Postcrossing Blog

Oh là là! We couldn’t believe our eyes when we received the latest missive from the Little Mail Carriers… they were in Paris! :D Their host, PetitPilote did a fantastic job of showing them around the City of Light… read all about it below!

Summer is finally settled in Europe: temperatures are very pleasant and the sun shines every day! Many greetings from France!

We arrived at the beginning of July in Survilliers, a small village located 30 km north of Paris. We were really excited because it was our first trip to France! Our host didn’t waste time and organized a mini meeting with nearby French postcrossers.

We all met at Montmartre on a lovely Monday morning and the visit started with some souvenirs shops. We couldn’t miss the local macaroon stand too! The sales lady was kind enough to let us pose into the display case. There were tons of aromas and the pink one raspberry flavored seemed to be really delicious!

Then, following our touristic upward walk on Steinkerque Street, we saw the white dome of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, sitting at the highest point of the city. This is a beautiful Roman Church built between 1875 and 1914 and this is Montmartre’s most recognizable landmark.

And after the effort, relaxation! We found a table just in front of the Sacré-Cœur, perfect to enjoy the view and finally taste the colorful and yummy macaroons! We wrote a few meet-up cards and then made some pictures with Lauliz, Glumuke and her son Antoine by the monument.

We couldn’t leave the area without wandering the streets to discover the attractive village atmosphere of Montmartre. We took this opportunity to make a quick snapshot in front of Abbesses underground station and its old style entrance from 1900. Also along with the local yellow mailbox!

Our visit of Paris then led us to the Eiffel Tower! Located on the Champ de Mars, the tower was created by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition. 324 meters tall, the tower has three levels for visitors easy to reach by lift or stairs.

No tickets needed for us, we found an effortless way to climb up “the Iron Lady”! See for yourself!

Not far from the tower, on the other side of the Seine River to the north, the Arc de Triomphe was waiting for us for a last souvenir picture. Standing in the center of the Place de l’Etoile, this majestic 50 meters tall monument was built between 1806 and 1836 under the authority of Napoleon. And it wasn’t the last time we would see the Arc…

Let’s jump to July, 14th! This is Bastille Day in France, the national day! The day begins with the Military parade with French and invited troops as well as aircrafts flying above the Arc. Other celebrations are organized like popular balls, concerts and everywhere at night, impressive fireworks are displayed!

Survilliers also had its own! We could attend the firework and celebrate, at the same time, Postcrossing 8th birthday!

The following days were devoted to discover our host’s job. She is an air hostess on long haul flights and she decided to take us travelling with her… how exciting!! Want to find out where we’ve been? Check back in a couple of days for the rest of our travelling adventures! :)

As many of you know, MOO makes pretty printed things… like cute business cards, stickers and our favourite, postcards! They’re great, and have often partnered with Postcrossing in the past, giving away lots of lovely presents on our giveaways.

So, the minute we knew we were going to the UK earlier this year, an idea sprung to mind… weren’t MOO headquarters located in London? We’re always curious of knowing how things work behind the scenes – could they perhaps show us around and introduce us to Little and Big MOO?

Turns out, yes they could! :D Giddy with excitement and barely containing our smiles, we were shown around MOO headquarters by Simon Goble, MOO’s Head of Brand Communications, who took the time to explain how everything works and patiently answer our many questions. And of course, we brought the Little Mail Carriers’ cousin around for the tour… below is his report of the day!

Hello from MOO’s lovely reception area in Shoreditch, London! Can you spot me up there? :)
Boy, were we excited to be there… I couldn’t wait to meet Big MOO and see some postcards being made!

And what do you know, there are actually not one but two Big MOOs (aka, their printing machines), to cope with all the demand for postcards and business cards! The two digital offset HP Indigo presses are lightning fast and can print up to 68 four-colour A4 pages per minute!

They even let me take a peek inside… wow! So this is where the action happens…

All around MOO’s sunny warehouse, which takes their complete ground floor, people were focused on cutting, wrapping and packing orders for shipping. Huge mail bags lined a wall, ready to be picked up by their mailman.

Everything is done with productivity and waste reduction in mind. For instance, if an order consists of different products which aren’t all simultaneously ready, the ones that are finished earlier are put in color-coded bins while they wait for the other parts to be finished – this way they can be shipped together, saving on shipping costs! Smart, right?

Meanwhile on the upper floors, everyone was hard at work making sure everything is running smoothly and every single customer is happy. MOO was founded in 2004 and has since grown to be an award-winning company which employs 90 people in London, and in the US.

What makes people want to work at MOO? The perks include a birthday cake on your birthday, joint lunches on Fridays, fussball tables…

… and a fully stocked breakfast pantry! :D

In the end of the tour, there was still enough time to pop around the corner to MOO’s new shop on Boxpark. Here, MOO products are shown in clever displays so that clients can have a close look at them before ordering online. The shop is exquisitely done, and feels like stepping inside a real website, complete with sliders and menus! Here’s Simon pulling a menu to show us how it works:

I tried it myself, but I’m afraid I was a bit too light for the job…

And of course, this being just like a website, there’s a cookie policy as well (conveniently spelled out on a cookie jar)!

Thank you Simon for showing us around! I can’t wait to go back someday – and show it to other postcrossers! :)

YAY for MOO!

We’ve just received another photo-filled report from the Little Mail Carriers, all the way from Galway! Read on their adventures in Ireland from their most recent host, ned44440, who did a wonderful job showing them around! :)

We arrived in Galway, Ireland on 20th May 2013 and settled in quite quickly. We enjoyed a few days rest and then got busy with our exploring. As our host works for the Post Office we got to meet some staff who were too shy to appear on camera. We saw how to prepare the payroll for such a large organisation but we can’t pass on any details as it is all confidential… It was exciting to see how it is done, though! During this first week we also saw some lovely green postboxes and some postal vehicles.

We were excited to learn that our host had planned a few trips for us! She first took us to County Roscommon with a lovely group known as TARA (or the Tirellan Active Retired Association). We travelled on a bus and visited the Strokestown House & Famine Museum, and then travelled on to the Dr. Douglas Hyde Interpretative Centre.

Strokestown House was both lovely and sad. It told the story of The Great Irish famine of the 1840′s which is now regarded as the single greatest social disaster of 19th century Europe. Between 1845 and 1850, when blight devastated the potato crop, in excess of two million people – almost one-quarter of the entire population – either died or emigrated.

Dr Douglas Hyde was the very first President of the Irish Republic!

Our next adventure was to visit Dublin to attend a Postcrossing Meet-Up and what a wonderful time we had. There were many postcards to be signed (and bought!!). One of the first things we did was visit the Postal History Museum in the General Post Office (GPO). Did you know that the GPO in Dublin played a significent role during the 1916 Rising which led to Irish independence? You can learn more at www.anpost.ie/heritage.

Our host said that while she always enjoys visiting the museum she is a little upset that a lot of the items in the museum are things she actually used during her earlier working life – makes her feel old. We saw a lot of the stamps issued by the Post Office down through the years, mail bags, sorting frames, telephone exchanges and many other interesting items.

At the meeting we met chrissybaby, fisherman, icspi and jr11577. We had a great day out in Dublin but were exhausted after it.

“Could this trip get any better?” we thought… and it did! Even though we were preparing for our onward trip we found two things we just had to stay put for. The first was a Post Office function… now, how could we resist that?

We discovered that one of our hosts colleagues, Marie, intends to drive a Post Office articulated truck in convoy with other Irish and British CWU members as part of the CWU (Communication Worker’s Union) Humanitarian Aid. Each year, members of the CWU both in Ireland and the UK fill trucks full of necessary items and drive the aid to exactly where it needs to go – a personal delivery with a difference. The trucks are filled with donations from many local businesses together with goods purchased with money gathered at fund-raising events. This year the trucks will head to Moldova. Marie is the first Irish female to drive one of the trucks. She held a table-quiz and raised a substantial amount of money. We had such fun but we didn’t win (truth be told, our quiz team-mates weren’t great but don’t say we said that!).

Here we are with Marie. Also in the pic are Jarlath, Geraldine, Brian and Damien.

Last (but definitely not) least, we found our way to the Titanic Centre in Belfast. What a truly awesome experience!! One definitely not to be missed if you ever get the chance. We first visited the Nomadic, which was the tender ship to the Titanic in Cherbourg. The harbour in Cherbourg was too shallow for the Titanic to berth at the docks so passengers were ferried out to her via the Nomadic. First and Second Class was opulent but Third Class (steerage)… not so opulent.

Here we are standing on the helm of the Nomadic with the Titanic Centre in the background.

And this is how the Nomadic looked like!

We then visited the magificent Titanic Centre. Here we learned the full story of the RMS Titanic from the day she was first thought of up to and including her discovery at the bottom of the sea, and also about the personal stories behind it.

Did you know that the Titanic was a Royal Mail Ship (hence the abbreviation RMS)? Her mail room had the capacity to carry 3,423 sacks of mail each containing up to 2,000 items of mail. Queenstown in County Cork in Ireland was Titanic’s last port of call before she set sail for America. It was called the saddest place as it was the main port of emigration from Ireland in south of the country. Most people who left Ireland in those days were never expected to return home again. It was never more true than on this occasion!

But it wasn’t until we visited Titanic’s Dock & Pump-House that we got a true measure of the size of the Titanic. We were able to descend right down to the bottom of the drydock.

We saw the keel blocks on which she sat while in the drydock being fitted out for her maiden voyage. We can but imagine what it was like for the workers who built the Titanic. This is an experience that will never leave us.

We travelled back to Galway on Tuesday and took Wednesday as our day of rest before our onward journey to our next big adventure. What an amazing world we live in!

Thank you ned44440 for taking them with you on these fantastic expeditions! On they go…

Some weeks ago, we took the Little Mail Carrier’s cousin along for a trip to the United Kingdom! It was his first time outside of Germany, and he loved going to all the touristic places and discovering the land of Her Majesty! On May 4th, there was a big meetup in Oxford, which we couldn’t miss, of course! Here’s his account of the day :)

Hi everyone!

The day started on the wrong foot… we left home in London with plenty of time to spare, but I got distracted riding this cute red cart…

… and just missed the bus to Oxford! Luckily, there were plenty more, and half an hour later we were zooming past the rolling hills of the English countryside. When we arrived in Oxford, postcrossers from all over Europe were having breakfast at a café near the bus station, already digging into their stashes of postcards – and they had brought sweets!

The day started with the obligatory trip to the post office, to stock on stamps. Did you know they have Doctor Who stamps here? They’re brilliant! They also had very neat posting boxes!

The day was beautiful, and we took the opportunity to stroll around the city center, to admire its history and architecture.

Oxford is known for its University, the oldest in the English-speaking world, dating back to the late 11th century! There were a lot of happy students zooming by in their graduation garments, and many proud parents as well – it almost made me want to go back to school, but for now a trip to the university’s shop would have to do. :)

We also visited the Alice in Wonderland shop for postcards…

… and many other stationery shops, including the delightful Paperchase!

During the tour, we had the opportunity to check out some British classics, like shortbread biscuits and all kinds of fun souvenirs!

After all the walking and postcard shopping, we had all worked up quite an appetite, and so it was time to sit down to eat, chat, swap presents…

… and write some postcards! There was much laughter and conversations in different languages between friends, old and new. :)

It was a lovely day, the kind that makes your cheeks hurt from so much smiling! A big thank you to Andy (aka Duplevista) for organising such a wonderful meetup! If you’re curious, check out more photos on some of the participant’s galleries: here, here, here or here.

What are you waiting to attend a meetup near you? Check this forum thread for updated dates and locations – and if there’s nothing near you, consider organising your own!

The last time we heard from the Little Mail Carriers, they were knee-high in snow in Siberia, but that was a long time ago… We were wondering what they were up to, when we received this exciting report from Chicago! Turns out, they’ve just spent some time with Heather at the fantastic Curt Teich Postcard Archives!

We’ve written about their Greetings from postcards before, so we were curious to see what Little Paulo & Ana would discover “behind the scenes”…

Hi everyone!

In April we traveled to Wauconda, Illinois, in the far northern suburbs of Chicago. There we visited the Lake County Discovery Museum’s Curt Teich Postcard Archives—the world’s largest public collection of postcards! Our first stop was the mailbox located at the end of the drive. It was quite roomy and gave us a chance to stretch after the trip.

First we saw the reading room and library, which is open to the public. We decided to do a little research. Postcards are sleeved before researchers handle them, and we were only given a few at a time to look at. Pencils only for note taking!

Next we were given a behind-the-scenes tour. The core of the archives is from Chicago printer Curt Teich & Co (1898–1978). The Teich Company specialized in printing postcards, and saved copies of everything they printed. During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, it was the world’s largest volume producer of postcards. The archives literally holds millions of postcards from the Teich Company and other publishers.

The postcards are stored in archival boxes in cabinets. There are a lot of cabinets to hold all of the postcards. The archives also has production files that were used to create the postcards. Some contain original photos, notes, artwork and samples of wallpaper, carpet, or products. This client sent a carpet sample to get the colors and pattern just right.

When we were there, postcards from the Detroit Publishing Company were just being entered into the computer database.

Many of the postcards are digitized on a flatbed scanner at the archives and made available online at www.idaillinois.org. While visiting the digitizer, we made some new friends!

Later, we headed over to the museum building to tour the exhibits. We saw what the original off-set press looked like (that’s Curt Teich Sr., company founder, on the right).

We also discovered a “Top Secret” map! Did you know that during the Second World War, the Teich Company had a contract with the United States Army Map Service for printing maps?

There are lots of different types of postcards on exhibit.

It was great to meet the staff and see how the postcards are cared for at a postcard archive. They love postcards!

P.S. May 5–11, 2013 is National Postcard Week in the United States!

What a fantastic trip – sounds like postcard heaven to us! Thank you for showing them around, Heather! :)

Now they’re off to their next destination… the adventure continues!