torstis

About Torsti...

I am a historian in my 50's. I work at adult education and have specialized in cultural and art history. I am also a writer and a freelance tourist guide lecturer in southwestern Finland. My wife is a mathematics teacher and we have two adult children who are studying elsewhere.

I collect postcards showing bridges. I already have almost 5000 different ones (more than 4000 are Finnish), but I am always really happy to receive a new one. So if you can contribute my collection by sending me a postcard showing a bridge I'm very grateful. You see all my foreign bridge postcards and some picks of my Finnish ones here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/117300234762593793922
There you can see even my swapped, tagged and purchased bridge postcards which you won't find in the ordinary Postcrossing gallery. I am happy if you take a look before sending to avoid duplicates.

If you can't send a postcard with a bridge don't worry at all, every postcard is naturally very welcome. It is always special to receive any kind of a postcard from a fellow postcrosser. Only to suggest you something besides bridges, I like postcards with art or historical buildings and heritage sites. Motorbiking postcards are great, too.

I am happy if you use real postage stamps. I prefer to receive the postcards without envelope. I'll scan every postcard in my official gallery (postcard wall).

When I am sending a postcard I try to fulfill wishes whenever possible, even if it means a delay for a week or two while I try to find a suitable postcard.

Among my other hobbies are motorcycling and photographing. My home town Lohja (pop. 47.500) is situated 60 km west from Helsinki at the hilly shores of the largest lake in southern Finland and is known for its medieval church, apple trees and limestone mine with a mining museum. See: http://www.visitlohja.fi

If you want to see where I live and where your postcard will go or have come from, you can take a look at google maps; there is even a street view from our little alley: http://goo.gl/maps/3XPG The old Nissan in the car shelter belongs our son who is studying at university elsewhere but still had his car here when the street view was taken in 2009.

If you are interested to see what the weather is like here just now, there is an official road weather camera about three kilometers from my home at a motorway intersection:
http://www2.liikennevirasto.fi/alk/english/kelikamerat/kamera-C1651000.html
There you can even see a bridge (actually two parallel bridges) leading the motorway over a waterway about three hundred meters from the camera.

Back to Postcrossing; I found bridges tags on Postcrossing Forum a few months ago thanks to a fellow postcrosser and have decided to tag someone about once a week:
http://forum.postcrossing.com/viewthread.php?tid=3827
Another new Postcrossing feature for me is Bridges Round Robin:
http://forum.postcrossing.com/viewthread.php?tid=62221

And yes, that is my hairy arm in the profile picture :-)