Postcrossing Blog

Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world

Viewing posts tagged "helsinki" View all

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While the Little Mail Carrier’s jet set around at undisclosed locations, their cousin has been busy attending meetups and getting to know postcrossers from all over the world! :) Here’s a brief recap of the last few months on his tour:

Hello everyone! This past August, I was in sunny Helsinki, meeting lots of nice European postcrossers! We did a fun scavenger hunt around the city, found lots of Moomins and Angry Birds, tried some Finnish delicacies and hopped on a ferry to beautiful Suommelinna island. I really wanted to see the inside of a Posti postbox, and managed to get myself stuck in the process… children, please don’t try this at home!

Helsinki meetup Helsinki meetup sign Group photo! So many Moomins! Yum! Is that deer meat? I'm not sure it's safe for me to stay here.... Errr... guys?! HELP!

I then jumped on a plane and landed in Baltimore, which was super exciting! We’re all big fans of The Wire and Hairspray at the Postcrossing HQ – so I felt right at home :) Cspt organised a wonderful meetup at Stone Mill Bakery Café. It was a lot of fun to meet new postcrossers from the other side of the pond… and the cookies were delicious! :D

Good mooooorning, Baaaaaaltimore! People are just so friendly here! Look at these smiles! I have this strange feeling I'm being observed...

After that, I took the boat back home, as it was time for another Bielefeld meetup! I knew a lot of the people there already, from past meetups, so it was nice to see them all again! As usual, I’ve dived into pools of candy, signed lots of postcards, and marvelled at the beauty of Autumn in North-Rhine Westphalia… but this year I also got to greet the postman, greeted the animals at the delightful Olderdissen Animal Park and visited Modern Times, a local postcard distributor who gave a special tour just for postcrossers!

Anja did a wonderful job with these tags! Wait wait... did I sign this pile? Good job Emilie! I think he likes you! Group photo time! Thanks Turtles for this photo! YAY! A real postman van! *sigh* I wish I could get one of these... Nom nom nom... Look at all those cards...

It’s been a blast! :)

Meetups are lots of fun, and completely organised by the members themselves! Curious to meet other postcrossers near you? Check out the list of upcoming events, or create your own! :)

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Hello there! It took us a while to recover from the fabulous time we had in Helsinki, but here we are to tell you all about it :).

:D

This big meetup was meticulously planned by Pooca, and exceptionally well executed. There were traditional Finnish games and yummy Finnish food, cute name tags, boat rides, visits to historical places, flea markets and an amusement park, lots and lots of presents and plenty of time to write and send postcards!

So, here’s what we did those 3 days, in detail:

On Friday, 28th September it was pre-meetup day. We met around 5pm near Aleksis Kivi statue, besides Helsinki’s train station. After the obligatory introductions (in attendance were a total of 48 postcrossers from Finland, Russia, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands and Portugal), the group went postcard shopping, guided by Pooca, who showed us the all best spots!

An hour later, we met at the square again, and then went off to a nearby park, where Pooca introduced the group to a curious traditional Finnish game called Mölkky. It goes like this: there are 12 wooden pins that people should try and knock over with another wooden pin, thrown from a distance. The pins are numbered 1–12, and the knocking over one pin gives the player the amount of points marked on the pin. If more than one pin is knocked over, the total number of pins is the score for that player’s round. After each throw, the pins are lifted up again in the exact location where they landed and the first one to reach exactly 50 points wins the game.

Mölkky was a lot of fun, with pins getting successively further apart and players looking for more creative ways to hit them :)

After the game, we sat down on the ground and wrote some postcards while eating delicious mini-stroopwaffles, brought from the Netherlands by dandilion.

On Saturday we met again at Aleksis Kivi statue. The main event of the day was a visit to Suomenlinna! Suomenlinna is a star fortress built on a group of islands just outside Helsinki. It was built to protect the country (at that time under Swedish rule) against a possible Russian invasion. About 900 people live in the islands, and the fortress is a Unesco world heritage site.

Group photo

The weather was quite good, so we had a nice time walking on this fortress, admiring the fortifications and their cannons and the sea that stretches all the way to Tallin. Oh, and also enjoying the lovely presents and sweets that the group of Russian postcrossers, dandilion and Lotty distributed! :)

After Suomenlinna, we had some time to relax, visit some of the city monuments and fill our bellies with the delicacies in the market.

At 4pm we got back together for some early dinner. The buffet menu was delicious and in fact, our group was so big we had to split around in the two restaurant floors! :) When everybody was happy and full, we went to a coffee shop close by to write and sign all the postcards we sent! That was serious work and everybody helped counting the postcards, and re-checking for address correctness and total of signatures!

On Sunday 30th, the last day of the meetup, we visited the Valtteri flea market – a huge indoors flea market with all sorts of things! It was very intriguing yet so much fun to explore! After Valtteri, we walked to Linnanmäki, a nearby amusement park. And it was so great! We all went at once on the Panorama Tower, from where you could see a stunning 360 degrees view of Helsinki and then some of us went on Vuoristorata, a really cool and old wooden rollercoaster! We even met 'Rolle Pelle’, the mascot of Linnanmäki who accepted to take a picture with our group!

In the afternoon, we took a break in the local post office and finally mailed a grand total of 545 postcards!!! :) I’m sure we broke some record there, and made the post office people really happy!

That’s it! I am sure you can read my excitement from the number of smilies and exclamation marks I’ve used writing this post, but seriously, it was amazing. Helsinki is a very welcoming city, and there was so much generosity and friendliness in everybody we met, that I wish many more of you could have been there! Postcrossers sure are a special bunch. :)

Thank you Pooca for organizing such a brilliant meetup, and to everybody who participated and made it so special!! :)

PS – All the linked pictures are from the several meet up galleries, and you can see more of them on the following links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirsi68/sets/72157622169707266/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirsi68/sets/72157622178384448/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirsi68/sets/72157622061513119/
http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc118/…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mahako/sets/72157622178405020/
http://picasaweb.google.com/Delenna.from.Finland…
http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z27/dandilion1981/…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anjaaustel/sets/72157622088754235/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91536860@N00/sets/72157622285729954/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42139194@N03/sets/72157622328027854/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nocas/sets/72157622208385341/

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Have you been in a Postcrossing meetup before? How about an International Postcrossing meetup? If not, here’s your chance!

Like all Postcrossing meetups, this one is also organized by the users themselves and it’s been in the works for quite some time. Now that the details are pretty much decided, it’s time to spread the word. This International Postcrossing meetup is going to be in Helsinki (Finland) in the 28th, 29th and 30th of August.

If you are interested, here’s a summary of what’s currently planned:

Friday, 28th August:
A small pre-meeting in the afternoon for chat and coffee in a cafeteria.
Saturday, 29th August – the official meeting day
Suomenlinna IslandThe official meeting day starts at 10am with a guided tour around city center and a trip to the Suomenlinna Island, an UNESCO World Heritage place. On the Island it’s possible to do a small picnic or have a cup of coffee. Of course, the city tour will have plenty of stops in many postcard shops!
Later in the day everyone can enjoy a meal together in a restaurant followed by plenty of time to write some more postcards.
Sunday, 30th August
A visit to the biggest flea market in Helsinki, Valtterin Kirpputori, and continue to the amusement park Linnanmäki which has an unique atmosphere. The last stop on Sunday will be the Olympic Stadium Tower in Helsinki.

Many users are already arranging to go, some from abroad with plans to visit the country for the first time!

To know more details about this meetup, just check the Postcrossing Forum where you can find more updated information about it.