, and since the first race held in 1925 it has been held every year other than 1935-1940. Everyone who knows a little bit about main events in European history will probably understand that's because WWII was in full swing. That makes it the longest running event on the MotoGP calendar.

The original races weren't held at the circuit like it is now, but people were racing on country roads through several villages in the area, which they later changed to a road circuit through some other town. In 1955 they built a whole new circuit close to the location of the original race and about a third of the length. Through it all though, the finish line never changed.

Now a little bit about the town for those of you who are curious. Assen is the capital of the province of Drenthe. They got their city rights in 180, but can trace the towns history until as early as 1258 when a monastery was planned to be built there, the town developed around it. All that is still left of that monastery is the Abbey Church, the terrain and bits and pieces of the wall.

What struck me while reading about the town is that the whole city center is closed off to motorvehicles! Pin It

United States: New York City

Next up, and last card for today, is this black and white card from Iva who lives in Garfield, NJ

Lower Manhattan skyline with the Brooklyn Bridge spanning over the East River

If there's one thing I learned from getting postcards already, it's that black and white cards are often just as nice as very colorful ones. It gives it a kind of vintage look if you ask me. I also learned that most cards I get, spike my curiosity and make me want to find out more about what is shown and the places they come from. Maybe when my kids are older, they can learn along with me about everything this big world has to offer.

I started out looking up New York City, but I quickly realized that would keep me busy until the next century, so I narrowed it down to looking up the Brooklyn Bridge mentioned in the description.

This bridge was completed in 1883 and is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. It's 1,595.5 feet long and until 1903 it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, as well as the first steel-wire suspension bridge.

It is a multi-level bridge. The lower level is for motor vehicles, with 3 Brooklyn-bound lanes and 3 Manhattan-bound lanes. This lower level used to be for horse-drawn and trolley traffic, but as times changed, the bridge was adapted to accomodate motorized vehicles. The upper level is for bicycles and pedestrians.

In 1972 the Brooklyn Bridge was designated a National Historic Landmark, as well as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.

Let me close this post with a little "fun fact" on the bridge: one of the anchorages of the bridge sits on the property of the Osgood House, where George Washington stayed with his family for his inauguration in 1789. He stayed there from April 1798 to February 1790. Since he had his private office there as well as the public business office, it became the first seat of the executive branch of the federal government.



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Taiwan: cloudy sky

This card was sent by Leona from Dalin, Taiwan:

This card doesn't give me much to discern about the country... other than that it looks like it's about to rain.

Leona wrote on the back of the card that Taiwan is a warm and beautiful place. I'm hoping to receive some more cards from here that show me more about the country


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Russia: Kyiv Bridges

This beautiful card was sent by Mara from Moscow, Russia:

The description says it's a bridge across the canal on Rusanivka embankment. That totally did not ring a bell, so off to research I went.

Turns out that even though this card was sent from Moscow, Russia, the card itself shows Kiev, the capital of  Ukraine. Rusanivka is a neighborhood in Kiev, surrounded by a canal and a tributary of the Dnieper river. That makes it look like an island.

The neighborhood was built as a "sleeping district", meaning there was/is no main industry there. It was meant to be a purely residential area under the Soviet plan. It wasn't even meant for people to each have their own cars! They figured it would be enough to have bus transportation and riverboats. Riverboats turned out to not be such a practical idea, so it ended up being just buses. As a result, there's very little parking, so most people walk across the bridges to catch buses or the metro.

I can see how this project failed a bit, there's actually plans for a living area in my hometown that's kind of like that. I really don't see many people buying a house in that new area in town. All houses will be built without driveways or garages. There will be a big parking lot in a somewhat central locations, where everyone has to park their cars, be it resident or visitor. It would be one thing to say they don't want visitors parking their cars on the street and making them park in the central parking lot. Annoying, but somewhat reasonable. But to have to park way out as a resident is going to be a major fail. Just imagine doing your grocery shopping for the week or month, then when you get "home" you still have to carry all your groceries two blocks or so until you get to your house. That's just all kinds of crazy. Pin It

Poland: two dogs

Agnieszka sent me this card from Walbrzych, Poland:

These two dogs are quite adorable. I'm not sure what breed these are though. There wasn't any description on the back, and she didn't write it in her message either. I still love the card though.

Looks like there's not all that much I can write about with today's card. Maybe more with the next one. Pin It

Finland: Rubber Duck

This cute rubber duck card was sent to me by Wynand from Espoo, Finland

According to the message she wrote on the back of the card, these rubber duckies are quite popular in Finland.

These rubber duck toys were becoming very popular thanks to Ernie in the children's tv show Sesame Street, who has one of these that he names Rubber Duckie. There's 3 different songs that he did about his rubber duck, I'm sure they're somewhere no youtube. Although if you have small children, there's a good chance that your head is already filled with all manner of Sesame Street songs anyway (like mine is).

Back then in the early 70's, the ducks were the standard yellow billed ducks, the "original" duckies. Nowadays you can find them in all kinds of colors and types. There's purple or red "evil" duckies with little devil horns, there's stripped, plaid and polka dotted ones, there's even black ones that float upside down pretending to be dead. And then of course the whole slew of holiday themed ones with red scarves, reindeer antlers, bunny ears, etc,...

What surprised me more than all the colors and patterns, is that there's such a thing as Ducky Derbies or rubber duck races. I had never heard of these until I (yes, you guessed it) consulted Wikipedia. There's a ton of these races all over the world, a lot of times to raise money for a certain cause. In this case, people pay to sponsor a duckie and then at the end of the day they dump all the duckies in a waterway and the person who sponsored the first duckie to cross the finish line wins a prize. Come to think of it, this might be a fun idea if you live near a creek or something and are looking for a fun game to do at your kids' birthday party. But in these "professional" races, there's a LOT of duckies competing! In the U.S., the largest of these races is the annual Freestore Foodbank Rubber Duck Regatta in Cincinnatti, OH with over 100,000 duckies racing. Since its start in 1994 the organization has raised over $ 4 million with these races. Not shabby at all me thinks.

I also found out about another fun rubber duck related story. In January 1992, a shipping container carrying almost 29,000 Friendly Floatees (a children's bath toy by The First Years, Inc.) in 4 different shapes (red beavers, green frogs, blue turtles and yellow duckies) were washed overboard when the ship they were being transported on got caught in a big storm. Somehow the container opened, and with the seawater the cardboard backings of the toys disintegrated, leaving all these rubber floaties to just drift in the ocean (since they have no holes in the bottom, the water doesn't get inside the toys).

These floatees have travelled all over the world so far, at least over the world they can reach by water.After 3 months, a lot of these were found along the coastlines of Indonesia, Australia and South America. About 10 months later some of these floatees started washing ashore in Alaska and Japan. Many of the ducks got trapped in the Arctic ice, which they moved through very slowly as the ice moved (about a mile a day) and were sighted in the North Atlantic in 2000. A lot of them were found in 2004 in New England, Canada and Iceland. In 2007 some of these toys made landfall on the Southwestern shores of the United Kingdom.

Donovan Hohn wrote a book about this in 2011 called " Moby-Duck, the true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea" Pin It

United States: Independence Hall

Today's card was sent by a 5-year-old girl named Ava-lea from Philadelphia, PA

The description on the back of the card reads

INDEPENDENCE HALL - Independence Hall is the location where the United States proclaimed Independence from Britain. On July 4th, 1776, the Liberty Bell rang out from the steeple, proclaiming the signing of the Declaration of Independence within this historical site. A nation was born

Ava, or rather her mom, also wrote on the card that the bell was moved from Independence Hall in 1976, and that Pennsylvania is spelled wrong on the Liberty Bell.

Now that intrigued me, so once again, more research was in order. I know what you're thinking, here we go again with Wikipedia. But no, this time I opted to just Google it (gotta love it when a noun becomes a verb).

It turns out that at the time the bell was cast and inscribed with the text "By Order of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania for the State House in Philada.", the spelling of Pennsylvania had not yet universally been adopted, and in fact it is also spelled without the second "n" in the original constitution as well as on the original map of the area that is displayed on the second floor of Independence Hall.

As of October 2003, the Liberty bell is on display in the Liberty Bell Center, where it can be seen 24/7 from the street. On every Fourth of July, at 2pm Eastern time, children who are descendants of Declaration signers symbolically tap the Liberty Bell 13 times while bells across the nation also ring 13 times in honor of the patriots from the original 13 states.

If you would like to read even more about this significant piece of U.S. history, I found all my info here: 
http://www.ushistory.org/libertybell/


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United States and the Netherlands

Well lookie here, my mailbox was double happy today! That's actually how they keep it in your stats on Postcrossing, they count the days your mailbox was happy that month.

The first card is from the Johnston family from Baton Rouge, LA:

They sent me a postcard of the Laura Plantation. The text on the back reads:

Laura Plantation, Vacherie, Lousiana. A raised Creole Villa built in 1805. The main house was rennovated in 1905. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is the largest and oldest plantation complex in St. James Parish.

Upon reading the description, the first thing I noticed, is that apparently whoever wrote it out, didn't have a spelling checker available. No, the extra "n" in renovated wasn't a typo of mine, that is actually how it's printed on the card. But then again, it really doesn't matter much, since I only see the front picture in my folder anyway.

The house does look pretty though. I like that style of houses, just looking at it makes me want to find a comfortable rocking chair to put on that patio (which upon closer inspection there actually is one on the far right) and curl up with a cool drink and a good book. I am however really glad I'm not the one having to clean such a big house.

I did some more research on this place, and apparently it used to be called Duparc Plantation, and can be visited with guided tours. It's significance isn't just the big house but also the fact that several of the outbuildings are still there, even some of the slave quarters. It was actually built by a Frenchman who was a veteran from the American Revolution who had petitioned the U.S. president at the time to receive some land, and he got this place to secure his loyalties to the United States.


The second card came from Stephan, who lives in Waddinxveen in the Netherlands:

An adorable puppy!! It doesn't say what breed it is, but it looks like a golden retriever maybe? I'm not quite sure (other than it's not a dachshund), but no matter the breed this is a really cute card. This little fellow just makes me want to go over to pet him and scratch his ears.

On my Postcrossing profile, it lists the languages I speak (so people know in which languages they can write to me). Besides English, which is technically my fourth language, I also speak Dutch/Flemish (my native language), French and German. So Stephan decided to write the card in several languages as well, alternating between Dutch and English. Funny enough it took me a minute to realize it...

Once again I got the comment about sending a card to a U.S. address to have it end up in Germany (I have a feeling I'll get that a lot). He was funny though, adding that it really doesn't matter that the card will travel that far since he's not the one carrying it back and forth across the ocean.  Made me giggle. Pin It

Dog and kitty from Germany

After a week and a half of waiting my second "official" got here :)

This time I got a really cute card from Anja who lives in Bad Duerkheim, Germany:

The text on the card says "Ich bin stets interessiert, wenn jemand gut kuessen kann.". Anja was nice enough to provide the translation and a nice message on the back of the card:

"I'm always interested if somebody is a good kisser." Hello, This card will travel really far to make it all the way back to Germany. At least it will have seen some of the world. Happy Postcrossing, Anja.

 It does make it funny sometimes, when cards sent to me from Germany have to go all the way to the US, then back here to Germany. The joys of military life...

I really do love the card too. Cute animal cards like these are among my favorites, especially when they feature animals of the canine persuasion. We have two dachshunds, so cards with dogs and puppies go a very long way in putting a smile on my face!
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La Bella Italia: Venezia

This is the second card that I found yesterday:

My parents sent it to my grandparents on 10 August 2009. I really do like this card a lot, especially how the pictures are on a background of flowers. It kinda makes the color "pop". To me, the colors just scream Summer.

I don't know overly much about Venice, especially since I wasn't on the trip with them to learn all about it. My dad would invariably get a Michelin travel guide on whatever area we would be traveling too, just like I would invariably read the first few chapters in it. The ones that give an overview of the area's history, geography and stuff like that. That's me, always reading something. Right now I'm reading a prehistoric novel, series actually. Which has absolutely nothing to do with postcards, but I'm also kinda random like that.

Anyway, for lack of a Michelin guide, I consulted the next best thing: the all-knowing Wikipedia (too bad I didn't find out about that until my last year of college, would've been so handy for the 12,345,678 reports on all manner of subjects during the previous 14 years of school).

Venice is named for the people who inhabited the region around the 10th century BC, the Veneti. Apparently, Venice is not what I thought to be a city with some canals in it (kinda like Bruges in Belgium if anyone's ever been there). It's actually a group of around 120 small islands that are connected with bridges and have those canals separating them. The whole city is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The city used to be the capital of the Republic of Venice from the late 7th century until 1797 (more than a millenium!) but lost its independence when they were conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte. At that point they kind of got tossed around between Austria and the Kingdom of Italy a few times until they finally stayed a part of Italy.

I can see where the tourism comes from, the city looks beautiful from the few pictures on the card! Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to be able to visit there as well. I do still treasure the painted mask my mom brought back for me as a souvenir, and it's proudly displayed on my living room wall along with our German cuckoo clock, Belgian non-working clock (but it's shaped like the country so I like the way it looks), some pictures from Texas and some Korean wire. Just to keep things international I guess...

But back to the actual card. The stamp on it was kind of nice:

The stamp belongs to the "Made in Italy" series and there's around 3.5 million printed. It has the Sant' Agatha Bolognese mark, which is the bull on the black background. To my knowledge (which is very limited when it comes to stamps), this stamp was released in 2007. Pin It

Hot Springs State Park in Wyoming

More rummaging in the attic produced two more postcards (hidden in with a box of baby bottles no less!!). This is the first of the two:

I sent this card to my grandparents on 23 April 2009. It was right before my husband deployed to Afghanistan, and since at the time it was still just us two (and our two dachshunds, but no kiddos yet), we decided to drive the 19 hours from where we lived in Killeen, TX to Thermopolis, WY during block leave to visit his grandmother who lives there. I hadn't even been in the US for a whole year yet, so I greatly welcomed the opportunity to see a new place and be able to add another state to my list of "States visited". That made 3 after Florida and Texas, not counting New York, New Jersey and Illinois, since all I saw of those states was the inside of the airports.

This area was so much different from what I grew up with in Belgium, and Texas! Half the time when we woke up in the mornings, there were a few deer in his grandma's back yard eating fruit out of the trees. I got to see bison for the first time in my life, and eat it too. The state maintains a herd of bison on the edge of town. You can drive your car into the pasture and follow a dirt road through it. If you're lucky, you can see the animals graze. We got to see them off in the distance, but never close by. There's lots of mountains around too.

Thermopolis is the southernmost municipality in the Big Horn Basin, and gets its name from the hot springs located here, and is Greek for "Hot City". The largest one is shown on the card. The back of the card says

The Big Spring is the world's largest mineral hot spring, flowing 18,600,000 gallons of water per day at a constant temperature of 135 degrees.

For people who aren't familiar with gallons and degrees Fahrenheit (like me... I still need to use the converter app on my best friend Mr. iPhone), that would be 70.408.659,18 liters per day at a temperature of 57.22 degrees Celcius. In other words, a whole lot of hot water! These springs are open to the public for free as part of a treaty that was signed in 1896 with the Shoshone and Arapaho Indian tribes.
Their swimming pool uses water from the springs and is an outdoor pool that is open year round since the water is hot. They actually cool it down in a different basin first because it's TOO hot to be swimming in it. That hot water must be a nice way to warm up in winter, although I don't think I'd enjoy getting out of the water outside. Pin It

While I'm waiting...

It's been a few days since I got my first card, and I'm still anxiously waiting to receive a second one through Postcrossing.

Since I had nothing better to do, I'd been rummaging through some boxes in the attic looking for something I can't even remember what it was, I found a couple cards that had randomly been put in a box when we moved here from Texas. Gotta love how movers keep stuff where it's supposed to be at. I found the cards in a box with bedding.

This first card is one I remember very well. It was sent in 2006, and I was actually the one to send it.

Every year my parents would take me and my brother on a trip somewhere, usually within Europe (I was born and raised in Belgium, where my whole family still lives, I moved away after marrying my husband). But this year was my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, and with me being 21 that year, it would be one of the last times I'd actually be with them on the summer vacation. So my mom finally caved in agreeing to travel by plane (she's always been afraid to fly), and suggested a short flight within Europe to see if she was ok with flying. My dad and myself suggested to go to the US instead, arguing that if she didn't like it, she'd still have to go back home. We'd always talked about some day touring Florida. Me and my dad are big Disney fans, so we wanetd to go to Disney World, and suggested we'd do that in case she didn't want to fly again, we'd at least have seen Disney World. Apparently we made a good case, because they booked a guided bus tour around the state, and then we tacked on a couple days Disney World.

I was dating this really sweet guy, who is now my husband by the way, and sent him this card while on our trip. I got it in Miami, FL since that was the only place we spent more than a few hours and I actually had time to get a card, write it and get it mailed off to him (thanks to a very friendly receptionist who helped me get a stamp for it and put it in with the hotel's mail).

These two were given to me by my parents. They brought them back for me later that fall when they went on a weekend trip to France. I like them both, for two very different reasons. The second one because it shows the Christmas decorations in the town, and I'm a sucker for Christmas-y cards. And how adorable is that little kitty among the decorations???

The first one I love because of the memories that just seeing the town's name brings back. And no, I've never set foot in the town at all. You see, my parents are pretty good tricksters, and had told us we'd be going there on one of our summer trips back in 1994 (I was 9 and my brother 6) when in all reality we were going to the Euro Disney Resort in Paris, but they had wanted to surprise us. My mom especially was surprised that it worked, because every season I made her go to the travel agency to pick up the new brochures for Disney (yes, I was a Disney nut even at a young age) and would show her which attractions I'd want to do, which hotel I wanted to stay at and what restaurants to eat at. Well, that year I actually got to do all of that :-D

Last one for this entry. I got this one in 2009, also from my parents. It was the year after my husband and I had to move away from Belgium, and got stationed in Texas. Lucky for me, that's where he's from and his parents lived only a few hours away. I say lucky, because he ended up deploying to Afghanistan. This card was actually sent to me at his parents' house because I spent so much time there while he was away.

My parents traveled to Hungary that summer, and sent me this card from Budapest. That's one country that they traveled to that I haven't. It sure looks pretty there. I like the top picture where it shows the castle with the flowers.

That's it for today. Hopefully I get another card soon! Pin It

My first card received!

For a while now I've been interested in joining Postcrossing, after I heard about it from a friend of mine. Ever since I was a little kid, I loved summer, because that's when everybody (or at least a lot of my family) would go on vacation and send us a postcard from wherever they happened to go that year. Maybe next time I go visit my family I should look for my box of old birthday cards, there may be a few postcards in there still.

Anyway, this day and age not that many people still send postcards. It is so much easier to shoot people an e-mail telling them they're still alive out there and having fun (or not so much fun sometimes) on their vacation. So in an attempt to sate my craving for more cards, I joined Postcrossing. (small update: sating the craving didn't work out that well, now one year later it has turned into more of an addiction)

I sent out my first 5 cards on May 15th, 2012. I didn't have much to report until nown, because of how Postcrossing works. Once you sign up, you create a profile telling a little bit about yourself, and stating the types of postcards you like to receive. This is just a suggestion of course, we don't MAKE people get you a certain type of card, just if they happen to have one that fits your interests, they can pick that one. Then you can request up to 5 addresses of people somewhere in the world. These addresses are selected at random, so you never know which country you'll be sending a card to. It could be to your neighbor, or to somebody in the Phillipines or Russia or any other place on this earth. You get a unique code for each address you request, that you write on the card. This is what the receiver uses to register your card once they receive it. At the time your card is registered, your address will be given to a random user of the site to mail you a postcard in return.

So here we are, two weeks later, and I received my very first card from another Postcrossing user:

It was sent to me by Brenda from Chilliwack, Canada. The picture shows the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. According to the description on the back of the card, they were built in the 1860's. 

I love how it has a mountie on it too, with my husband in the military I like cards with a military theme, or just some details that remind me of the military.

Let's see where the next card will be coming from :)

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