You Can’t Erase LGBTQ (Belarus)

The sender of this postcard lives in Belarus but purchased this postcard in Dubai while visiting with friends. She wrote it with a German Kaweco pen gifted to her by a Swedish friend. The postcard itself was printed in Los Angeles, so it made this very long trip around half of the world. Terrific!

Tsou youth (Taiwan)

This terrific postcard comes from a former student who traveled to Taiwan recently and searched high and low for this postcard, which highlights Aboriginal culture in Taiwan. This is a photo taken during the Japanese colonial period of Taiwan and features a young Tsou person. The Tsou presently live primarily in Chiayi and Nantou Counties.

Gruss aus Schwerte (Germany)

I’ll admit that I don’t usually love multi-view postcards, but this one is certainly an exception. I love the geometric and irregular shapes of the images, especially the circle in the center. I also love the rainbow pattern of the borders between the images. And I also love the mix of old/traditional architecture with new buildings and art. This postcard is a definite winner!

Buskirk-Chumley Theater (Indiana)

Another beautiful postcard from the inimitable Nozomi has arrived ! This one is really great; who doesn’t love an old theater with neon lights and a giant marquee? If you don’t live in a town with such a theater, I think you’re really missing out on a great chunk of the US experience.

Eisenach (Germany)

What an absolutely stunning card! I love the hand-drawn character of it and of course the brilliant splash of colors is a true beauty! This is a PostCrossing gem and one of the many reminders of how great this community is.

The sender writes about how important Eisenach is, culturally and historically. It’s the birthplace of both Martin Luther and J.S. Bach, and also one of the places that Georg Philipp Telemann and Richard Wagner lived. There’s so much more to tell, but maybe I’ll wait until I’ve visited it myself!

bubbles and berry (Ukraine)

This delicious postcard comes from a private swap with a Postcrossing person in Ukraine! I love how she wrote “May you always have someone to raise a glass of wine with on a happy occasion.” It’s a great toast!

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.