First Official Card

 

Today was a big surprise.  
My first official card arrived, after traveling 9 days from US, as well.

It's a reproduction of a vintage card, one of many 1950 style, covering American States. Even the paper feels like a vintage one, although is linen brand new.
There are states symbol all over it.
Firstly, in the upper left corner there is the California poppy (Eschscholzia Californica). This was designated the state flower of California in 1903. It is also known under different names such as "the flame flower", "la amapola" or "copa de oro" (cup of gold)., The flower grows wild throughout California and native Indians valued it as a food source and for the oil extracted from the plant. Every year, April 6 is California Poppy Day and May 13th - 18th is Poppy Week.
The lower right corner is taken by the California State Capitol build in Neoclassical style and home of the State Government .
All letters that form CALIFORNIA host something representative for this state.
The well know are the Golden Gate Bridge (first A) and The Chandelier Tree (last I). For the others letters I have some difficulties identifying the symbols exactly. Here is a better resolution picture and perhaps someone will be kind enough to help.

On the backside there were two other surprises (beside the text from the sender): a beautiful round forever stamp and a QR code with a California Sunset small movie. I love scanning QR codes, even this practice is not so popular among forum users.
The stamp was issued in 22 April 2014 and features a visual representation of our planet’s sea surface temperature, with North America continent in the center. Very beautiful and educational.

Thanks for all, Jacqueline!

Country: United States
Description: Reproduction of a Vintage Postcard
Photo: DavidAllensCardCollection.com #1004

Luxembourg Birthday Project

Today I've send a Birthday Project Card in Luxembourg, according to this forum post. Hope to be a nice present surprise for Yannick. Early Happy Birthday!

My very first card

When you're starting to use postcrossing you get anxious to receive new mail, as a sign that everything is as it's promised to be. I didn't knew that in order to receive a postcard, my own had to arrive & be registered first. So, those days when my mailbox was forever empty were quite grey.

Fortunately, since I've begun to activate in the forum too, a user was kind enough to request my postal address via U2U in order to send me a welcome postcard. I gladly gave him my address but I was rather skeptical about receiving anything.

But reality turned to be contrary. Today in may mailbox was... something. A colorful postcard with Kentucky hot air balloons race. The first Great Balloon Race was held at Iroquois Park in 1973, and featured only seven balloons. However, the Great Balloon Race quickly became one of the most popular Kentucky Derby Festival events, and what was once just the Great Balloon Race is now an entire weekend festival of hot air ballooning events.
The two forever stamps are a part of the 10 Songbirds Collection issued in April 2014 to celebrate those ten melodic voices and depicts a western meadowlark and the Baltimore oriole. Finally, the small stamp features a portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, being issued in April 2011.


This beautiful card gives me the courage to continue on PostCrossing.
Thank you, Ron.

Country: United States
Description: The annual Derby Day Balloon Race in Louisville, Kentucky.
Photo: Courtesy of Kentucky Department of Travel Development.
Location: here.

First card found its shelter

The first card that reached its destination was this one, traveling 11 days over the Atlantic Ocean. It was one of the very first 5 that I send. I was glad that the winter scenery was a delight to receiver.

The beginning...

As always, there should be a beginning. 

Mine was not so spectacular. I found out about postcrossing project following a link posted on EuroBillTracker links page. Obviously, it was love at first sight. Well, not quite "first sight" because 10 years ago I was also starting my own project collecting Orthodox Postcards.

So, I was a little familiar with what postcards collecting is all about. But the idea "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person in the world" fitted me like a glove.

So I signed up, filled my profile and I started to send...