OFFICIAL Card - Great Britain

Just last week I saw this card in the gallery at Postcrossing and put it in my favourites. I don't favourite many cards for the simple fact there are too many cards I like and too little time to browse through them. Like Pinterest, it interests me but I know how much time I could spend/waste (depending on how you look at it) on it.

To my surprise though I received this card yesterday.

My love for the Queen started when I wrote her a letter in the early 1970's. To this day I have the response that her Lady in Waiting sent to me. Over the years I have seen her several times, about a dozen or so, when she has come to Canada. And wrote her again a few years ago with the kids. Funny enough, writing to congratulate her on her Jubilee was on the to-do list for March Break but we just got too busy. I saw her most recently in 2003.  I used to "camp" out in front of the Royal York Hotel on my way home after work. Because of the timing she was usually arriving back to the hotel at the same time to I guess change and rest before her evening functions. Being pregnant at the time helped as the others in the crowd - surprisingly never that many - would usually let me closer to the front to get a better views! A glimpse yes, but thrilling nonetheless. The highlight of my Queen watching/stalking was being invited through a well-connected friend at the time, to a State Dinner held in her honour in 1997. Some days I still can't believe that I ate the same meal as her and was within 50 feet the whole time! Who cares if there were 600 odd other people in the room! My biggest regret in life was after the dinner they had a walkabout and she was literally within arms reach of me. I was so awestruck I couldn't say anything so she just walked by. I mean even in hindsight what do you say??? I am surprised I didn't just start blubbering about how much I love her LOL!!!

Needless to day this card Eileen sent me totally made my day. Even more when she tells me she just picked these cards up. Perfect timing all around!

Direct Swap - Karolina from Czech Republic

At the beginning of March I was contacted by Karolina to see if I was interested in a swap. This card I had recently sent caught her eye. Lucky for her I did have one more and unlucky for me I can't remember where I got them. If you can believe it, I have had two other requests since then! I received this card of her home town - Pec Pod Snezkou (no idea how to make the accents) in the mail yesterday. She tells me it can get pretty crazy during winter with all the tourists. I can see why the trees and snow look very inviting!

OFFICIAL Card - Russia

It took 55 days to make this card to me from Marina in Russia and in mid-January it finally arrived. In an earlier post, I told you about my fondness of St Basil's Cathedral and Red Square, add in fireworks and the Kremlin and this is a definite favourite!

OFFICIAL Card - China

Early March brought this card from Wanvu Huang in China to me. It is a view of the Wujiang River Natural Gallery. She write the 89 kms along the river won the name of "Natural Gallery" for it's breathtaking beauty, clean water, mountains, vegetation and plank road built in the cliffs. It has an expression - "boating down the River, drifting in a painting". It does look very serene and I can see why they say that.

OFFICIAL Card - Poland

At the end of January this card from Stasia came. It has flags, maps and a great view of the lighthouse in her hometown of Kolobrzeg. Her message really put a smile on my face and did again as I re-read it to post just now. She said that my name reminded her of a song which she then "serenaded" me with. Silly and fun!

OFFICIAL Card - Netherlands

Today I received this card from Grace in The Netherlands. Located in Roermond, it is the National Indie-monument honouring lives lost in the former Dutch East Indies during 1945-1962. The tulips look lovely and naturally remind me of Ottawa, which is fitting for a Dutch card.

Direct Swap - Victoria from Russia

Oddly enough my birthday - Hallowe'en - has connected me to more Postcrossers than anything else. (You'll hear more of this in some of my other posts about swaps.) My sister sent me some fabulous Hallowe'en cards for my birthday which I was very excited to send out. Of the nearly 200 cards I have sent out this card has been favourited more times than any other - go figure?!?. Which is what lead me to swapping with Victoria. She collects cards with owls and asked if I had a duplicate to swap with her. I didn't, but had two others in the book with owls which she liked just as much. I liked most of her sent cards and told her to surprise me with something touristy, which she did. She sent me three fantastic cards - I couldn't have picked better for myself!

The first card of Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral is stunning. I can vividly recall walking from the Metro Station in Moscow with my high school classmates on the first day of our "Trip to the USSR" (yes, I am that old!) when I was 17. Turned a corner and literally it was right there in front of us - looking exactly like the text books! Truly an architectural masterpiece, it was simply amazing. That was probably my first real travel moment and the reason this is one of my favourite buildings.

The next card she sent was of The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the tallest (105 m) Orthodox Church in the world. The card had the same stamps as above.

The last card to arrive was this view of the Kremlin from the Moscow River. Once again Victoria used these nice big (2 inches x 1.5 inches) stamps of these ladies in what I am guessing to be traditional regional dress. They really are stunning made more so I think because of  their size.

OFFICIAL Card - Taiwan

Lucky me I have received cards three days in a row - watch now that I've written it I'll get nothing for the rest of the week! Today, Stella from Taiwan sent me this card of The Red Door, a former nightclub in Taipei City. Looks like it would have been a really cool place.

The stamps came upside down it is not my scanning :P

OFFICIAL Card - USA

This card from Grandma Jane arrived in the middle of January. While she lives in Las Vegas, Kansas is her husband's home state. What a fun map - really illustrates what a square state it is!

OFFICIAL Card - Germany

German mail is fast. Seriously fast. Today I received this great multi-view from Piet in Bremerhaven, Germany. He mailed it on Thursday the 23rd and 6,240 kms and 5 days later it is in my mailbox. Not even full days as my mail comes at 11:00am. Considering we don't have delivery Saturday or Sunday I would say that is seriously fast. The other neat part about this card - Meghan who also participates in Postcrossing (although not too much lately) sent Piet a card last March. Of the over 300,000 members he now gets my name. (Insert Twilight Zone music here!) What a small world we live in. I find little things like this so neat! One of the views features (right side middle) the "House of Emigration" which won a European museum award.

OFFICIAL Card - Netherlands

This card is really sweet and if I had to pick a favourite of the day this would be it! Pier and his daughters aged 7 & 4 Postcross together. They live in the province of Fryslan. The card is made from a photo of his girls carrying the Frisian flag. How nice is that flag with all the hearts on it and how cute are his kids!!! This particular area even has it own language - Fries - and he writes some common words in Fries, Dutch and English to illustrate the differences and similarities. So envious of people who speak more than one language.

Pier also used a Postcrossing stamp the Dutch issued last year. You can read more about the stamp here.

OFFICIAL Card - Belarus

We watched a neat documentary on the weekend "Frozen Planet". One segment discussed a particular type of owl and the kids were a little freaked out by it's looks. Why I don't know,  but it looked fairly typical of most owls. The timing of this card from Anya is perfect! Love the eyes and colouring of this a "Tengmalm's Owl". And it came with lots of pretty stamps!

OFFICIAL Card - Switzerland

Sabrina lives near Zurich and sent me this great card of the Swiss Parliament Building in Bern. I love seeing the kids in bathing suits playing in the fountains having fun in front of such a serious building - great contrast!!!

OFFICIAL Card - Belarus

This card did put a smile on my face. I think I would order tequila before I would have a Jagermeister and even then those days are long over! While ad cards are not usually on my "wish list" of favourites I do like the colours and the Cyrillic along the bottom is neat even though I have no idea what is says.

OFFICIAL Card - Slovenia

Today I received five, count them five cards in the mail. A new record for me - yeah!!! It was a nice way to start the week. In no particular order, here they are.


First up, my first card ever from Slovenia. Dolores writes that her country is small but beautiful and looking at this great multi-view I would agree. I also really love the slogan on the card "I FEEL SLOVENIA" very cleaver! Flower stamps are becoming my new favourite I think.

OFFICIAL Card - Russia

Another card from February, this time it is from Eugenia in Russia. The flag, map and matryoshka dolls - doesn't get better than this!

OFFICIAL Card - Finland

In early February Leo from Lahti, Finland sent me this card. He tells me Lahti is Finland's winter sport city.

OFFICIAL Card - Japan

I really like birds and always have. So many of my decorations for the Christmas tree are birds I am surprised I have room for anything else! About a month ago I updated my "wish list" on my profile at Postcrossing to include postcards of birds. I am really glad I did as I have received a few lovely ones like this one of Japanese Cranes from Harumi. They look so happy as if they are doing a dance! Harumi also included some really nice stamps with birds too. And the best part - it took a week to travel almost 11,000 kms to me.

OFFICIAL Card - South Korea

I received this card just a few days after Valentines Day from Jinee in Korea. The design is so simple, the colours are really soft and I think it is such a pretty card. Once again my scanner doesn't seem to do it justice - I think you might be reading that statement a lot. The characters contained within the heart are various imitating sounds & mimetic words like 'pitapat' etc. Neat, huh? They also translated wording on the stamp for me and it means "Our language gets dignified so does our country, our language gets indignified (sic) so does our country".  South Korea is another country where there are not many Postcrossers so another rare one for my collection.

OFFICIAL Card - USA

I received this card in February from Stacey in Maine. She has put stickers where she lives and one of her favourite spots - Mount Desert Island. I honestly can't count the number of times I have been to that state that is how many it has been. I was so excited to receive this I am sure she thought my acknowledgement was nuts as I babbled all about my various trips, how I took the kids over the border for lunch one day when we were in New Brunswick (NB)  just so they could say they've been to the USA, how my favourite ice cream is from there, etc, etc....I think you can get the idea!

This card brought back soooo many memories and all good as I then also think of how many good times I have visiting my sister and her family in NB and just how much I miss her :) and a :(

This was also my first Lunar New Year stamp - Gong Hei Fat Choy!

OFFICIAL Card - Germany

So I posted the other day about how much I like the alphabet and our initials. Today, I received the letter "M" from Isa in Germany. She was a bit curious as to what it could stand for. The answer is my daughter, Meghan! Who was equally delighted with the card. The flower stamps were very welcome on this the second day of Spring and a crazy 27 C!!!! As well the Dinosaur stamp which Will really enjoyed.

OFFICIAL Card - Ukraine

Today I received this lovely card from Ksenia. I really like multi-view cards as I feel it is a bit more bang for the buck! I also really like seeing what different parliament buildings/city hall, etc look like. She tells me they don't feature them on cards in Ukraine but the building can be seen through the trees in the main picture. The stamps too are really cool and each one so different. I don't think the scan really does them justice.

OFFICIAL Card - Denmark

I received this card at the beginning of March from Rita. I really like both maps and flags so it was a real treat to get two of my wishes in one card! Cards from Denmark are somewhat rare too, so to receive one from this country was another bonus!!

Today I mailed out 8 cards. The countries I sent to were Germany, Russia, Netherlands, Finland, USA, Ukraine, Latvia and Switzerland. I only send cards out out once at the beginning of the week. I had lots of travelling postcards received over the past 7 days so it kept me busy writing so many cards at once.

Direct Swap - Andrey from Russia

One of the options in Postcrossing is whether or not you want to participate in Direct Swaps. Sometimes a card you have sent will catch anther users eye and if they collect that image or style they may contact you to trade directly. While I have ones I like I don't think I like them enough that I would go out of my way but will gladly help build someones collection if I can. One rule I have though, I always receive before I send :)

In the middle of January, Andrey had seen a lighthouse card from New Brunswick that I had sent. He asked if I had another and if so could we swap. He had several cards that I could choose from and these are the one I selected.

I love maps of any sort. I also have fond memories of travelling the subways of Mosocw - once all by myself out to the airport and back to the hotel - where was that teacher chaperone!!! Naturally, I jumped at the chance of having this card.

The Hermitage in St. Petersburg (Leningrad when I went there) is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever been. Another card I was delighted to choose and receive in this swap as it brought back so many wonderful memories.

Andrey received both lighthouse cards I sent and he too was happy with our trade.