Direct Swap - Heather from USA

Heather lives in Dallas, Georgia and agreed to swap with me two weeks ago. The map card she sent me arrived last week. Georgia is only a state I've driven through on my way to and from Florida. One of my funniest memories was stopping at a Taco Bell and asking for items that weren't on the menu. At the time I was a vegetarian and basically was asking for them to substitute beans for beef. They were more than willing to and then the manager came out to meet us and first thing they asked in a big southern drawl was "Y'all Seventh Day Adventists or something". Maybe it was the fact we had been on the road for hours but it was one of the funniest things I had ever been asked. To this day it is still cracks me up. I love the bathing suits and clothes in the drawing, they look so retro! Also, loving that Heather used one of the Hawaiian shirt stamps - they are so fun! Hoping she gets my card soon.

OFFICIAL Card - Russia

I {heart} Google Translate, and I {double heart} virtual keyboard. Last week I received this card from Yulia who lives in Nizhiny Tagil, Russia. On her postcrossing profile she states her only language as Russian and all she wrote on the back was "Hi". That is fine, my Russian is as good as her English but I still wanted to know what the card was about. After a few minutes of hunt and peck on virtual keyboard, I was able to translate the phrase along the bottom to be "Nizhny Tagil Ice Sports Palace named VC Sotnikova". By the looks of the arena now I might even say this is a vintage card too.

OFFICIAL Card - Finland

Keke from Tampere, Finland sent me this card, featuring a lady in tradtional dress. It arrived on Thursday after travellling six days. He wrote saying fall is becoming winter and their municipal elections were happening soon.

OFFICIAL Card - Hong Kong

I know I have said this before, but I find it neat how I have received so many cards from Hong Kong. As a country they are ranked 29th in Postcrossing for total cards sent, and at less than 100,000 cards I can't figure out how my name keeps going to users there. I'll just consider myself lucky!

This card from Jasmine arrived last week and shows the Chinese symbol for the word "Double Happiness". She decorated the card in such a fun way - writing my name and address in fun colourful block letter, stars, stickers and wonderful birthday wishes! It is as much fun to look at the back as it is the front. And the stamps - fabulous, beautiful birds!

How would you fill in the blank "Happiness is..."

Queen Mary 2 from Kathryn

Hmmmmmm, how do you tag a postcard that was mailed from a ship? Country you departed from? Arrived in? Who knows?!?!

My sister in law Kathryn recently returned home from a trip to France and England on the Queen Mary 2. She wrote telling me she braved seasickness to purchase this card for me as the bookstore was in a part of the ship where you could really feel the motion. I am certainly glad she was willing to risk it for me. This is a great view of the ship arriving in New York City.

Sadly, Kathryn's six month leave from work ends today. I am sure she will have more adventures in the future I just hope she adjusts back to work smoothly, I don't think I would have an easy time of it.

OFFICIAL Card - Germany

Gunter sent this card of his hometown of Weimar, Germany. It is one of the German UNESCO sites, home to many famous people - Goethe, Bach, Listzt and the design school Bauhaus was started there. I can see why it made the UNESCO list!

OFFICIAL Card - Slovenia

This card shows views of Debeli Rtic in Slovenia. Joze, a married dad to three boys from Loce sent this to me this week. Love the stamp on this one.