Thursday Postcard Hunt | Expensive

I was hesitant to upload a postcard to this week Thursday Postcard Hunt, the theme being A place you would not like to visit (for whatever reason). Ont the one hand, I did not wish to offend anyone, sender or reader. On the other hand, my first thought when I get any postcard is often: "What a nice place to visit!". 

However, two weeks ago I got this postcard from Denmark (thanks to Phillip & Brian!). Lately, news from Danish postal service are too sad. Getting mail from there would become more difficult (or impossible?) after 2025, so I was more than happy to receive this one.

The city seems really beautiful but... Have you noticed the price of the postage?

50 DKK = 6,70 € = 7,87 USD = 10,68 CAD

Surely, the prohibitive price of postage or the impossibility of sending mail from there are enough reasons not to visit a place!

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
July theme: TRAVEL

• Week 1 - Your Own Country
• Week 2 - A place you'd like to visit (but haven't)
• Week 3 - A place you would not like to visit (for whatever reason)
• Week 4 - Getting around (train, bus, plane, stations, airports)
• Week 5 - Your happy place (beach, mountains, parks, cities, islands...)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Sunday Stamps | Vilains

Sunday Stamps is today dedicated to Stories and folk tales. This is a recurrent theme on this blog, and I have used it for recent Sunday Stamps (here and here). So, I thought I was run out of stamps, but I remembered these Disney vilains. I am sure you recognize most of them!

Honest John (Pinocchio)
Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)
Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
Scar (The Lion King)

Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)
Lady Tremaine (Cinderella)
Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)

Cruella De Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmatians)
Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland)

Sunday Stamps | Melusina

Today's theme in Sunday Stamps is Of the Sea. Look at what I found!

According to the legend, Melusina was the wife of Count Siegfried I. In 963, he built his castle on the Bock promontory, above the Alzette, for his lovely wife, who had laid down two conditions before consenting to the marriage: she wished to be alone every Saturday at noon without being disturbed. Siegfried’s curiosity allegedly led him to observe his wife on a Saturday through the keyhole and discover that her legs were turning into a fishtail. His scream betrayed him and Melusina disappeared in the Alzette. Even today, it is said that she appears every seven years.

By the way, this is the first time I have got mail from Luxembourg! Although this was a Postcrossing postcard, and its ID was French (FR-...). But actually sent from a neighbouring country!

One of These Postcards Features a Real Place

Realms of the Imagination
Sveta Dorosheva, 2023

Sent by Phillip (the USA) and Laura (the UK).

Hope Your Birthday Is a Splash

 Two beautiful birthday cards with mermaids, received the same day (months ago). 

Today's the 12th birthday of Mail Adventures so... Thanks for reading!

 And more birthday cards...

On this occasion I will give you good advice...

Don't worry! (Also meaning: Don't hit yourself!)
Happy Birthday!

¡Viva la Vida!

Envelope made out of a calendar by Fabienne (France), with a Frida-themed matching postcard, to be added to this small collection of postcards...

The stamp enters the 2022 competition of EUROPA stamps. The theme this year is Stories & Myths, and the French stamp features Mélusine, a legendary creature coming from chivalrous stories and medieval tales and depicted as a mermaid, a reptile from the hips down, or a dragon.

You can see here all the 2022 EUROPA stamps.

Eleven

Tomorrow is the 11th bloganniversary. The blog is getting almost more birthday cards than myself...! 

Well, not! :D

So... What can I say?

And...

Jabberworks

 

It is extra nice when you order something and it arrives inside a hand-drawn envelope! 

(From Sarah McIntyre, the UK).

I tried to draw one of McIntyre's characters...

Happy Earth Day (2): Mermaids Hate Plastic

 

This is one of the stamps the United Nations issued for Earth Day 2020. It shows the work of Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong. All he used for creating this fascinating work of art was 10,000 plastic bottles and a mermaid. You can read the story here.

"No water, no life.
No blue, no green."

On the postcard, the marine biologist, explorer and aquanaut Sylvia Earle, drawn by Rachel Ignotofsky. 

Mermaids on the Mail

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Have I Already Said the World Needs More Scientists?

Mamie Phipps-Clark(1917-1983)
Psychologist and Civil Rights Activist
"I began to think that a crucial part of children's lives,
no matter what happens, has to be a degree of 
security and acceptance."

Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906-1972)
Theoretical Physicist
"When you love science, all you really want is to keep working"

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000)
Inventor and Film Actress
"[My father] made me understand that I must make my own
decisions, mold my own character, think my own thoughts."

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994)
Biochemist and X-ray Crystallographer
"I was captured for life by chemistry and by crystals."

The last one arrived with the Innovation stamps and First Day pictorial postmark (also on this post):

Blue Cats

This is one of the bluest Blue Cats by Irina Zeniuk. Sent by Heleen, from the Netherlands).

These cats seemed to be very popular among postcrossers. However, I had not got any of them until last year. I am not the biggest fan of (real) cats, but these illustrations are just wonderful. I even have made an album to gather all the blue cats I have got!

Bugs Bunny Stamps

The Bugs Bunny stamps were issued by the USPS on July 2020. The 20-stamps sheet include 10 different designs, featuring 80-years-old Bugs Bunny in 10 classic costumes: as a barber, a baseball player, a soldier, a mermaid, etc.

I find the stamps funny and cheerful. Traditional stamps collectors, however, are no fans of this issue, or so I have read. For instance, here.

A case can be made that one Bugs Bunny stamp was enough. The 1997 32¢ stamp (Scott 3137) shown here filled that bill nicely, especially so because of the varieties that make the issue interesting.

And yet, July 27 of this year saw the release of not one but 10 new Bugs Bunny stamps.

While I don’t want to be in the running for curmudgeon of the year, 10 new Bugs Bunny stamps seem excessive to me. But this is a case of the United States Postal Service trying to tempt people into becoming stamp collectors, or at least trying to get the Bugs lovers to invest in a pane or two to keep as a collectable and never use as postage.

(John M. Hotchner)

What do you think?

Ancient Greece

Athenian stamnos showing Odysseus
sailing past the Sirens, c. 480-470 BC

Roman bust of Homer (2nd century AD,
copy of an original of the 2nd century BC).

The mail brings always things you are interested in... like postcards (and more) about the Iliad (and Ancient Greece in general) when I am reading the book!

"Helen of Troy" and "Cassandra"
1898, Evelyn De Morgan

Hypatia (350-370 CE - 415 CE [?])
By Rachel Ignotofsky

From Laura (the UK) and Phillip (the USA).

A Russian postcrosser stuck this wonderful mini-sheet on the back of the postcard she sent. It shows a World Cultural Heritage site: the Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its chora, the remains of a city founded by Dorian Greeks in the 5th century BC on the northern shores of the Black Sea, nowadays Ukraine.