Three cards on thursday

Kasia from Poland, Lyudmila from Russia and Martinha from Russia sent these cards.

Sintra is small town around 30 KM away from the city of Lisbon. A popular tourist destination, famous for castles, palaces and royal retreats. The picture here, Palacio da Pena or Pena national palace is a castle atop a hill in the town. The castle is even visible from Lisbon.

This card travelled for 13 days and reached me today!

A woman dressed in ancient, traditional costumes of Russia from Kursk province.Kursk oblast is a good place for activities like hiking, hunting, camping, fishing because of the terrain, forests and the lakes.

This card travelled for 22 days.

Winobranie in Polish means "vintage". This card shows the pictures from the annual wine festival held in the town of Zielona Gora of Poland in September every year. This is celebrated connection the harvest time of grapes from the local vineyards. During this time, there are processions, street theatre and other cultural and musical events. The statue on the card of the Roman god of wine Bacchus. This is also called the vintage green mountain wine festival, the largest wine festival in Poland.

First card from Poland in my collection and this took 12 days to reach me.

Mail from Estonia

Here are some interesting things I received from Tarmo in Estonia today. 

This is my first card, in fact, first "anything" from Estonia.

It has pictures of Keila waterfalls in North Estonia, Ruiskaukka or Cornflower of Bachelor's button-the national flower of Estonia. And the Red Squirrel, Orav commonly found in Estonia.

Estonia a small country in the northern side of Europe with Russia and Lithuania as border countries. People in Estonia speak Estonian which is very similar to Finnish.

"Ma Armastan Sind" in Estonian means I Love You!!

One more interesting thing and the first its kind that I got till now-a theatre flyer from Rakvere Theatre. 

Rakvere is small town on a hill in north Estonia. It is popular for the professional theatre which was started around the year 1881 and is still very active.

The flyer for a popular play titled "Brother" (Vend in Estonian).

 

Book recommendations from Pen pals

• Ocean at the end of the lane-Neil Gaiman
• A song of ice and fire-George R.R Martin
• The blood of flowers-Anita Amirezzvani
• American Dervish-Ayad Akhtar
• The bookseller of Kabul-Asne Seierstad
• The Baker's daughter-Sarah McCoy
• Children of fire-Ursula Hegi

Puerto de Mogan

A postcrossing friend from Mumbai sent this wonderful card to me. My first 3D card!

This is a picture of a picturesque village called Puerto de Mogan. Puerto de Mogan is a village on Gran Canaria, one of the islands of Spanish archipelago called Canary Islands.

These islands are located in Atlantic Ocean in the north west coast side of Africa. Maspalomas beach and sand dunes is a major tourist attraction on these islands.

Did you know that Canary Islands also called "Isla Canarias" actually means "Island of dogs"?

Thank you Sita, I learnt all these things because of your card :)

My favorite cards from USA

A big thank you to Jen from USA for agreeing to swap cards with me and sending these wonderful cards. My first Harry Potter postcard, a Disney postcard and a delightful vintage postcard.

 

In my mailbox today

It has been just 3 months that I have been on Postcrossing, but I have already gotten so addicted to this amazing platform, that I cannot resist checking my mailbox several times a day!!

I run to the postman like a child every day and cannot stop smiling for hours after I receive a letter or postcard. Well, the "official"cards I have received till now are only a few, but the direct swaps I get to do with users from other countries and the letters from pen pals....they are amazing!!

I was so disappointed that there was nothing in mail for me yesterday...and today I got these beautiful cards and letters from Germany, The Netherlands and USA.

One of these is a very pretty, hand made card from Hetty in The Netherlands. And she says "Gelukkia Nieuwjaar", Happy New Year in Dutch. Thank you Hetty!

Take a look at some amazing stamps from these places.

The Netherlands                                              

One stamp says denk groen voor een groene wereld- THINK GREEN FOR A GREEN WORLD.

The others are nice Christmas/Winter themed stamps.

Germany                                                           USA

Postcards from Siberia

These pretty postcards and a pen pal request from Anna, travelled for 16 days before they reached India from Krasnoyarsk.

Krasnoyarsk, is the largest city in the Siberian region of Russia. It is located on river Yenisei and is surrounded by mountains.


Ana says that it is only -20 degrees there now, very warm compared to their regular frosty winters of -35 to -40 degrees (centigrade) :)

Many Thanks Anna...!