Azorean Pics

I spent three weeks in the Azores Islands (Portugal) last summer, and I want just share some pics with you.

Postboxes in Horta (Faial) and in Ponta Delgada (São Miguel).

I took this picture in the tea factory of Porto Formoso,
but then I discovered this is the normal mail box in
most of the houses of the island.

São Jorge is a very steep island,
so sometimes the post office workers have to use this vehicles.
It is impossible to deliver the correspondence otherwise!

I love the inscription: "Vehicle driven by a professional!".
I took this picture in Povoação (São Miguel).

Post office in Horta (Faial)

Why Are You Worrying Me?

«As the post office clerk was sticking the stamps and the label for express delivering on the envelope, Perlmann asked him how long, in his view, it would take to arrive. The clerk shrugged.

'Three days, a week. No idea.'

Why should it take a week? Perlmann asked irritably. The man threw the envelope into a basket, counted the money and then  looked at Perlmann in silence for a second or two.

'As I said, no idea.'

So why are you worrying me, then?»

Pascal Mercier, Perlmann's Silence

Bookmarks Shape

Sent to Heleen (the Netherlands).

This is a little envelope which contained some bookmarks. I wrote the address in a baggage label. I would like to find these kind of labels more often in the airports!

Also published here.

Loling in Progress

Collage sent by Jon Foster (the USA).

Also published here.

The back:

Swedish Pastries

Sent by Karin (Sweden).

Niet zo, maar zo

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Illustration by Fiep Westendorp (1916-2004): "Tien geboden voor ouders" (='Ten commandments for parents'), published in Het Parool (20 October 1960). I admire the works of this illustrator, and I am happy to have received some drawings of her so far.

I received this postcard some months ago, but I decided to post it now that here the school year is starting. In fact, this is a school for parents. The teacher is showing to the parents how to act: "Niet zo, maar zo" (='Not this/that way, but this/that way').  

It arrived inside an envelope. For this reason the post-worker couldn't see what was written in the blackboard. So (s)he didn't know the right way to cancel the stamps...

Green from Greece

Sent by Dimitra (Greece).

Blue Dreams Of A Child

Sent to Eve (the USA).

Collage made of press cuttings, a reused magazine for children, labels of cheese, stickers, a reused shop bag, washi tape and a T-shirt label. Yes: I like to list what I used for the collages when I finish. It is a way to realise that everything can be (re)used! Finding materials is a funny part of the process.

This collage was made for the Mail a Smile 6th challenge (in July). The theme was Your favourite childhood book. I chose the Smurfs (of course!). But I put a lot of people on the collage, so I also sent a postcard to Eve, just to clarify which was my childhood secret dream (well, not so secret now...):

By the way, the Mail a Smile theme for this month is The 80ies. You have until 31st September to participate! 

Longing for Me

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

In fact the title of this illustration in Longing for her, by the illustrator Osamu Komatsu. But I found the postcard in my post office box when I came back after some weeks outside the country. It was as if this unknown man had been waiting for me...

You cannot imagine a stamp which fits more for this postcard: the shadow of the lighthouse!

Macarons

Sent by Laura (the UK).

A gorgeous postcard that fits in my album of multiples on postcards (I think). Do you know the macarons? A macaron is a confection as delicious as expensive, that makes me always think of the sender... It is difficult to find someone who loves more this sweets!

By the way, I read in the Wikipedia that the right name is macaron: "Not to be confused with Macaroon, Macron, McCarron, or Macaroni". But in the back of the postcars was written Macaroons (?).

More sweet postcards:

Received from Tonina and Xisca (Sweden).

Sent by Karina (Ukraine), via Postcrossing.

More Postcards from Philippines

Two postcards sent by Maria (Philippines). 

The first shows the lighthouse in Basco (the Batanes Islands). The sender wrote was this is the only postcard featuring a lighthouse available in her country. I can understand because it is the same in Morocco. It is really difficult to find postcards of lighthouses, or sometimes even beautiful postcards (but I am discovering new sellers...). Beside the lighthouse is a jeepney, the most popular public transportation in Philippines.

The second postcard features a water buffalo, a common farm animal there. 

The stamps are very interesting. This one shows a tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis), an endemic mammal to the island of Mindoro.

This is the second tamaraw I have got! 

I Promise

(Taken from here).

Greek Mail Art

Three collages (front and back) made by Katerina (Greece) for the VQR Postal Project:

First Class Mail

«Only when he heard von Levetzov thanking Millar for a text he had sent him did he remember the package with the four offprints that had arrived from New York in August, bearing the stamp FIRST CLASS MAIL, which always made Perlmann think of diplomatic mail that had found its way to him by mistake.»

  Pascal Mercier, Perlmann's Silence

Lion Mail Box

This is an old mail box I found in the hall of a hotel in Ceuta (a Spanish city in the north of Africa). It does not work anymore. I guess it dates from the romantic time when people used to send mail from hotels...