Purmamarca, Argentina

I love days like these....just when the working week has started, you have a day off coz of a National Holiday....on the overall makes the entire working week much easier...that calls for an easy-going relaxing evening..and why not some cards too?

It's been a while since ive posted something Argentinian, so here is a lovely card dear Viviana sent me.

The card gives us a glimpse of the town of Purmamarca with the Cerro de Siete Colores (or the Hill of Seven Colours) looming above, with its lavenders, oranges, and yellows. People are usually able to find four out of the seven hills....they say that the colours are most clearly visible in the mornings, when the sun reflects the appropriate light on the mountain so that none of the pigments goes unnoticed by the human eye Resulting from a complex geological history, the layers of various colors have been formed by the accumulation of sea, lake and river sediments which have been deposited on the region for over 600 million years and which have later influenced the apparition of these mountains in the location they have today as a result of tectonic movements.

just lovely...and those small shops along with the cafeteria just look so cozy and authentic...wish i could visit this place one day...

Tennessee, USA

I dont think ive posted a Tennessee map card so far here, so here we go...

not much info on the back of the card as it usually is with the US map cards.

Visit the beautiful state of Tennessee!

There's much to see and do in Tennessee from Memphis, the home of Elvis, to Nashville, Country Music U.S.A., to East Tenn. and the beauty of the Smokey Mountain Range.

believe it or not, the postcard was initially published in 1981!

no need to explain, right? :)

National Jenevermuseum, Belgium

A really great official card I had received from Belgium!

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This card shows the National Jenever museum in Hasselt.

It is said that the French have their cognac, the Scots their whisky, the Germans their schnapps, and the Russians their vodka. And the Belgians… they have genever and have been drinking it for more than 500 years. In the English speaking world it is known as the Dutch gin, the juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands and Belgium, from which gin evolved. Believed to have been invented by a Dutch chemist and alchemist named Sylvius de Bouve, it was first sold as a medicine in the late 16th century. In the 17th century, it became more popular for its flavour. In its long life, genever has taken on many different forms. In good times it was made from corn, in not-so-good times from molasses. In some regions it was spicy, in other regions it had a neutral taste. Some loved it and other loathed it, it was a source of joy, but also of intense irritation. The government had a love-hate relationship with genever, which on the one hand was a great source of income but on the other, represented a danger to public health.

and i ABSOLUTELY love the stamp on this card! maybe it is not a jenever, but it really matches the topic, and still, such a lovely picturesque stamp it is. It comes from an m/s of 5 stamps issued in 2010 depicting the La Hesbaye region in Belgium.

Someone feels like doing a *cheers* with a glass of wine? Or jenever? :)

Baiana, Brazil

we started with South America, so lets finish with it as well

If you are to google the word 'baiana' you may come across some confusing and some totally unrelated definitions or websites.
But I think that the right one (or that relates to the card) is that the word 'baiana' actually means 'a woman from Bahia' where the old spelling used to be 'bahiana'. It is said that people from Bahia have a distinct culture and are very influenced by their african ancestry.

well, if we are to believe what google says :)

Jalousie Bay, St. Lucia

It's been such an AWFULLY HOT week!! So inhumanly hot! Some say that this has been like the hottest week all summer....which is really unusual since it is like the end of August and the sun shall not be as strong as it was in July for example....but well, the world has gone crazy and the weather as well....I need to think of means of survival for next week if this hot tendency continues...

well, before I get carried away with some stuff i have planned for today, lets post some cards along with the morning coffee.
My first card comes from Mandy who is lucky to live on this beautiful island of St. Lucia...im pretty sure that the heatwaves there are not as harsh as here...and you can always just go for a swim...

Now this may not be my very first card from St. Lucia...there is one over here Glenn surprised me with few years ago...but this one here is my first written and stamped one from this country!! Yayyy!!!Well, I received it months ago..but you know the lazy me....
My previous card was about Marigot Bay, and this one here shows the Jalousie Bay....quite a lot of bays there :)
 And this Jalouise Bay is situated between the Pitons....no not the snakes (that was the first association i had at first too..) But the Pitons are actually two volcanic plugs, the Gross and the Petite Piton, and...they are a UNESCO whs!! So, this card is like an *almost* UNESCO whs...but I dont think the Pitons are sufficiently visible so that I label this as UNESCO....or can I? well, I will be waiting for a confirmation from someone who is much better in identifying UNESCO sites than me...really, they can be so confusing coz one item in the UNESCO list may consist of a bunch of places...and not always you may know what exactly falls under a certain place...hence I can never fill in my UNESCO list properly....

Mandy used a 2005 stamp coming from a set of 14 fruiting trees' stamps, with this one showing a Custard Apple.
Thank you sooo much again Mandy!!

Amish, USA

A great Amish card I received for the Jun-Nov RR I took part in...one of my favourite RR's on the forum!

Ever since I got to know about them, I got somewhat fascinated with the Amish people and their way of life....though I still dont have many Amish cards in my collection...just the ones posted here and a few more...
This card shows the Amish Country in the state of Ohio....or as the back of the card says, A picturesque farm in northeastern Ohio's Amish country. The Amish, in the tradition of their forefathers, depend mainly on horse-drawn buggies s their means of transportation.

When i look at this card, I cant help it but think of the fresh clean air they must be having in these lovely green surroundings...

and apart from the familiar clock stamp, there are two other, that I dont really see often around....both issued this year....the one in the middle is a lovely dog stamp showing Owney, the postal dog...the canine mascot of the Railway Mail Service. Beloved of clerks on mail-sorting trains at the end of the 19th century, Owney was hailed as a symbol of good luck. Today he is an icon of American postal lore whose story highlights the historical importance of the Railway Mail Service. Is there a postcard out there featuring Owney??? This stamp is being issued as a Forever stamp. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate. The phone stamp is from a set of 12 (Forever stamps again) depicting The Pioneers of American Industrial Design, which honour 12 of the nation's most important and influential industrial designers. This Desk Telephone stamp honours Henry Dreyfuss. Thanks a lot to Tanya for the lovely card and stamps!

Crno jezero, Montenegro

here comes something from not so far away....

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I have to admit that from the bird's perspective, many Montenegrin lakes seem the same to me...the shapes and the wood surroundings....so unless it is written on the card or the sender tells me about it, I highly doubt I would be able to distinguish them.
And this lake here is Krupačko jezero (jezero=lake) which is in the vicinity of Nikšić.....where a monster lives, in case you didnt know....maybe the Montenegrin version of Loch Ness  :))))))))))))))))))))))))  Sorry R., couldnt resist it! :D

Unfortunately, the internet is rather stingy on giving some more detailed information about this lake, so I will leave it up to the natives to tell you more about it if they want.

edit: well, i should trust my sixth sense next time...and instead of thinking that all lakes in Montenegro are alike, that THAT is actually the lake it reminds me of and that it is not another one...but see how wrong information on the back can mislead you...so this is the Black Lake on the mountain Durmitor as I initially thought...funny thing is, at first I wanted to post a Durmitor card (all covered in snow) but then I thought, ok, I already had one card posted related to it, lets bring something new....well, I guess, Durmitor was destined to appear here :)

and due to the nature of the post, I wont delete the above information :)

thanks a lot  to Rajko for clarifying my doubts on this one!

the two stamps on the card are from 2008. The left one is from a set of two stamps called Radost Evrope (or, the Joy of Europe), while the other one is from a 'mixed issue' set and says to depict 'historic heritage'.

Thanks a lot to Maria for sending this one!

Lake Namtso, China

My last card for today is one fantastic view of Lake Namtso...

I even wonder at times if this is a real photograph or a painting...but when I take a better look, it does look like a real photo....and i just LOVE the stillness of the image...and the chilling feeling it gives....yeah, nowadays I love chilling images, when I cant have them for real...but you are aware that once winter comes i will be striving for sunshine cards and such :)

This lovely lake is a mountain lake on the border between Damxung County of Lhasa Prefecture and Baingoin County of Nagqu Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and is renowned as one of the most beautiful places in the Nyainqêntanglha mountain range (go pronounce that one).

Would definitely want to go and see this one by myself...

well, the card arrived in an envelope with a number of others, so no stamps for it.

wishing you all a great lovely and not-so-hot weekend.

Saba

Finally Friday, and a weekend ahead! A rather tough week....getting back to reality wasnt as easy as i had expected to be, plus it has been such an awfully hot week....equally to unbearable....I really need to take another week off and go to the mountains until this crazy heat passes by....

well, since i really dont have much will to do something outside the house at times like this, lets post some cards....not a bad idea, right?

and the first one, as usual reserved for some rare place in my collection, comes from another of the NA born children, the island of Saba, which is also the smallest special municipality of the Netherlands....its area is 13 km².
As the back of the card would say: Unique architecture. A unique aspect of the typically Saban architecture is the small-mesh Gingerbread woodcarving in markers, pergolas and fencing.

As dear JP would say, a very unusual place for those who love nature, hiking and diving, nothing else.
Does it also include people who would go anywhere just to get away from the annoying heat?

lovely stamp on the card...and great cancellation..just that somehow i misplaced the scanner frames, so it ended up like this, cut out on the left side....and i noticed it right after i had uploaded it so im honestly rather lazy to scan it all over again :)
the stamp was of course issued in 2011, but i couldnt find any other details about it...

Thank you JP!! 

Oulu, Finland

a train card i had in my favourites for a long long while....and as it usually happens with this, first you dont have it at all, then you get it twice within less than a month :)

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One arrived as an official, the other one for the Surprise me RR. Im thankful to both thoughtful senders! :)
The thing about this card is that, next to the name of Oulu, stands the year of 1967....so it is very logical to think that this shot was taken back then...which in a way i find it surprising, coz to me it seems like a very modern image...but you know, looks can really fool you sometimes :)

still, whether it was taken nowadays or centuries ago, this is still more than a fantastic card and i LOVE it!

as i said, i got this card twice, and one of them (the official one) arrived with the Kimi stamp! (great combination, no...train card plus Kimi stamp!) Btw, im really mad at Kimi for not going back to F1....not that it matters, anyways :)

the other card came with the 2008 Christmas stamp called "Frosty night" 

Sand Island, USA

One more of the set of lighthouses sent by Bryon....

funny, if i wasnt about to post this card, i wouldnt have realized im missing the 'Alabama' tag in this blog....i dont know if this is really my first Alabama card, but it certainly isnt something you see often here then.

The card shows the Sand Island Lighthouse, first lit in 1873. It was an active aid to navigation for 60 years. Once the central attraction on a 400-acre island off the coast of Alabama, this conical tower made of local brick, now stands alone, its foundations completely surrounded by water.

It is said that an earlier lighthouse on Sand Island was destroyed during the Civil War, on February 23, 1863 by Confederate John W. Glenn since Union Troops were occupying it. He reported the destruction to Confederate General Leadbetter, who was the original builder of the lighthouse.

People.....

along with the self-printed matching stamp, there are two other great ones on the card...the top one is from a collection of 10 "Garden of Love" stamps issued this year...the panther was issued in 2007

thank you again Bryon...and sorry for the Grand Teton equivalent you'll have to deal with, but it was the only int. stamp available all over the country...unbelievable! (yes I got the lovely Mount Baker card today...thank you so much!! And wishing you great upcoming trips!)

Riga, Latvia

well, as for my last card today, i chose this lovely one from Latvia

im really thankful to Elena for being so kind and sending it to me...I absolutely love this card...not only coz it is railway related, but the colours feel so special too...the skies have some spectacular colour and i love the black wires crossing all over...they just give such a special touch to the overall image.

On this card you can see a railroad close to the centre of Riga while in the background is a medieval church and a modern office building of Swedbank....what a combination in total :)

thank you all for following and for giving such great contribution to my mailbox, and of course to this blog. Have a great weekend!!   

Mongolia

so after a longish silence, here i am back with posting....i just had to take a break from everything if i can name it that way....some of you already know about it, some are about to find out sooner or later...but in general, the break was more than good.

Of course, a lot had piled up in the meantime, and added to the mountain of postcards from before, makes me dread at the thought when am i going to actually post all those stuff?!! :)

well, without further ado, lets start today's update with what but a new written and stamped country for my collection.

and what an amazing card it is! I absolutely love this view!!
It was sent as a surprise by dear Johanna who went on a trip to the fascinating country of Mongolia....Johanna makes such trips that it makes me EXTREMELY jealous :P Mine are not even as close as exciting.....

the back of this card says: "In the higher and colder regions of the mountains, the nomads prefer yaks instead of cows. Yak's milk is very fattening".

well, as a no-milk drinker, i cant tell which one i prefer, and i havent tried yak's milk before, and being very fattening, i highly doubt id love to use it.. i mean, imagine...2 or 3 cups of coffee with milk per day and im gonna look like a barrel before you can even blink! Though I assume due to the fats, it does give a special taste to the coffee and makes it feel real smooth....

btw, i dont know why, but im somewhat fascinated with the Tibet and Mongolian people....ive seen them portrayed on other cards, and there is just something really particular and unique in their facial features that i love....esp in children....

btw 2, the blue skies in the background, at the right end of the card are just amazing!

here comes the stamp, issued in a set of 4 animals' stamps in 2004....quite appropriate for the card I must say! :)

thank you sooooooo much dear Johanna for thinking of me....I totally love this card! Thank you!! 

Matera, Italy

this card arrived as a surprise from Silvan's trip to Italy in 2010

the card comes from the city of Matera, located in southern Italy. In particular, here you can see Sassi di Matera (or Stones of Matera) which are prehistoric cave dwellings, composed of the Sasso Caveoso and the later Sasso Barisano. If you take a closer look, you will indeed find the whole concept very interesting and rather unique.Many of these "houses" are really only caverns, and the streets in some parts of the Sassi often are located on the rooftops of other houses. Matera is the only place in the world where people can boast to be still living in the same houses of their ancestors of 9,000 years ago.
It is also on the UNESCO whs list.

there is a great stamp along, showing the icon known as Luciano Pavarotti. The stamp was issued in 2009 in a set of 3, "Italia 2009 - Music Day" stamps.

Thanks a lot Silvan!  

Longstone Lighthouse, England

an official card I received in 2009

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It is a great lighthouse card, coming with an interesting story as well. The lady you can see at the top left is known as Grace Darling, and the story goes that her father was a lighthouse-keeper near Bamburgh. In 1838 Grace rowed out in a great storm and rescued five shipwrecked seamen.
She had unfortunately died very young, at the age of 26, four years after her heroic actions.

the stamp is from a set of 8 definitives issued in 2009

Ocracoke Lighthouse, USA

Here is a North Carolina lighthouse

from the back of the card: "Built in 1823 on Ocracoke Island near the reputed hideout of the pirate Blackbeard, Ocracoke Lighthouse is one of the oldest active lighthouses on the East Coast."
It was built it in 1823 by Noah Porter and is 23 m. tall. Its diameter narrows from 8 m at the base to 3.7 m at its peak

the US postal service seemed to be lazy when instead of a stamp used this sticker.

The St. Mary Nativity Orthodox Convent, Belarus

the last card for today is another official one from 2009, this time coming from Belarus.

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the card says to show the St. Mary Nativity Orthodox Convent built in 1720-1751 by the architect I.Fontana III.

and unfortunately that is all I can tell you about it...so if anyone from Belarus or elsewhere has more information about it, would be more than welcome to contribute. Thank you!

the card arrived in an envelope, so no stamps...

btw, i must confess that due to the number of cathedrals and such that ive seen while i was away, i wouldnt want to see one in a while...