Give a Word, Get a Card & Other Postcrossing Stuff

Postcrossing! Anyone who bothers reading this blog probably knows about it already, but I still like talking about it, so shush. At the moment, I can have 10 postcards travelling simultaneously. All the slots are currently filled and I await (with slight impatience) for some of them to arrive at their destinations so I can send more. Here are the latest three that have hopped into the mailbox:

Chongqing, China

Hoorn, NL

Minsk, Belarus

Five of the ones currently on their way are going to Russia, and for some reason the trip there takes forever regardless of where in that ginormous country they're headed to. Apparently, the Russian postal system leaves something to be desired. At least I've now unticked the option saying I don't mind sending more than one card to the same country simultaneously. I seem to recall the wording of that option to be different not too long ago... Well, I'm glad they've made it clearer now.


On the Postcrossing Forum, I'm taking part in Laura's round robin "Give a Word, Get a Card" — which is, essentially, a translated version of a round robin that was established in the Finnish sub-forum quite a while ago. The idea is, you think up three words and a "spare" word. Each of those three words, plus the spare word, is given to a different fellow participant whose task then is to send a card corresponding to that word. Everyone gets three cards and three words. It's up to the person who gets each word how they interpret it. My words for this round were celestial, tentacles, and fantasy, the spare word being duckling. I've received two of the three, and sent all of mine (Buddha, travel, abandon). Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to scan the ones I sent :/ But here are tentacles (from a fisherman in Ireland) and fantasy (from Russia)!

I would like to mention a tag I took part in a while back. It's dedicated to handmade cards, and each person tagging leaves a request for the next tagger. The person I tagged wished for a mandala. I originally intended to design my own, but in the end printed out and coloured in one from a website that provides free templates. I expressed a desire for something Jane Austen related, and received this lovely Pride and Prejudice card. Fairly certain that the quote is from the 2005 movie as opposed to the book, which vexes me a little (not a huge fan of said film) but it's still quite nice.

This here is Emrik. He's a travelling toy that came to me from Russia via Germany or Netherlands and a couple of other countries. He was only supposed to stay for a couple of weeks, but then I kept him for a couple of months and when I did send a message to the owner saying I was ready to send Emrik forward, there was no response. I don't think she's even read the message. In fact, I'm not sure whether she has been to the forum since November. I hope I won't have to hold on to him forever — it would be a shame for his journey to be cut so short. :(

Reading Beowulf.

Posing with the Irish poet Tony Curtis.

There will probably be quite a few Postcrossing-related entries. It's... one of my more important hobbies right now, I suppose. Be prepared. :D