New Country # 258

Hello again. I haven't announced a new country for my collection in a long time. The last one was back on 13 June 2012, South Georgia. Well I have another one today. It is Angola, # 258, one more knocked off the list over on the left, leaving just 16 more. This good fortune I owe to Bruce, who was visiting Luanda on a business trip from South Africa. Angola is a country in southern Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north and Zambia on the east. Its capital is Luanda and the country's population is about 18.5 million. Bruce's card is of the Christ the King ( Cristo Rei ) statue found in Lubango, in the south of Angola. The Jesus statute is one of four erected in the world . The others are in Rio, Lisbon, and Swiebodzin, Poland. Bruce used stamps from 2002 and 2008. The stamp on the left and the middle stamp are a set of 2 celebrating Friendship with Italy. The larger stamp is from a set of 4 issued for the Beijing Olympics of 2008. So there, we finally have Angola. According to an email from Bruce, it certainly didn't happen easily. The usual refrain heard was , Angola doesn't have a functioning postal service, send your card with DHL- well that excuse is blown out of the water- the card arrived just fine . Bruce also encountered problems finding postcards, stamps and even a post office. It all worked out in the end and I am the lucky recipient of a stamped card from Angola. Thanks Bruce, I really appreciate you thinking of me while on your trip .

I was going to add a few other cards but I'll save that for another day. I'll let new country Angola have all the glory today.

Thanks for reading , drop back again soon. Thanks again Bruce