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

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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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

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