The sender writes that her family just finished celebrating Dia de los Muertos , or Day of the Dead. She said they celebrate by lighting candles and make pan de muertos. She included a Day of the Dead postage stamp, too!

This card was sent from Michedorf, located about nine kilometres from Potsdam. The population is about 7500 people.  This card is a landscape painting by Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898). He was a Russian landscape painter and graphic artist. He is considered one of the most famous landscape painters of the post-reform era.  On 20 March 1898, he died suddenly of a heart attack is Saint Petersburg, sitting in front of a new painting. 

From the Bibliophilia: 100 LIterary Postcards  collection is a quote from Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness.  Heart of Darkness  was released as a serial in 1899. It tells of the Charles Marlow, a steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. It is a critique of European colonial rule in Africa. Captain Marlow is given an assignment to find an ivory trade worker named Kurtz. Kurtz works at a trading station far up the river and is suspected of "gone native."

I've received many cards from Cologne ( Köln) and sometimes forget what I have written about them. Since this card has a basketball playing racoon on it, I decided to check out Cologne's Basketball Bundesliga team. However, they don't have one, nor have they ever had one (as far as I can see). So down a league to the 2.Basketball Bundesliga, but no sign of a Cologne team. Cologne does have a team in the ProA, the second tier of professional basketball in Germany - the RheinStars  Köln.  RheinStars  Köln were founded in 1999 as the Cologne 99ers. They have also been the RheinEnergie  Köln and the  Köln 99ers. They have had their current moniker since 2013. They play in Motorworld Cologne, which has a capacity of 1700 people. They have won the German Championship once, three German Cups, and one BBL Champions Cup. RheinStars  Köln have only played in the ProA four seasons, playing at a variety of different levels starting with the 2.Regionliga, the 1.Regionli...

An American state card for Arizona. It shows that the state bird is a cactus wren; the state flower is the saguaro cactus blossom; the date of statehood was February 14, 1912; the capital city is Phoenix; and the population is 6 931 071. The sender is from Safford, a small city of just over 10 000 people, northeast of the  Pinaleño Mountains. Mining copper and gold are a big part of the local economy, and there is also an Arizona State Prison Complex here. Cotton is the main agricultural product and the city has a cotton gin.   

 

I just texted my colleague who speaks Mandarin and she explains that this card in Chinese culture, it is considered an auspicious beast, a symbol of protection, good fortune, and wealth. Many families and businesses display statues or images of it for luck.   

 

This is a kind of cool card of the various stops along the historic Route 66 Highway. The sender is from Bethalto and says he has been exploring different areas of the old Route 66 Highway. Parts of Route 66 still exist although much of it has be re-routed to more efficient Inter-State Highways. 

I am not much interested in physics, but I have always enjoyed posters and photos of Albert Einstein. This looks to be one of Einstein late in his life probably on the radio for an interview.  

 

I always like these info cards about a country. It shows a population of 5 503 879 people in Finland. Finland is 338 424 square kilometres. There are over 20 000 Postcrossing members. There are 2.2 million saunas, 188 000 lakes, and 98 000 islands. The Moomins have been translated into 44 languages. Famous Finns include Tove Jansson, Alvar Aalto, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and Kimi Raikkonen. The first registered Postcrossing association was in Finland in 2015. And in the northern most corner of Finland, the polar night lasts for 51 days.  The sender lives in Oulu, which is in west central Finland. She's a pharmacist and has a very busy and active life. And she loves to sauna!

A great photo of main street Timaru, looks like around Christmas time. It's a city of about 30 000 people. European settlement here began with a whaling station in 1839. An artificial port was created in 1877 to act as a breakwater. Timaru is an agricultural service town and a port. It is one of the major cargo ports on the South Island. Processing, packing, and distributing meat, dairy, and other agricultural produce is a large part of the economy. 

The painting on this card is entitled Head Studies of two African Men  painted by the Flemish artist, Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678). As well as being an artist, he was a draughtsman and a designers f tapestries and prints. Many of his paintings were biblical, mythological and allegorical compositions, genre scenes, landscapes, illustrations of Flemish sayings, and portraits. He became the leading Baroque painter of his time.

This is a nice card from Hong Kong. It translates to Take a deep breath.  Good advice when life gets hectic.  I also like the fact the sender created a photo that showed the stamps she used on the card. 

The sender is from Šiauliai, but the card is from  Plokščiai, a small municipality of about 776 people.  What I found interesting about this card were the postage stamps used. There are three of them depicting Vytenis, Algirdas, and  Kęstutis.  Vytenis is considered by modern historians to be the greatest of the LIthuanian ruler. His reign last for 21 years. He was the first of the Gedimid Dynasty and the first to establish a long reign, which led to establishing the dynasty's continuity and long term governance of Lithuania. Vytenis' reign was marked by almost constant warfare in order to consolidate the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.  Algirdas, I think a nephew or grand-nephew of Vytenis, ruled from 1345-1377. Along with brother,  Kęstutis, they drove out their youngest brother Jaunutis, to declare himself the Grand Duke in 1345. With  Kęstutis, they expanded the Lithuanian empire to within 80 km of Moscow. Upon his death,  Kęstutis became the ...

A very nice card of a Charley Harper print entitled Kirkland's Warblers. Charley Harper (1922-2007) was an American Modernist artist. He is known for his stylized wildlife prints, posters, and book illustrations. Harper called his style "minimal realism," meaning he tried to capture the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. Influences include Cubism, Minimalism, Einsteinian physics, and Modern art, and well as citing John James Audubon. 

A nice World Postcard Day meetup card from Bengaluru. By the looks of the signatures and ink stamps, there were about six people at this one. 

A lovely winter themed card from a Thai ex-pat. She says she isn't ready for winter, but does love the snow. That is good she enjoys the snow, because they receive an average of 26 cm of snow each year. They also get to -20 degrees Celsius in the winter.

In my bio for Postcrossing, I don't put any preferences for cards with the exception of lawn bowling (bowls). I think of the nearly 4200 cards I've received at this point, this is only the second or third bowls card I have received. Bowls is huge in Australia. They have professional leagues and tournament and often claim world championships and Commonwealth Games gold. This is a first day cover of Mark Casey, the 2006 Commonwealth Games (Melbourne) gold medalist. Mark Casey's gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 was with a triples team. He also won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, in 2010, again on a triples team. He has also won medals at the World Outdoor Championships - a gold in 2012 with the men's four team, and four silvers - 2 on the men's four team, and 2 with a triples team. He also has seven medals in the Asia Pacific Bowls Championships. Three golds (1 triples and 2 fours), three silvers (1 fours and 2 pairs), and a bronze...

A very nice World Postcard Day card from the Philippines. By the number of stamps and signatures on the back, it looks like about 20 attended this meetup. Dupax del Norte is a city of 36 000 people located in northern Philippines. It is located about 26 km from the provincial capital city of Bambang. 

Unfortunately the sender of this card has closed their account. Too bad. On the back of the card, she decorated it nicely and put on the following Bible passage: I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength  - Philippians 4:13. This passages comes from Letter A, which includes Philippians 4:10-20 and is a short thank-you note from Paul to the Philippian church, regarding gifts they had sent to him. The Philippian church was located in Philippi, a Greek city that was located on Thasos

Scene from a Studio Ghibli film entitled When Marnie Was There.  It is based on a book of the same name writen by English author Joan G. Robinson in 1967.  In the Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animated psychological drama and is set in Kushiro, Hokkaido. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year. 

Abraham Lincoln is considered by many American historians to be the best of the American presidents. He was the 16th president and took office at a time when the country was ready to split apart. The split had been coming for a couple of decades before but Lincoln's election victory in 1861 sparked many of the southern slave states to secede from the United States, calling themselves the Confederate States of America (CSA). The CSA then attacked Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Virginia, and American military fort, which started the American Civil War.  Lincoln was "hands on" during the American Civil War, closely supervising strategy and tactics laid out by his generals. He implemented a naval blockade of CSA ports. Lincoln avoided war with Great Britain during the Trent Affair - when two Confederate envoys were captured on British Royal Mail steamers.  On 1 January 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in the states "in rebellion...

This statue, created by Palo Picasso, is found in Daley Plaze in Chicago. It was commissioned by the architects of the Chicago Civic Center (Richard J. Daley Center). Three local charitable foundations paid for most of the cost of USD$351 959.17 (USD$3.2 million in 2022 dollars). Picasso refused a payment of USD$100 000, stating he wanted to make the work of art a gift to the city.  The statue was dedicated on 15 August 1967. It is 15.2 m tall and weighs 147 tonnes.  Picasso says the monument is of an Afghan Hound named Kabul. It is publicly accessible and children can be seen climbing on and sliding down the base of the sculpture. 

Marmara Ereğlisi a town of about 30 000 people and is about 90 km west of Instanbul. It is on the north shore of the Marmara Sea. It has an ancient history.  The card is a standard multi-photo card with six sites in Turkey: Pamukkale - an area famous for a carbonate mineral left by the flowing of thermal spring water. The area has attracted visitors tot he thermal springs for more than two millinea. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988.  Cappadocia - visitors come here to see the fairy chimneys, and the underground cities that were dug to offer protection during period of Christian persecution.  The Apollo Temple (Side) - was built around CE 150 during the Pax Romana era. It is a tourist attraction in Side, Antalya Province.  I'm Here  Türkiye - is a simple world map showing where Turkey is located. Marmaris - is a popular port city and tourist resort located on the Mediterranean coast, along what is called the Turkish Riviera. Tourism is the biggest ec...

The writer says they were in Frankfurt and writes: I really like such skylines in NYC's style so I find this postcard cool. However in my opinion, Frankfurt is very boring city. There is nothing interesting. I don't plan to visit the city again unless there is a concert there that I would really like to see.

A wonderful postcard from Stupsk, found in northern Poland. It is a village and the seat of the gmina (administrative district). 

A beautiful card of what I think is a national park in the Czech Republic. The sender is from Nymbruk, a town of 16 000 located on the Elbe River and about 35 km from Prague.  Nymburk was founded around 1275 by King Ottokar II and it became an important and strategic town.  During the reign of King Wenceslaus II, the Gothic Church of St. Nicholas (today Church of St. Giles) and the Dominican monastery were built. The town was surrounded by brick walls with 50 towers and two moats, fed by the Elbe.  Nymburk is home to Basketball Nymburk, the most successful basketball team in the Czech National Basketball League. They were founded in 1930 and have played under seven different monikers. They have won 20 Czech Championships - the championship of the Czech National Basketball League, and 15 Czech Cups - the annual national basketball championships for top tiered professional basketball teams, sponsored by the Czech Basketball Federation.  Their last Czech Championship wa...

This card comes from south west Taiwan, and the photo is found in Kenting National Park  墾丁國家公園. It was established in 1984 and is Taiwan's oldest and southernmost national park on the main island. It covers 333 square kilometres.  This card was sent on World Postcard Day in 2024. 

The sender writes he just got back to the States after a five week vacation in Japan, and he took his two young sons with him. What a great experience it would be for his sons to experience such a different culture. 

Ashburn is a city of almost 50 000 people and located about 50 km north west of Washington, DC. It is a part o the Washington Metropolitan Area. It is a major hub for Internet traffic due to its many data centres.  Due to the location of the then built Washington Dulles International Airport in 1962, Ashburn's population saw a significant increase as it was a strategic site for suburban and technological expansion. Development really took off int he 1980s and 90s as suburban neighbourhoods and planned communities transformed the area into a major residential zone in Northern Virginia.  The 2000s saw Ashburn become a hub for glob al internet infrastructure because of reliable electricity and access to fibre-optic networks. Today it has one of the highest concentration of data centres int he world. 

Did you know that Austin is home to the Austin Outlaws and five time champion of Major League Quadball? Quadball is another name for quidditch, the game featured in the Harry Potter novels. Due to author JK Rowling's views on transgender people and to avoid potential legal battles with Warner Bros Studios, the league changed the name from Major League Quidditch, to Major League Quadball. Major League Quadball has 15 teams - 13 in the United States and 2 in Canada - and was founded in 2015. Teams play in three geographically divided divisions. Teams play teams only in their division. The top four teams in each division make the playoffs, with the top 2 teams getting berths in the quarterfinals, while the 3rd and 4th ranked teams have to play a play-in game. The winner of the playoffs wins the Benepe Cup.  The Austin Outlaw won the Benepe Cup in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Their state sisters, the San Antonio Soldados are the current champions.