This is a card that shows an aaierbal, or egg ball. The sender says that they are "a typical snack from the north of the Netherlands. They're a hard boiled egg cooked in a thick spicy vagous(?), breaded, and then fried." She says her husband enjoys them at football games. 

This photo looks like it’s from one of those beachside basketball courts in Los Angeles. The sender, however, is from Zaandam. Zaandam is a city of almost 80 000 people located on the river Zaan. Claude Monet lived in Zaandam for a year and created 25 paintings of the area. The most famous of these is Houses on the Achterzaan . Painted in oil on canvas, it depicts riverside garden houses along the west shore of the Achterzaan River. Monet painted the scene from the dam, facing northwest. Today, the painting is part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. An interesting fact about Zaandam is that the first European McDonald's opened here in 1971.

This is a photo of the Hackfort  Waterwheel in Vor den, Netherlands.  

This card was created by modern-day Dutch artist Ferdy Remijn. The sender says they often vacation is Remijn's hometown in the Netherlands. She also says that he only draws animals. 

Almost 40 000 people call Sneek home. It is located in northern Netherlands. They have their own dialect of Dutch called Snekers. One of the popular tourist sites is the Waterpoort, or Hoogendster Pijp. It is a water gate and a defensive wall that connect the city to the harbour. The Waterpoor in Sneek was built as part of a defensive wall being built around Sneek. Most of the defensive walls were demolished in the 18th century but the Waterpoort was left intact. 

The sender found this old, used card in a thrift shop and re-used it. They covered up the original address with a label, but I can make out Amsterdam and Nederland on it. They even covered the old postage stamps with new, Germany stamps. This card is coming from Germany, originally sent to the Netherlands, and is of a Belgian scene. Cool!

The card shows a view from the village of Bourtange , which today has a population of around 430. The village is best known for Fort Bourtange , a star-shaped fortress built under the orders of William the Silent and completed in 1593. Its strategic purpose was to control the only road linking Germany with the city of Groningen , which at the time was held by Spain during the Eighty Years' War . The fort saw its final battle in 1672 and remained part of the Dutch defensive network along the German border until 1851. That year it was decommissioned and gradually developed into a village. Today, Fort Bourtange has been carefully restored and operates as a historical museum.

A cute card from a Dutch tween. She lives in Hoogeveen, located in northern Netherlands. It was developed in the 17th century as a peat colony. To transport the peat, wijken, or smaller canals were dug every 160 meters. This created a grid of canals in Hoogeveen. The canals were the main method of transportation for not only peat, but other goods.  In the 1960s, with the rise of automobile and truck transport, many of the smaller canals lost their economic importance and many were filled in. 

As always I appreciate an effort to send me a lawn bowls card. Sometimes I get a lane bowling card instead.  Son en Breugel is found just outside of Eindhoven. There are about 17 500 people who live there. Son en Breugel were two separate villages - Son and Breugel, with the stream of Dommel separating them. It was during the reign of Napoleon when the two villages were merged into one. 

Tulip mania was a period during the Dutch Golden Age. Prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and fashionable tulip reached extraordinarily high levels. In began about 1634 and then collapsed in 1637.  Tulips were introduced to Europe by Ogier de Busbecq, the Holy Roman ambassador to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He sent the first seeds to Vienna in 1554. Bulbs were distributed to Amsterdam soon after. Tulips popularity in Netherlands began in 1593 and Carolus Clusius, a Dutch botanist, planted his collection of tulip bulbs and found they could tolerate the harsh conditions of the Low Countries of Holland.  Tulips became a coveted luxury item, and many varieties were bred. 

Aalsmeer is a town of 32 000 and is home to the largest flower auction in the world. The Aalsmeer Flower Auction ( Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer) is found in a building that almost covers a million square metres. Flowers from all over the world are traded every day and about 43 million flowers are sold daily. This goes up by about 15% around Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. Flowers are quality checked about 30 times so they can be graded on a scale.  The auction is a Dutch auction, which means the price starts high and works its way down. Bidders only get a few seconds to bid. 

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

An unusual name, 's-Hertogenbosch is a contraction of the Dutch des Hertogen bosch (the forest of the duke). The duke was Henry I (1165-1235), Duke of Brabant. 's-Hertogenbosch was given city rights when Henry was 26. Today, 's-Hertogenbosch's people use Den Bosch when talking about their city.  's-Hertogenbosch is the capital city of North Brabant and is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands by population - 161 000.  In 1984, artist and sculptor Dries Kreijkamp built the Bolwoningen in the Maaspoort neighbourhood of 's-Hertogenbosch. They are 50 spherical houses grouped together near a canal. The grant was given to build experimental housing. The houses were prefabricated and could be set up in one day. They were also designed to have low energy consumption and east to maintain.  The houses had three levels - level one is the bedroom, level two is the bathroom, and the third level is the living space. Round windows on level three offered panoramic views of...

Lelystad is a very new city, founded in 1967, and built on reclaimed land. It was named after Cornelis Lely, who engineered the Afsluitdijk (dam and causeway) that made the reclamation of the land possible. Lelystad three metres below sea level. 

A great card of football terminology (in German). The sender in a Bayern Munich fan.  Bocholt is located 4 km from the border of Netherlands. It was first mentioned in documents in 779, when Charlemagne won a battle against the Saxons nearby. Today it is a city of over 70 000 people and is mainly a manufacturing town. Textiles are a main industry, but is declining. It is a leading manufacturer of transmissions for wind energy plants. Industries here are smaller and manufacture highly specialized products.  Bicycles are the norm here and the bicycle network is vast and convenient. In 2005 and 2006, Bocholt was named "most bicycle-friendly city in Germany" (for cities of less than 100 000 people. 

 In Germany, September is Low Germany month. Low German is a German dialect spoken mainly in Northern Germany and in north east Netherlands. There is also a version common to those of Russian Mennonite background. In my part of Canada, there are a lot of Hutterites and Mennonites and their first language is low German. Hutterite on the colony take German classes before regular school begins. 

Fact card about Dutch cows, of which there are 1.6 million of in the Netherlands. 

The front of the card reads Greetings from Middelkerke Westende.  Middelkerke is a coast municipality on the Belgian coast. Here's an interesting fact: Middelkerke was the first municipality in the world to have their drinking water disinfected by continuous chlorination.  The senders were on vacation in Middelkerke. They are from Zutphen. It's located in east central Netherlands and has almost 50 000 people. It is an ancient city dating back to 300 CE. Zetphen is called the tower city because there are no modern high rise buildings. Instead there are tower spires that figure prominently in the skyline. There are also over 400 national monuments and over 500 local monuments.

A nice Postcrossing Meetup card from Kevelaer - their second meet up in May 2024. Looks like about 15-16 people were there, based on the number of signatures and stamps found on the back. Kevelaer is in western Germany, very near the border of Netherlands.  Kevelaer is the largest Catholic pilgrimage location in north-west Europe. One million Marian devotees from Germany and the Netherlands, visit the Basilica of Kevelaer every year to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to tradition, a merchant named Hendrik Busman, days before Christmas 1641, heard a voice say three times "Here thou shall build me a chapel." He began to set money aside but didn't want his wife to find out. She had her own vision near Pentecost in which she saw a little chapel containing a print of Our Lad y of Consolation, all bathed in light. Two passing soldiers confirmed the story who saw the house light up at night. Two other soldiers tried to sell her two copperplate engravings with the sme i...

A very cool reproduction of a bicycle ad from the 1800s. The Columbias were a brand name for the first high-wheelers produced (copied) by Pope Manufacturing, of Boston. The Columbias became the model name for a series of bicycles.