Vilnius (Lithuania)

This is a terrific private swap with a PostCrosser in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania! I don’t usually love multiview postcards, but these photos are so soft that they almost look like illustrations. I’ve never been to this part of Europe (I’ve never been further east than Salzburg or Stockholm!) but I’ve long been fascinated with the Baltic countries.

flower loving fox (Finland)

This beautiful postcard arrives via Postcrossing, bringing joy and love and beauty. The soft colors and rounded corners really add to the feelings friendship and love.

rainbow moon rise (Canada)

This beautiful postcard comes from my new penpal Ray in BC, Canada. I love the reflection of the rainbow moon in the water over the couple. The bright lights of the sip off-shore are a nice touch, echoing the dim embers of their beach fire. It’s an evocative scene indeed.

Quarantine Land (Germany)

This delightful and incredibly witty postcard is a sendup of a popular postcard theme featuring the national flag and some myths and facts about countries. I love the refuting of myths about CoVID-19 and the facts provided instead. Here’s to saner heads prevailing, more care for one another, and less selfishness overall.

Coors Hospitality Center (Arizona)

The sender of this terrific postcard laments “what’s happened to [San Fran and Seattle]” and hopes that I “actively [try] to make San Fran a better, safer place.” Unfortunately, it seems that this sender has fallen prey to the greatly exaggerated accounts about West Coast cities’ decay. Remember folks, you can’t believe everything you see on TV or read on the internet. The problem with for-profit news is that it stops being news after a while and starts being click-bait and scare-o’clock fear mongering. Reach out to your friends and family who live in these places to see what the reality is.

And I also recommend you get out of your cars once in a while if you don’t live in a densely-populated area. Chances are, the only time you spend on your feet is in private places like homes and business, and not in any truly public spaces like parks, sidewalks, or libraries. The problems that we see every day in SF like homelessness and drug addiction are present across the US, but if you only zip from home to work to big-box store and home in your car, you’re never forced to come face-to-face with the predictable results of failed public policy. And it’s easy to convince yourself that it’s only a problem in dense cities on the coasts, and not a problem in your very own suburbs.

image by Chuck Theodore (Colorado) (Copy)

This beautiful postcard comes from a fellow PostCrosser who also has lots of indoor plants. She lists the many she has, including those she found on discounted racks at some point in the past! I’m too scared to bring home plants from dubious homes (fungus gnats are real!), but I love the idea of saving forgotten and forlorn plants.

le maître d’école, par Hansi (France)

I’m writing this one in English, even though I usually write about postcards from Francophone senders in French. This is because I presume most Francophones are familiar with Hansi, a famous writer and illustrator from Alsace. Dominique writes that he was famous for his caricatures of German authorities (including schoolteachers) when Alsace was under the authority of the Second Reich between 1870 and 1918.

raw currant cashew cake (Russia)

This beautiful image comes from Komi, Russia. The sender wrote entirely in Russian on the back; I’m pleased with my ability to decode the handwriting and type it into Google translate to discover that the sender wrote a poem (I think!). It made me think: I can decode at least five writing systems… in descending order of ability, they are:

• Latin alphabet (e.g. English, Spanish, Tagalog)

• Hanzi characters (e.g. Chinese, parts of Japanese)

• Hangul alphabet (e.g. Korean)

• Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Russian, Bulgarian)

• Greek alphabet (e.g. Greek)

I should really learn a syllabary (e.g. Cherokee, parts of Japanese), an abugida (e.g. Hindi), and an abjad (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew) to round out my script abilities!

“twosday” (Netherlands)

What a delight this postcard is! The sender is very excited about this special date, going so far as to order postcards with this great date. She writes that in Europe (And most of the world, for that matter), this date is a palindrome: 22022022! Sadly, the US has some obstinate need to force itself into pseudo-uniqueness, so we can’t really have that claim here. On the other hand, we do have Pi Day on March 14 (3.14 or π) and near as I can tell this is a uniquely US holiday due to our habit of writing the month before the date.

Irkutsk (Russia)

What a beautiful building this is, in the equally beautiful city of Irkutsk! The sender of this postcard, also an English teacher, indicates that it’s near Lake Baikal, which is also one of my dream destinations! I’m particularly excited to visit the lake and perhaps even see some Lake Baikal seals!

Mt. St. Helens (Oregon)

No, Mt. St. Helens is not in Portland, but it is part of the Cascades Range and the volcanic chain that stretches down from Canada to northern California. Mt. St. Helens famously erupted on May 18, 1980 after 123 years of inactivity. This view does, however, show the view of the eruption from Portland, Oregon!

gay pride (Netherlands)

In my PostCrossing profile, I invite people to send postcards that have an LGBTQ theme and to tell me about LGBTQ people where they live. I’m always a little embarrassed when people from the Netherlands or Denmark or Canada, for example, write about LGBTQ people because they have a much longer history of progressivism and celebration than we do in the US. This terrific postcard is a great reminder of that history in the Netherlands.

For example, t

he Netherlands was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage (2001), followed by Belgium (2003), and Spain and Canada (2005). Here in the US, we lagged behind them and South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Denmark, Brazil, France, Uruguay, New Zealand, England and Wales, Scotland, and Luxembourg before permitting it nationwide in 2015.

le Pigeonnier, Eguisheim (France)

J’ai déjà réçu une carte postale de ce bâtiment, mais pas de ce point de vue. J’adore voir les ruelles étroites entre les maisons qui pendent sur les chemins! Je vois une mélange de l’architecture française avec celle des allemands dans ce photo-là. Merci à Dominique pour cette très belle carte postale!

PS - Avez-vous noté les cigognes en bas et à droit? Je sais que les cigognes sont nombreux en Europe, mais je ne connais pas la raison pour leur apparence ici.

Alsace (France)

Voici une carte postale de mon ami Dominique, qui continue à trouver des cartes postales si belles et intéréssantes. Celle-ci de la ville d’Alsace, que j’adorai visiter dans le futur proche. Malheureusement, il écrit qu’il s’est tombé malade avec le CoVID, sûrement du vague Omicron, mais heureusement, il n’a pas eu de mauvaise expérience grâce aux vaccins. Nous avons beaucoup de gens à remercier, surtout les medecins, réchercheurs, infermiers, etc. etc. qui nous ont sauvé du pire de la pandémie.

Canadian icons

This is the first postcard from my new penpal, Ray, in British Columbia. It features so many of the iconic elements of Canada and is a real delight to behold! Given how close my childhood home is to Canada and how frequently we traveled there, I’m surprised that I don’t know more of these, especially the food items. Maybe it’s because we didn’t have any close Canadian friends or family members? Of course, maple syrup and maple trees are quite popular in Michigan, as are Canada geese and moose. We have no grizzly bears in Michigan, but we do have black bears. We didn’t often have Loonies growing up, but our pockets were always composed of 10% Canadian coins. Outside of the dollar coins, they’re the same size, shape, weight, and denomination (even if the relative values varied). I was always scandalized when a vending machine - or worse, a store! - refused to accept Canadian coins.

Did you know? (Louisiana)

Our dear friend Laura is just wrapping up a year-long work trip to New Orleans - it’s hard to believe it passed so quickly! She sent this terrific postcard from the city she’s called home for the past several months. I love trivia and quick facts like this so much! I also can’t wait to hear more about what came out of the project!

San Antonio River Walk (Texas)

This postcard comes from my friend and colleague, Ken, who was recently visiting family in Texas in advance of a big move. How did I not know he was from Texas (or at least had family there)?!

If you haven’t visited the San Antonio River Walk, I highly recommend it. Especially on a warm evening, it’s a great place to walk around and shop and grab a margarita. I know it’s a tourist-trap, but it’s one of my favorite places in Texas.

tulitikkuenkeli (Finland)

This lovely winter postcard comes from Finland, where the sender was quite busy on the day they sent this postcard. I love the warm glow of the candle warming up this little angel!

Femme de profil (Madame Lucy) (United Kingdom)

This postcard features a detail from the painting Femme de profil (Madame Lucy) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and was sent by my former student XD. She traveled from the United Kingdom, where she lives, to Paris and later to Norway recently, and sent this postcard upon her return! It’s really beautiful.

great white shark dental hygiene (California)

This delicious postcard comes from YL, and must be a part of the great set that her boyfriend surprised her with earlier. It features one of my most favorite animals of all time - the great white shark (one of the few animals with a direct translation in Chinese) - with a truly fantastic speech bubble: 每天都會用完一盒牙線呢！If my translation is correct, it’s: I go through a whole box of dental floss every day! If they didn’t lose and replace their teeth so regularly, I’d believe it!