Maldives

greetings from the rainy rainy, freezing cold Skopje...im still waiting for some decent snow...it's been snowing heavily in many parts in Europe already...I like those snowy days when you dont need to go anywhere particular so you dont have to worry about how you are dressed and whether you'll look like a mess in the end...but when you can just go outside and walk and walk and walk in the snow...just beautiful....
but while waiting for the snow, one can be as usual dreaming of something more exotic, and definitely warmer than these zero degrees...and one such place is this absolutely fantastic view of one of the Maldives' atolls...dont know which one in particular, but it doesnt really matter...i just love love love those shades of blue!

and this fantastic surprise came from dear Sissel, who is/was yet on another interesting trip to a number of really fantastic places...I wish i could travel the world at least half from what she has travelled :) Youd be jealous if you knew all the amazing spots she has seen in this world :)))
And im really happy she thinks of me during her travels and drops me cards...yes, cardS - plural! she makes sure me and my mailbox get a nice dosage too :)
and what makes this card even much more special  is that it is actually my first written and stamped card from the Maldives!! Yay!! (actually, I have 3 in total for now, all from dear Sissel :P)
I actually had a hard time deciding which one to choose for my post...most probably coz of the stamp...not that the stamps of the other two are anything less beautiful...but this one simply stands out...

actually, it is not even a stamp, but an entire souvenir sheet issued in 2001 in set of two different s/s, portraying shipwrecks and ship mysteries of the world, with this one showing L’Astrolabe and La Boussole.

They bear an interesting story....L’Astrolabe was one of two ships chosen for Jean-François de Galoup, Comte de La Pérouse’s expedition to the Pacific. After seeing Captain James Cook’s success with a former collier, the French decided a large supply ship would better afford the room needed to carry five years worth of supplies as well as house scientific experiments. In addition to supplies, L’Astrolabe was fitted with guns. The expedition set sail from Brest, France, on August 1, 1785. Paul-Antoine-Marie Fleuriot de Langle was in command.
La Boussole, was originally used as a supply ship for the fishing industry, but was converted to be the flag ship of the expedition. The ships cruised the Pacific from the modern-day Alaskan coast to Russia and Japan.
In December 1787, the expedition landed in the Samoan Islands. When a party went ashore, they were attacked and de Langle was among those killed. La Pérouse then appointed Robert Sutton de Clonard to command the L’Astrolabe as they sailed to their last known stop of Botany Bay. They were never heard from again. Historians believe that the L’Astrolabe and *La Boussole *wrecked on a coral reef off the island of Vanikoro.

it is even complementing the image of the postcard...i mean, in such vast waters, there must be some ship mysteries! :)

thank you sooooo much dear Sissel! I love, both the card and the stamp! Im sure you've enjoyed it here!

Portobello bicycle, England

a lovely bicycle card for my collection thanks to dear Anu

Portobello Road is really an actual street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London, England, which on Saturdays is the home to Portobello Road Market, one of London's notable street markets, known for its second-hand clothes and antiques.

Whether the bike ended on purpose next to the actual street sign of the Portobello Road, or if some girl was wandering around the market on a beautiful Saturday morning and left her bike here....cant tell, but surely it makes a beautiful card....and well, yeah, it does look like a girl's bike to me :)

Anu always tries her best with the stamps too! apart from the regular queen stamps, here we have two other great ones...on the right, you can see Andy Murray....ok, cant say he is on my favourite list of tennis players, but the stamp is just great, and as long as it comes to tennis, I love all stamps, even if i dont like the player maybe :)  Royal Mail commemorated all the GB gold medal winners in the Olympics with respective stamps and Andy Murray was the one winning the gold in the men's singles' tennis...it was a rather surprising maybe turn of events, since he got to beat Roger Federer...but i could say that Andy was in good shape this past year, and probably it's gonna be the one he'll remember the most.
the stamp next to Andy shows Lord Fisher and HMS Dreadnought, a stamp issued in a set of 5 Sailing traditions stamps in 1982.

I must say that Royal Mail never ceases to make my jaw drop with the fantastic stamps it's issuing...i wish i was rich enough to buy them all, mint stamps and FDC's...what a collection that would be!!


thank you dear Anu!!

Garðskagi Lighthouse, Iceland

next we have one more surprise from dear Sissel from her trip to Iceland earlier this year, from where she made sure she fed my hunger for Icelandic postcards...coz really, i rarely get the chance to receive a card from Iceland...

it is a lovely card, and as the back of the card would say, nature adds its impressive effects as Northern Lights spread above Garðskagi Lighthouse in southwest Iceland, on the Reykjanes peninsula.
There are two lighthouses on Garðskagi, and if im not mistaken, this should be the older one of the two...


and again, we get down to the stamps...when I look at what Sissel is putting on my cards, makes me think i should really really really try harder on my trips and get some nice, not so every day stamps to use on my cards, coz usually, what they give me at the PO is something regular...

this time we have another s/s, showing the Icelandic EUROPA issue for this year...you see, again it is a rather matching stamp, we have a ship here, where the Garðskagi  lighthouse, probably guided it thru the rough seas to reach the shore :)
the small green stamp next to it was issued in 2007, commemorating 100 Years of Forestry in Iceland, while the third stamp is from 2009 and is another commemorative one, of Reykjavík Water Works 100th Anniversary.
Just lovely!!

and another huge thank you Sissel!!!

Fauna of Belarus, Belarus

for my last post today, I have three cards coming from Belarus. I decided to put them altogether since they all come from the same series of postcards, presenting the Fauna of Belarus...plus, i received them all as officials too :) I dont know about you, but Ive been receiving a lot of official cards from Belarus lately...

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first we have a card showing the Golden eagle. It is said that along with the eagle-owl, they are the biggest birds of prey in the Belorussian forests where the golden eagle hunts in the day-time, while the owl in the twilight and it is a rare luck to see these birds.  Well, the photographer must have been one lucky guy....

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the stamp is a definitive issued this year in a set of two, representing ornaments.



next we have the European wolf...

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it is said that Belarus is home to a population of 1,500-2,000 wolves. With the exception of specimens in nature reserves, wolves in Belarus are largely unprotected.
Dont you just have the desire to hug him? look at that face!

there is even a wolf stamp on the card! :) it is a part of the Wild Animals series, issued in a set of 5 in 2008, where the flower stamp also dates from that year, from the set of 8 Gardens Flowers stamps. The other one is a definitive issued this year in a set of not more, not less but 24 stamps, depicting Architectural monuments and this one shows the Church of Epiphany


and the last card I have for now of this series, shows the White stork...

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really nice birds, used to tell stories to children about where do babies come from :)

this bird is completely white except for the black wing flight feathers, and its red bill and legs, which are black on juveniles. It walks slowly and steadily on the ground, and flies with its neck outstretched

well, again we have the wolf stamp here, and the Church of Epiphany....but also three more from the same issue of definitives, including the Mahiliou Town Hall (50 kopecks), then we have the Kamianets Tower (100 kopecks stamp), and the Niasvizh Castle (200 kopecks stamp). Well, the back of the card does look nice with so many stamps :)

thanks for reading and have a great rest of the weekend!

Papik and Tatik, Nagorno Karabakh

soooooooooooooooooooooo.....Heeeeelllloooooouuuuuuuu!! After, how long? It's been almost two months of silence here! Can you believe it?! Could be the longest time ive let pass without an update maybe, I have to check that...but yeah...it's definitely been 'long time no see'...and it really was an extremely busy and tough on the overall period for me, where i barely had time for anything else but work...i still have a lot of work pending, but with the training courses having finished, it seems a bit easier right now...though i must say i will miss that...but for the near future, after all these pending stuff are done, i hope to first get some rest, recharge my batteries and hopefully set off to some new challenges later...

also, for the period being, i have received bunch of great mail and the idea for my introductory post changed several times until this arrived in my mailbox and solved my indecisiveness....i hope you wont hate me for this im gonna post, but well, sorry, i just HAVE to share it with everyone....you dont get such a surprise in your mailbox just every other day! Yes, the fact i totally didnt expect this one to arrive is what took the whole thing to a totally new level of excitement and joy!
A card ladies and gentleman, from the territory of, as the title had already indicated...NAGORNO KARABAKH!!! Wohoo!! Wohoo! Wohooo!! Yayyyyyyy!!

im still in awe and find it hard to believe i have this card....i think this is a REAL gem in every deltiologist's/philatelist's collection!
The guilty one for this is Herbert who had some nice Caucasian adventures and also had the chance to visit some post offices too and mail out a few cards...for which im extremely and wholeheartedly thankful for being on that list!
And it is such a lovely card too! May I please introduce you Papik and Tatik, or the Grandpa and Grandma, the two sculptures which are widely regarded as a symbol of Armenian heritage of Nagorno-Karabakh. The monument is made from volcanic tufa, and depicts an old man and woman hewn from rock, representing the mountain people of Karabakh. These sculptures are also well known as "We are our mountains" and can be found north of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabakh (which is also known as Artsakh)
As you may know, Nagorno Karabakh is one of those disputed territories, recognized by only 3 other non-UN states....yet it has its own stamps issued, which compared to some French territories, where you only see French stamps on all of them, here you have the special Nagorno Karabakh stamps!! Ahhhhhhhh....

this stamp was issued this year in a set of two stamps, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Shushi liberation (Shushi is a town in Nagorno Karabakh).
And just look at that interesting cancellation! I dont know if the numbers represent the hour of the day or not, since they start from 00 and end with 23, but either way it is a very very interesting one...I mean, ok, the whole postcard is just fantastic! :)

Herbert, I really dont know how to ever thank you for cheering up my mailbox with your surprises! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!! I wish you more interesting trips in the future *wink wink* :P

Solaris Hotel Resort, Croatia

So, if you are still reading me, and havent pressed the X button on your browser after the previous post, lets go on with a few more cards :)

before i go on actually, i need to tell you that this and the following three cards suffered my clumsiness and my spilling over a glass of lemonade with honey...thank God it was not coffee, so we dont have dark stains here, but you can notice that the cards have undergone something...I dont know how the Nagorno Karabakh card managed to stay intact, being it is all on my desk (real mess)...but im thankful for it...however, what suffered is my laptop actually (luckily i had my office laptop with me during the weekend, so I could use that one for now). But I dont know if mine can be fixed or not...starting from the down arrow, which was the first one to start acting weird, in the end, the entire keyboard went crazy...so we'll see if that can somehow be cleaned or if my dear laptop may not have such a nice destiny...if you have any experience on this, you can share...I mean, it has happened to me many times to spill over something over my desk, but usually it was the desktop keyboard, which is easy to be replaced, plus it is very cheap...but with laptops it is a whole different story, so i really dont know what to think....

oh, ok, the card, yes...this is another surprise card that came from Nenad...and shows a scene of the Solaris Hotel Resort in Šibenik, Croatia. Usually cards showing hotel resorts are boring buildings and benches...but this one is totally different...reminds me more of some amusement park than of a hotel.

I found this nice video compilation so Ill let it speak instead of me, since ive never been here so to be able to share my own experience and impressions and all....



boy, id love one of those massages right now....

the stamp is from a set of 4 issued in 2011, representing Croatian castles, and on this one you can see one in the town of Našice.

hvala ti puno Nenade!!! Baš bi da zduvnem sad negde na moru kad bi mogla....

Arkansas, USA

well, with this next card I can cross out one more US state from my list...thanks to Despina for pointing me out the Arkansas contact...I honestly wouldnt have figured out myself, despite having the lady on my FB list :)

it is a really lovely card, showing the Old Mill, which is located in the North Little Rock and is a historic recreation of an 1880's water powered grist mill. the mill was used in the opening scenes of "Gone With The Wind" and is believed to be the only remaining structure from the film.
Well, the fans of the movie may recognize this...personally, i cant, sorry :) but still it is one lovely card...with so much greenery to enjoy!

the stamp is an airmail stamp from this year, featuring the Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. Yeah, US postal rates are really high...i wonder what would happen if you actually dont use an airmail rate and send it regularly..if there is such thing in the US postal world...

the Xiaoling Mausoleum of Eastern Imperial Tombs of the Qing Dynasty, China

my last card for today is one nice UNESCO Whs place from China, showing the Xiaoling Mausoleum, and is part of the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

so one of the things I hate about that UNESCO list, as I had probably said before, is that under one inscription, you have DOZEN of different places, scattered all over the country...so how am I supposed to collect them all, and actually keep track in the first place of everything that falls under one title?
I mean, it is the same about Macedonia...you have Ohrid and its cultural heritage...but do you actually know how many sites are in there? just many! and one can never be sure if he has them all or not...*sigh* oh well...that's why long time ago I gave up on focusing on collecting all the UNESCO whs places in the world...I still like them and would like to get them, but i do not focus my energy and resources on it...

as for the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they includ tombs and burial complexes, dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties of China. In total, there are around 14 tombs or tomb groups added to this WHS...
the back of the card says that this is the Xiaoling Mausoleum of Eastern Imperial Tombs of the Qing Dynasty and that the mausoleum was occupied by the Shuzhi Emperor from the Qing Dynasty...so i am to believe the back of the card, coz otherwise, im pretty lost :)

there are two nice stamps on the card. the top, bluish stamp was issued in 2007 in a set of 6 Olympic Games stamps, showing different venues and the one here shows the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center...while the one below is from 1997 from a set of 4 stamps representing the Architecture of the Dong Nationality, and this one in particular is called 'Wind and Rain Bridge over the River'.

So, thank you for reading guys and for maybe still dropping by despite the fact there was nothing new to read for a long while...have a lovely day...and hope to see you soon again! :)