England

The back of the card says: Baroque, 1620-1800. Style in the Age of Magnificence.
My guess is that its supposed to promote some exhibition related to the Baroque style.

What really is on the card, i cant tell for sure...reminds me of one of those hanging chandeliers....which now that i mentioned it, reminds me of one of the episodes of "Only Fools and Horses". Well, if you live outside Europe, i dont know if you had watched it...but here it has been really popular, esp when i was a kid...now they are doing re-runs, and its still fun to watch. But there was this particular episode when Rodney, Del Boy and Grandad were trying to fix one of those chandeliers....ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....boy, had i laughed the first time i watched it...let me see if i can find it on you tube....yyyaaaay, there it is!!!






poor Grandad :))

Anyway...the main point of this postcard was actually the stamp along with the postmark, since this card is posted in anUNDERGROUND post box....as you can read from the cancellation :)
Here are some details about it...and i thought it would be really cool to have one specially postmarked, so i signed up for it...and im glad i did...brought me a story for the postcard and a lovely cancellation :)
As for the stamp...it dates from June 2009...a really new issue...belongs to a set of 6 stamps which represent Mythical creatures, and here in particular, the Pixies...now i know how the band Pixies got their name actually :)

Postcard Friendship Friday

Hello everyone! I missed last week's PFF but here i am today, to share my thoughts...esp. since i have a reason...so yeah, this wont really be like most of the updates, this is one of the days when i take a step back and do something a bit different...
Im dedicating this Friendship post today to Helle, formerly Pedersen, now Andersen. As some of you may know...or may not know...Helle was one of my pen-pals back in time when i was devoted to this hobby, ive mentioned her at some of my previous posts when i had posted a card she had sent me.
Well, yesterday, i got a letter....from Helle...and that was more than enough to entirely brighten up my day to the fullest. So thats why today, im dedicating this dedicated to Friendship post, to her. Along with the 4 cards she included in the letter :)

 

Well, it all began not that long ago...several months...ever since i discovered postcrossing, ive been more than delighted that after many years catching dust and spider webs, my mailbox was being fed again with stuff which are not bills, leaflets, propaganda material, and such....my mailbox was getting lively again. For someone who had enjoyed receiving mail over the years, this was just a treat of a kind. Which you could have noticed thru my blog, each time i posted a card.

Cards are a delight....but....there always has to be a *but*...one day, after reading how some people say, hey, today i received 5 postcards and two letters...or, i received a letter from my pen-pal in Germany..or im writing a letter to a friend in Poland etc etc etc, a small hole of emptiness started creating inside me...and it grew bigger and bigger...all of a sudden i realized how much *I* miss writing/sending/receiving letters....email never grew on me...online chats for hours are annoying to me, unless i have to talk to someone with whom there is no other way to talk to, and yet, communication is required/wanted...plus talking to 5 people at the same time is just not a way to be able to dedicate your attention properly to all of them....so, as i said, inside me, i started longing for real letters...a LOT...i just dont know why i havent got that itch earlier...

 

So i decided to do something about it...and of course, there are (still) many people around who enjoy snail mail, and who love taking their time to write and post a real letter every now and then...so i looked around and saw that there were some really nice and interesting people....but...yeah, here comes the inevitable *but*..something inside me STILL felt missing. The desire to actually write letters with people i used to write to, and who were very dear to me....so thank God to the internet and its vast opportunities, i decided to look for them...and can you believe it that i found 4 very very dear ladies??!!! Can you even imagine my heart-beat when they said they remembered me and that they would LOVE to keep writing real letters to me??!

I know i give myself no credit, for a lot of things....this was no exception, and i just didnt really want to interfere with their lives and impose some demands after all these years, now that they have families and are busy...why should they write to me, just because all of a sudden i got this desire for it...i mean, where had i been TILL now? But i thought there is no harm if i just ask, and if they dont want to or cant, thats ok..but they all said they wanted to write to me again...real letters....Helle was one of them. And yesterday her letter arrived...her first letter after all this years....my mailbox felt so content....me, more than that...

Helle was one of my first pen-pals ever, when i started pen-palling back in 1993....she contacted me thru this programme...there was a programe on the Brtish Supper Channel back than, which aired every day from Mon-Fri, with Clive Pears (gee, i remembe his name :)) and each day was a thematic day...Monday was pen-pal day...and after watching many pen-pal day shows, i decided to enter...and there one day, another pen pal day comes, i sit to watch it...and then he says ' and here is pen-pal number 4 for today, and thats Ana from Macedonia..and i see my picture on TV! And he reads my intro letter while my picture keeps staying on the screen and i smile to the viewers...hahahaa, my 2 mintues of fame!
So after he read my letter and all, people were supposed to send a letter to Supper Channel, write on it who is the pen-pal they want to write to, and inside they actually write a letter to me...so after waiting as long as they consider is enough, Supper Channel gathers all the letters for the particular person and mails them...so one day after like two months i appeared on TV, a huge brown envelope arrived to me, with 12 or so letters for me inside...so thats how it began....and i was addicted to it immediately...as if its been in my blood...in my veins...it just needed to be unveiled...Helle was one of the girls whose letters was inside...

 

We wrote to each other A LOT during the years and we wrote regularly...she wasnt one of those pals to whom you write once in six months...and she wasnt one of those pals to whom you write one sheet of paper per letter...she was one of my pen-pals i considered close to me, and to whom i could rant about whatever comes on my mind and confess things, and confide things etc...i just enjoyed our pen-friendship...plus we shared one huge passion...New Kids On the Block :D :D :D Yeah yeah, laugh about it...but back then, in my teenage years, that was my taste of music (it shaped long after that)....how and why we exactly lost contact i dont know...i havent checked my letters to see when it happened...i know that once emails got terribly popular here back in 1999, i was all, hey, we can keep in touch by email, its faster and all...i guess it was just a fascination to something new...i never got into it, so maybe there lies one of the reasons why contacts ceased...apart from my overall apathy i felt stuck into for many years....i cant say i was depressed or so...but i just didnt really have the desire to dedicate myself to something...no wonder my Italian lessons failed...i now regret having wasted so many years, but at least i woke up....and im more than glad i did...coz otherwise i wouldnt have been enjoying again the beauty of written letters...the smiles of the people at the post office when they see me and after checking my pile of mail tell me that everything is stamped perfectly...the thrill of expecting the postman..the thrill of finding a full mailbox...checking the mailbox 50 times a day..
Helle said that she had collected these cards for me...and i love them ALL! Im not entirely sure what each of them represents but to me, they represent Friendship and thoughtfullness...and im so happy to have found Helle after all these years! She's been one of my first and dearest pals...it feels incredible to be in touch with someone youve known for over 15 years...
Well, in case someone had had the nerves to manage reading this until here...if you are interested in pen-palling and if you think youd be able to cope with a 28 year old lady, who doesnt have an exciting life...who rants a lot...who skips from subject to subject, who talks of both too serious and too boring and 'why the hell is she telling me this' stuff..who will definitely talk of either F1, tennis or Depeche Mode in each of her letters...who will complain about work in EACH of her letters...her cat probably as well...if you think you can endure that, then just feel free to write to me...age? doesnt matter...as long as you have something to tell me, and want to hear what i have to say, you are more than welcome...dont ask for permission...just write to me...me and my mailbox love surprises...if you wanna write to me, but feel reluctant about it, please, write to me :)
Helle, i know you probably wont read this...but thank you...for being a friend...for wanting to be my friend...thank you for all those letters, postcards, greeting cards you had sent me throughout the years...thank you for being here after all these years...i know lives are way too busier than when we were teenagers, but what im glad is that we are in touch again...i hope we wont lose contact this time....

Paulig Coffee

My last card for today is to represent one of my greatest pleasures, passions and addictions....coffee! Ok, maybe it doesnt have a cup of freshly brewed coffee, but this is a nice coffee commercial.
Reminds me to those Marlboro cigarette commercials i used to see when i was little...they all had some cowboy/wild west style in them...i just dont get one thing...how come all girls on commercials like this, sitting on a horse, tend to have such a great tanned skin and they always wear the exact kind of denim jeans and moreover, they feel to so perfectly follow the line of their legs and just look so sexy on them...im envious!

Not so long ago while flipping through the TV channels (which is an occasion for itself since i rarely watch TV), i came across some chat show, and they were showing the results of an experiment they had done with 3 coffee addicts. They had given them each, 3 different kind of coffee-based products, in order to help them reduce their daily amount of caffeine...the first one had to use a coffee-scented body lotion, the second one a coffee-flavoured tooth-paste, and the third one a coffee-flavoured lip balm. All products had a delicious scent...well, its coffee after all.
Anyway, after several days of using the product, they had to give a reprot on how it felt for them and whether it had helped them or no. The one with the body lotion was craving for coffee, the other two, i cant recall exactly which one, was also craving for her daily caffeine dosage...the one with the tooth-paste i think...while the third one said that it actually did help her reduce the amount of coffee she drinks everyday. The reasons for this turned out to be that she was using a product, which was closest to the tasting centre and which was being absorbed in the body the fastest and so the body was fooled that it had a caffeine intake. The one with the body-lotion  could have just dreamed of having her product closest to the mouth, so thats why she still had to take huge coffee amounts, daily.
Well, this got me into thinking about myself, and i figured that i dont really take coffee for the caffeine only...the pelasure of having coffee is in feeling its taste on your tounge, of letting it slip through your throat, of feeling its particular sweetness and aroma...the pleasure is making a nes-cafe drink, where you stir the coffee and the sugar until you get a deliscious creamy mixture....and add milk to it, and maybe a bit of cinnamon on top...or a hot regular nes-cafe...which awakens all your senses and the taste of it just feels soo perfect. So thats why i love coffee...i would never actually swap for a caffeine based product, coz that wont give me the pleasure...not one single bit...i do love the effect caffeine has and how it can keep you awake or give you energy and all...but the preparation, the taste and the feeling that drinking coffee can provide, cant be substitues with any other product....and thats my final word on it :)

ok, im glad i was able to make this update, considering ive been having a cold, and some other severe health problems...im doing more or less ok right now, but in general, its not that pinky :)

Hopefully you are enjoying your weekend....its a cold one here...sunny, but very windy and cold....

till next time!

Tim Tam

Chocolate Biscuits....mmmm...these should taste good....ive never tried them, but they seem promising...and i love the quote :)

And again here we have something related to food...i guess this just all reflects my recent 'im always hungry' mood. I really dont know why i fall into such a trap sometimes....not that im REALLY hungry....i just think of food 24/7 and it always feels delicious and i just have a crave to eat this or that and it gets me really anxious....and even though i PROMISED myself i wont be eating at night or after 8pm, i end up doing it....and no wonder i feel like the wolf from the Wolf and the Seven Goats....my stomach feels as if its full of stones and i just feel like a real slow-motion...i definitely need to get my bike fixed so even if i get stuck in such a period, at least i can ease it all....hopefully it wont be raining or snowing.....I wonder whats for lunch today...

Untitled, 1987, USA

I got this at one of the tags....in particular, the 'surprise the person below you' -tag....well, at least gives me something to talk about....and thats my attitude towards shopping :)

This, "I shop-therefore I am" quote is just soooo totally not me! If there is something i dont like, thats shopping...i find it annoying and boring.  I know that it sounds odd for a woman to have this attitude towards shopping, but I do...i always have had it...im not the type of person who can just go around shops for hours, not to mention if i have to try things on...if there is one thing i hate, thats trying things on...so whenever i have to buy something coz its a must, then thats a torture...esp. if i dont know where exactly to get it...i know that due to that i have missed many good stuff but oh well....oh yeah, one more thing, i hate spending lots of money on clothes...im the happiest when i come across something i really like for little money...and im not a sinister...just that giving lots of money on clothes doesnt fulfill me....but for example, if it comes to a concert i really want to go, i really put no boundaries...so it just depends :)
I dont like window shopping either....but if i have to go a greater distance in order to see if a certain store has postcards, then i have no problem with it....yeah, im somewhat complicated i know :)

Wagamama

This came as an extra among other cards....at first i was wondering if i had asked for it or so....I was quite confused...but figured out that the sender had included it as an extra ....


Funny card....with a funny name....WAGAMAMA....which is a restaurant chain which has its places in UK, Neherlands, Australia, Turkey, UAE, Belgium, New Zealand, Switzerland, Egypt, Denmark and USA......but the card is sent from Poland! :)

The trademarked slogan is: positive eating + positive living

And I dont know what the picture should represent...probably like a curtain of wires falling on both sides and in the middle is the entrance....but to me it more looks like spaghetti....mmmmm, spaghetti....now that makes me hungry....

GuhL !!! :))))))

What, the country name surprised you? sounds weird? doesnt ring a bell where on planet Earth it is actually? Yeah well, to me either, so you are not alone :-)))))

DE-176804

I had to go with this one first for today...this is an official one from Germany, disguised in an AD-CARD!!! Yup, an ad-card!! :)

Im not sure if i had ever stated my feelings towards ad-cards, so ill do it now...NO ad cards for me, please! Thank You!

Now, whats the deal with ad-cards.....I dont hate them....in fact im aware that some of my favourite ones im looking for are probably ad-cards....but i dont like getting them unless i choose them myself. Simple as that!

Here was also that question of 'to register or not to register'....but i did....to be honest, this card is actually VERY decent and its not just a plain magazine paper, glued to some sheet and made as a card...this is probably the most cardboard and firm card i had ever received, so I definitely give credit for that....its not just some 'unnecessary piece of paper lying around' so lets send it and get rid of it (as ive seen some cases)....plus i like the ad....though at first i thought it was for a perfume or a deodorant....the flowers over the woman's head made me think so...then for a while i thought it was a shampoo...coz her hair looks very neat and lovely...until eventually, with my poor German, i read "Von Natur aus Stark"....and figured out its a hair-spray....yay, a point for me! :) Plus, i know you cant see it here, unless you maybe shake the screen and something happens....but this is one of the cards that when you move them, the image changes! (thats why it was impossible for the scanner to capture the 'flower-umbrella' above her head or to make a better scan)

So, all in all, despite the fact i have made a statement of 'no ad-cards' please....i definitely give credit to the girl who sent this....(well she told me herself, "you have to like it" :P)
So i didnt really have much choice left :-))))