ElenaTravel

I started Postcrossing during the worst days of the pandemic, in Spring of 2020… when mailing a postcard became a great reason to take a little walk from my home to the mailbox down the block.

All postcards are welcome, and I appreciate receiving them. 😁

I am from Northern California (Berkeley, near San Francisco), but I have been living in Queens, New York City, since the summer of 2003, right after finishing my degree at the University of California in Santa Cruz.

I love wildlife, bird-watching, travel, languages, music. I played alto saxophone from age 10 through college. I spent 2001 in Brazil, in Salvador da Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, as an exchange student. In 2018 I went on a safari in Tanzania, and saw lions, leopards, eagles, flamingos, giraffes, monkeys and some 20,000 wildebeests on their great migration in the Serengeti. It was a thrilling adventure—and I’d love to go back.

I love the outdoors: national parks, deserts & canyons, waterfalls, mountains and mountain lakes, trees. I am interested in astronomy. On a clear night I love seeing the moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus. I hope another bright comet passes through our skies again during my lifetime (I have seen Halley's comet in 1986 and Hale Bop in 1997), and I hope to see a total solar eclipse someday.

I have travelled: all over the US, including Hawaii and the Virgin Islands, but there’s always more to see. Outside the US, I’ve visited: British Columbia in Canada (summers of 1990 & 1996, spring of 2023); La Ceiba & Copán in Honduras (summer 1996), Dublin and Newgrange and Ireland’s beautiful West Coast (summer 1999), London in England (summers of 1999 & 2004), all over Brazil (2001, 2006, 2011), lots of Portugal and Spain (spring & summer 2004, spring 2008, summer 2022), Venezia, Lago di Como, Firenze, Roma, Sorrento in Italy (summer 2007), Yucatán region and Mérida in Mexico (spring 2008), Salzburg and Vienna, Austria (summer 2012, winter 2016), Budapest in Hungary (summer 2012), Guatemala City, Antigua, Tikal, Lake Atitlán in Guatemala (summer 2014), Santiago, Andes Mountains & Atacama Desert in Chile (spring 2016), Bavaria, Germany (winter 2016), Copenhagen & Bornholm Island in Denmark (winter 2016, fall 2019), Paris & the Loire River Valley of France (summer 2017), Arusha, Ngorongoro Crater & the Serengeti in Tanzania (2018); Marrakech and “Berber Country” in Morocco (2018), Doha in Qatar (2021). Costa Rica tour in February, 2024. I have also spent a day in Lugano, Switzerland and at Iguazú Falls in Argentina.

I'm a native English speaker, falo e escrevo português pois passei um ano de intercâmbio estudando na PUC Rio de Janeiro. Hablo y escribo español porque soy de California, donde todos estudian español en la escuela. Je parle un peu de français. I am taking a beginning Arabic class and I have learned the alphabet and a few words. I can read "al-Niil" (Nile River) and "Halal" on storefronts in my "Little Cairo" neighborhood of Queens.