Another New Country - Burundi

Well, I ended off 2009 with a new country in my collection, Chad. Now I am starting off 2010 with another new country - Burundi and it is number 232. Burundi is a small landlocked country in Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its capital is Bujumbura and the country's population is around 8,800,000. Burundi is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. The card shows a lady in Burundi carrying a large basket of cotton. The card was sent by Isai and Samantha of The Cries of a Child. They used a beautiful bird stamp from a 2008 set of 5 featuring flora and fauna. The stamp on my card shows a Heron. Thanks Isai and Samantha for this wonderful addition to my collection.

Now a card from Cologne, Germany. It is Germany's fourth largest city lines on the Rhine River.
The card shows a panorama from the Rhine. At left center you can see Great St. Martin Church and at right center, is Cologne Cathedral. The card is from my brother Paul and his wife Monnie, who visited their daughter in Germany during Christmas and New Year's. Lucky guys, they spent New Year's Eve in The City of Lights. Thanks Monnie and Paul.

Today's final card is from New York, USA. It shows the skyline of Lower Manhattan. It is from a Postcrosser who used the 2006 airmail rate stamp of Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina .

Just to keep things on track , a postcard report for Dec 2009 follows. I received 27 postcards during the month , 21 of which were from Postcrossers. I mailed a total of 27 cards and 23 went to Postcrossers. I added postcards from 2 new countries to my collection.
For the year 2009 it goes like this. I received a total of 432 postcards this past year , bringing the total since March 2006 to 1197. I posted 350 cards during 2009 for a total of 874 since March 2006.
I added cards from 24 new countries during 2009.

All in all, quite a good year, I think.

One more thing. Last evening I happened upon a postcard blog called PostMuse . You can find it at http://postmuse.blogspot.com . Bonnie, who runs this blog has numerous blank postcards . If you find one or a couple in her list that has some connection to yourself, you can request them from Bonnie. She will send them to you and then you add some comments on the back, add a stamp and send them back to her, through the mail. She calls it the Orphaned Postcard Project. Sounds like fun to me. I have requested four cards.

That's all for today except Merry Christmas to Ana.

Don't forget , I welcome your comments, actually I use them as a barometer of the interest in my blog.