Anyway…

Fifteen-year-old Jessica said she couldn’t find me a turtle card, so she gave me a turtle sticker instead. She’s soo cute..

Anyway, the card shows the Grand Hotel, which sits high on the bluffs overlooking Mackinac Island and Mackinac Bridge. The hotel was a project of two Michigan railroads and was opened in July 1887. The hotel’s porch is the world’s longest, stretching 880 feet (!!!).

And then there’s this infamous SUOMI FINLAND card that depicts the common scenery in Finland – the swan, the lake, and the flowers. Sinikua says that they have long dark winters and one short sunny and warm summer. As warm as in Malaysia..?

OK, this is funny. Ruth sent me this card, which shows the Husky Stadium in Seattle, Washington. The stadium was built in 1920 with a 30,000 seat capacity and it has been renovated four times, bringing the current capacity to 72,500 seats. But that’s NOT why it is funny.

The funny thing is that Ruth was supposed to teach me a few words in Finnish, but I can’t read her handwriting! The English translation shows that she was trying to teach me the Finnish word for “chess”. And she explained that the (particular Finnish) word comes from the Persian “shah mat”, meaning “the king is dead”, which is also the origin of the English word “checkmate”.

And you want to know to pronounce “Pelf” in Finnish? It’s pronounced “pree-VYET”. Now this is cool ;)

It was from none other than Moz Monster! I think he’d been to 10 other countries since he sent me this, my bad :(

I am sorry I took so long to get to this, hahha.. Anyway, Moz was kind enough to get me a postcard when he was in Sydney. He said he didn’t know what to get for me, and postcards was the next best thing.. (!!!) Moz, you can always get me books, you know, autobiographies, biographies, true stories.. Now remember yea? *winks*

According to the sender, Savonlinna (where the sender stays) is well-known for its Opera and Ballet festivals every summer. Not satisfied with the lack of explanation on the festivals, which sounded FUN to me, I googled for it and found Finland Festivals. Go check it out :)

And the best thing is that the card comes with matching turtle stamps! How cool is that?!

We, as in Malaysia, used to produce turtle stamps too, but they are no longer in the market. I have collected some of them when I was younger, at a time when one of my hobbies was “collecting stamps” *grins* I still collect them these days, but I think I need more stamp albums..

This is the third turtle card from Christina, how nice of her. Are you jealous now?! The card shows a painting of a green turtle. And according to Christina, one of the colleges has a terrapin as a mascot, despite the lack of turtles where she lives.

Didn’t that make you think? We have a viable number of green turtles in our waters, but some smart politicians prefer the clownfish as a mascot! *bluek*

Christina sent me this green turtle hatchling card as a result of a private swap *smiles* It was her first time seeing turtle hatchlings when she went to Ocean City.

Mosianu sent me this “native people” card but I could not make out what she wrote at the back of the card. She’s got very beautiful cursive handwritting but my eyes were trained to read alphabets one-by-one (that explains why I write them one-by-one too).

Anyway, it has got some keywords like: sami-person – portraits the night (inner side) and the day (outer side) – sami-people lives in Tapland, the most southern tip of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia – they have lots of modern stuff but they hold on to their traditions.

Moisianu says that she lives in south-eastern Finland but is NOT at all related to the sami-people.

There you go. Make up your own story.

The next card also came from Christina. It is a drawing by an artist called Roger Hill.

Not bad ha? But I am sure our own artist can also make such pretty sketchings *winks*