A little bit about my penpalling

After a few days I finally received some cards from Post Crossing. I didn't want to write a post before, as I don't really have stories for any of the cards. I'd rather wanted to collect more cards and post them together. Here they are:

FROM the Netherlands

Probably the sender read my hobbies and saw I like exchanging snail mails :) Snail mailing is my beloved hobby. I started exchanging letters with Hungarians when I was 9 or 10 years old, and I'm still doing it. When I was 14, I got my first foreign penpal from the UK. She had a very serious disease, so she died a few years ago :( I was very sad, because her personality was perfect. Even she was ill, her way of thinking was much more positive than anyone's else. 

In this moment I have around 30 countries from the following countries: France, Romania, Italy, Germany, Moldova, Scotland, Norway, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, Indonesia, Poland, the USA, England, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Thailand, China, Australia, Sri Lanka, Finland and Japan. I exchange my letters with them mainly in English, but I write letters in German and Italian as well. 

FROM Portugal

This card is so cute! The guy wrote me some words about the donkeys. He wrote that the donkeys are disappearing because of the humans nowadays :( But I really hope they won't disappear forever, because they are cute animals in my opinion. 

FROM Belgium

FROM Germany

I got this beautiful card from a man who really likes train models and car models. He likes traveling for taking photos about trains and so. Actually, in Germany there are many beautiful trains, especially the ICE train (I hope that's the name of it).

FROM Poland

After this postcard I can say I really miss Finland. I would really like to go there back one day, and meet my friends again. However, I wouldn't mind going to this place to Poland! :D

Rabindranath Tagore and a Hungarian town

Today some of my traveling postcards reached their destination, so I could send some new postcards for 2 new people. And, I also received one from England. In this post I would like to introduce the connection between an Indian writer and a very beautiful town nearby the Lake Balaton, but I will also show a natural wonder from my beautiful country.

TO MALAYSIA

The Malaysian girl doesn't write too much to her profile, she wrote only that she loves doing Postcrossing. Well, me too :) I decided to send her a touristic postcard - from Balatonfüred, which is not that far from my home village. I live about 40 kilometers far from it. It's pretty close to me, because I spent 5 years there as a high school students. Actually I hated my class there, but the town was amazing - it's one of the most beautiful towns at the Lake Balaton, the biggest lake in Central Europe. I lived there in a dormitory, which I really enjoyed, not like my class. With my room-mates we often went to the beach and to the mole to study or just to hang out. It has a street nearby the lake which is named after Tagore, the Indian writer. On the postcard you can see that street on the 2nd picture in the first row. So why does it have its name after an Indian writer? In November, 1926 he arrived to the sanatorium of Balatonfüred, where he could recover successfully. For this reason he planted a tree and wrote a poem as well:

,,When I am no longer 

on this earth, my tree

Leth the the ever-renewed

leaves of thy spring, 

Murmur to the wayfahrer:

The poet did love while he lived."

After his movement many famous person planted their own ones: like Bertalan Farkas (the first Hungarian astronaut), Gandhi, Mandelbrot, etc. Above the trees many sculptures can be found in the park.

TO THE USA

The American woman likes getting postcards about natural wonders, so I decided to send this one about the stalactite cave of Abaliget. It can be found in the Danube-Dráva National Park. In Hungary we have a more famous stalactite cave, that is in Aggtelek, in Aggtelek National Park. Aggtelek is in the UNESCO World Heritage since 1995.

FROM ENGLAND

The couple from England treated me with this postcard, a napkin and some stamps. Firstly both of us were surprised, because the card arrived only in 2 days. I got my English penpal's letter on the same day, but she sent it a long time ago - so this postcard definitely arrived in a pretty short time. The napkin and the stamps I got were very nice. I put the stamps into my notebook immediately. You know, before I went to Indonesia I decided to open one notebook for each continents, and every country got its own page, so now I can put the stamps into their place. With this system I probably won't have any dublicates. 

It's time to continue! - Central Market in Budapest

After a long time, I decided to run my Postcrossing blog again. I have been traveling so much in the last year that I didn't see the sense of writing blog, as I could not really follow the happenings on Postcrossing. 

Now, after my 6 months internship in Indonesia I decided to continue doing Postcrossing, and post my beautiful postcards here. 

Today I'm going to send 3 postcards out:

TO BELARUS

The girl had a very special wishlist: she wanted to get Polish postcards or cards from the Soviet era. As I don't have any in my collection, I decided to send a Budapest postcard for her. She wrote she cannot speak English, she has started learning it and she uses Google Translator most of the times. Therefore I didn't want to write her too much, but of course I introduced her our little country and our beautiful capital city.

TO GERMANY

The woman likes to see special places from the postcrossers' countries, so I decided to send this postcard about the Central Market in Budapest. It's the largest (10,000 square meters) and oldest indoor market in Budapest, which located in the heart of Budapest in Fővám tér. It's a huge market hall, where fruits, vegetables and meats can be found on the ground floor, while the second floor is all about touristy souvenirs. When I go abroad, I usually come here to buy souvenirs for my friends or colleagues. It also have a lot of Hungarian restaurants, where people can try the traditional Goulash Soup, the Lángos, and many other Hungarian meals. For Hungarians this floor is a little bit pricy, but for foreigner it's a good place to try many kind of food or buy souvenirs for their beloved ones. If you happen to stay in Hungary, you shouldn't miss visiting this amazing place. It's not that far from other interesing points, so you can make plans easily.

TO SOUTH AFRICA

The woman had her own wishlist, including postcards about people. To be honest I don't really like postcards with people, so I decided to send her this. Logically it would have been better to send the Budapest postcard for her than to the German lady, but anyway! :D I like sending cards according to the people's wishlist, because I'm also more pleased when I receive some with my favourite themes. 

She likes reading and asked the postcrossers to write about their favourite book - so I wrote mine: the Memoirs of a Geisha. I like stories about other cultures and happenings in the past (no, not history books! :D Actually I always hated history in my life). Memoirs of a Geisha includes everything I'm interested in: the culture and a very interesting story that happened with a young girl in Japan before the 2nd World War. I have seen the movie, which is also amazing. I have to tell you that the movie and the book are totally different, if you read the book, you won't be bored of watching the movie, and vice versa, though the second part of the book is not that interesting. You know, in the beginning the author wrote how the girl made a friendship with a man who made a deal with her father to sell and go to an "okiya" as a slave. Okiya is a house where geishas live. So yes, I don't want to write down the whole story, because maybe some of you want to read the book or watch the movie, but I really suggest you to read or watch it. You won't be disappointed if you like other cultures!