This blog has a lot of useful information on law, for which I would have charged you outrageous fees when I was still working as hot-shot lawyer. It has travel articles without any advertisement and without the promotional bla bla you find on almost all other travel blogs. It has entertaining stories, interesting thoughts and some beautiful photos.
It is because of this that my blog has millions of readers. A few dozen of you have taken a minute to think “Wow, this guy actually puts a lot of time and effort into his blog” and have sent a donation through Paypal or some other way. I really appreciate that a lot! It helps to keep me going and it allows me to devote more time to writing.
But the best thing is that you will receive something extra! Something special! Something personal! Something unique! For any donation above 10 $ or 10 €, I will send you a postcard from wherever I am at that time. Nothing pre-printed, but personal notes from an exotic location. One day, they will be worth a lot. And if you are a stamp collector, haven’t you always wanted to receive stamps from Bolivia, Iran or Montenegro?
Halfway around the world: from Easter Island to Romania.
A postcard from London brightens up a rainy day in Eastern Europe.
A postcard from Targu Mures, Romania in the sky above New York City. Great photo!
And the same postcard traveled on to the University of Michigan.
Click on the photo to read the story of this postcard from Montenegro.
If you have been wondering what’s depicted on the postcard from Targu Mures, here it is in real size. With a postcard from Brazil. I am connecting every city I have ever lived in.
A postcard from Romania in China.
I really made Targu Mures famous around the world. Here at Lake Titicaca.
Teaching your children about Easter Island is even easier when you receive a postcard from there.
A postcard from the Caribbean is almost as good as joining me for the trip.
The antique postcard from Sintra is happy among all the books.
From Salvador to New York…
… and to Queens.
In Calgary, my own postcards sent from Vienna and from Andalusia were already waiting for me.
Another postcard from Velez Blanco made it to Romania.
In Peru, someone is happy about a postcard from Bavaria.
Of course, I have sent many more postcards already, but not every recipient takes a photo. Once you receive yours, it would be nice if you take a photo of it in its new surrounding, so it can be added to the gallery.
By the way, can you imagine how hard it has become to find postcards in some places? Twenty years ago you got them in any small village. Now, even in large cities I sometimes have to walk around for hours to find the only shop that sells them.
Fantastic idea Andreas! I love collecting post cards particularly the historical kind, b&w photographs and vintage stuff. It is sad that they are on the decline as most people take a snapshot and move on. A postcard for me is a precious piece of memorabilia which is irreplaceable, I hope they survive.
Lucky you! I found some vintage postcards from Bolivia, not quite black and white, but they look like they are from the 1960s or 1970s.
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Hi Andreas,
I just watched the documentary For Neda (and what a moving documentary it was!) and came across your blog as I was doing more research about the documentary.
I, too, love traveling and experiencing different cultures, so I greatly admire your desire to continue living all over the world.
I agree with you, that Romania is quite a beautiful country. I was there about two years after Ceausescu was overthrown, so the country was still getting over Communism. It was such a unique experience for a 19 year old, especially as a French speaking American Asian traveling with Caucasian American parents. (I was living alone – with host families – in Belgium at the time and my father hadn’t seen me for a year and so he flew me to Romania where they had a program for their non profit organization Teachers for Tomorrow).
Most Romanians at that time had never been out of the country and most had never seen an Asian before, so I really stood out with my waist long hair and doc martens. Lol
I am fortunate enough to be able to travel internationally, but only for short visits. And I know this will sound odd, but most of the time I am underwater scuba diving since I have such a love of the ocean and aquatic animal life. (If you’ve never tried it, I highly recommend it. It’s an entire new world to discover where, despite what is occurring on land, under water there is peace and serenity, and such beauty.)
Luckily, because of my love of diving, I have been fortunate to experience far away cultures, such as in Bunaken, Siladen and Lembeh in Indonesia and this summer I will be able to experience and see the various cultures associated with the Solomon Islands. I will also spend some time in Honiara, so it should be a very interesting trip.
I understand that traveling and living as a nomad can be quite expensive and saw that you accept donations via PayPal. Is there any other way to provide donations? (I cancelled my PayPal account since they exposed my full credit card information and said it would take 48 hours to fix.)
I sent you an invite for LinkedIn. Hopefully you will accept. I want to send you some information on my friend’s foundation. If you aren’t opposed to high altitudes, you might be interested in participating in their program in the Himalayas. They have a three month program that you might really enjoy.
And if you ever want to go to Lembeh, Indonesia, I can introduce you to my friends there. (That’s the awesome thing about diving – you build such an international group of friends who share the same love.)
I look forward to reading more of your posts and applaud your determination!
If you’re ever in the Big Apple – there is always a couch for you to rest your weary feet on.
Cheers!
Kara
Hello Kara,
thank you for your comments and compliments! I am happy that five years later, people are still interested in the Green Revolution and/or the role of women in Iran. And I am glad that the film sparked your interest to do more research.
I have gone diving once, off the coast of Marseille in the Mediterranean, but only for about 15 minutes. It was a completely different world indeed. The sudden silence, the unexpected multitude of colors, the unshyness of fish, all the rubbish that people dump into the sea, the different effect of the sunlight and how fast it gets dark and cold as you descend.
But I could only do that because it was part of a program with the French Scouts with whom I had been working at a forest-fire camp that summer. Otherwise, I could not afford scuba diving. The maximum I will be able to afford is to be the guy who stays in the boat. :-)
I am not opposed to altitudes at all, I love them, although I think I may have gotten altitude sickness in Bolivia twice already (above 4,000 meters). But once I took an anti-sorojchi pill, I was fine.
Thank you very much for your offer to make a donation for my writing! Besides Paypal, other options are of course Western Union or a bank transfer, but I am not sure if the fees wouldn’t eat up too much in that case. Another option is to take a look at my wishlist of books. I have already received a few packages from gifts through Amazon US here in Bolivia, but the packages did of course take a while. (I think the customs is the bottleneck.)
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