Post Crossings, II

This is the second batch of postcards I received through Post Crossing, where for every postcard you sign up to send to someone somewhere in the world, you also are signed up to receive one back. When a card you've sent arrives, it is registered by the receiver, and an email shows up with a "your card has arrived!" notice, including how many days it was in transit. The site provides a list of where you've both sent and received to and from, a map showing the "crossings" of your postcards, and a gallery of postcards flying around the world.

The first post crossing posting can be found here. I've sent 14, received 4 and have several in transit.

It is interesting to see what people send, and to get a brief glimpse of their stories. The tulip postcard is from a group of office workers in Hilversum (close to Amsterdam), The Netherlands who participate to "cheer up their office". The dog postcard is from Brussels, Belgium from a new mom. The restaurant scene postcard is from the southernmost town in Taiwan, Kenting, whose name means "no winter" or "forever spring". This picture is one of the locations in a famous Taiwanese film, "Cape No. 7", which in 2008 became the country's 2nd top grossing film in cinematic history, behind only Titanic.

Kortrijk, Belgium

For a long time, my husband worked for a Belgian company, based in Kortrijk, Belgium. He would travel there, a couple of times a year.

Once, we took the kids on a combo business trip/family vacation, starting in Paris. It was very exciting to be in Paris then, as it was the beginning of the 98 World Cup, and there were fans in large groups, thronging the cities and the trains. We saw more fans, in random train stations, when we then traveled to Kortrijk. The Brazilians, with their instruments and noise, and the Dutch, dressed all in orange, were particularly exciting to run across.

Kortrijk is not an interesting town, but we were glad to meet some of my husband's colleagues and see where he spent a lot of time. From there, we took a day trip to Brugge, a beautiful, historic Belgian town not far from Kortrujk.