Saturday, March 3, 2018

Mid-winter mailbox arrivals from Postcrossing

A bundle of dandy international Postcrossing cards arrived in my mailbox during the first two months of 2018, so I thought I'd share some of them here, as I tend to do on a somewhat irregular basis. One of the cool things this time around is that a lot of folks wrote long — for a postcard, anyway — messages in tiny handwriting. It's neat to see people put that much time and care into handwritten correspondence in 2018.

Here's a rundown of some of the arrivals...


From Michele in Germany (pictured above): "My name is Michele, 24 years old from Germany. It was pretty hard to find a card refering to folklore in Germany so I chose this card with the sand man ("Sandmännchen"). He brings good dreams to the kids as he throws sleeping sand in their eyes. In TV, there is every evening at 18:50h a show with him, with the popular "Sandmannchen-Lied" and a short story. All the best."

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From Pieter in the Netherlands: "Hello. My name is Pieter and I living in the Netherlands in the city Rotterdam. On 31 Decembre we eat Oliebollen, you can read more about Oliebollen on Wikipedia. I working in a Maritime Museum and living together with my cat and we are very happy."

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From Monika in the Netherlands: "Many greetings from the Netherlands where I've been living since 2014. Originally I come from Germany, but have lived and worked for many years in France after having finished my studies. I miss France a lot and hope to return there one day. I have so much difficulty to get used to Dutch mentality and the hectic, stressful way of life. I live in a small town close to the Hague and situated at the North Sea with my son who is 3 years old and our cat. I work from home as a translator and am very happy with my independence. On the card you see people ice-skating which is a tradition here in winter. I don't know how to skate, I'm not a very sporty person."

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From Daphne in Taiwan (pictured above): "In my country, everyone's preparing to celebrate our lunar/traditional new year on Feb. 15. Like Xmas, we go home and gather with family. This year I will take my two boys back to my hometown (not my husband's). In Taiwan, we usually go back to husband's hometown. Maybe you can google 'Chinese new year' to see our celebration, and 'Wulai' to see my hometown where is famous of hot spring and cherry blossom. I choose this card 'cause I love ruin aesthetics, and the place showed is nearby my house. Pretty ethereal!"

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From Kirsten in Germany (pictured above): "This card shows you what most people here like to do in January and February (if it is cold enough). There are also some artificial ice-skating halls around. Unfortunately I can't do it anymore as I had serious knee problems (ligaments) a couple of years ago, same goes for jogging. Only walking and swimming is possible. The man on this stamp [Heinrich Böll] is a famous writer, he also received the Nobel prize for literature in 1972, do you know him? Wishing you sunshine."

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From Anaïs in France: "My name is Anaïs, I 26 and I live in France at Brigueuil. In life I carer for elderly people and I love my job! I too have animals, a dog and a cat! I send you this gourmet postcard because with us, we love to make pastry at Christmas. Our culinary traditions in January is the epiphany (the king's cake). And in a few days the first of February is the candlemaker, so we make pancakes to eat with the family! I send you sweet notes. See you soon."

Note #1: Anaïs and I have no actual plans to see each other. It's just a figure of speech.

Note #2: I'm not sure what she's referring to with February 1, candlemaker and pancakes. My guess would be something to do with the Eastern Orthodox church.

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From Ralph in Germany (pictured above): "My name is Ralph and I'm from Germany. I work in a school for kids with special needs. This postcard is painted by my pupils."

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