Michaelangelo's Masterpieces

Thanks so much to my senior medical physicist, Hazel for the 20 postcards from Italy! :) I wanna post more but the net is too slow...these 2 are among my favorites: Michaelangelo's masterpieces.

The Creation of Adam from the ceiling of Sistine Chapel from the first card was painted in 1511. It's an illustration of one of the stories from the Book of Genesis.

The second card means so much to me...I was cast of a play for Holy Week. I was Mary and together with the actor playing Jesus, we had the La Pietà tableau for almost 30minutes. I had leg cramps for 3 days I believe! I guess that was penitence enough for the Holy Week season that year :p

Europe stamps 2/2 (+ a comforting love story)

Another Sunday in Europe and here are flower stamps from Finland and Germany:

Forgive me if I ain't sharing info about these stamps. I am sharing a story about a love affair with a flower vendor instead...

...I go to the Pike Place Market in Seattle almost every Saturday morning to shop and carry on a love affair.

For several years I've bought flowers from a youngish woman who is a refugee from one of the hill tribes of Indo-China. For one thing, she has the freshest and most beautiful flowers. For another, she is a fresh and beautiful flower herself. I don't know her name, nor she mine.We won't speak the same language. To her, I must be just another customer.

She is spring to me. She's there with pussywillows, daffodils, and then irises. She's summer, with roses and sunflowers. She's fall, with dahlias and chrysanthemums. As the growing season comes to an end, she brings stems of fall leaves to sell, and then it's over. In winter, I miss her.

...I always insist she keep the change and she always insists on giving me an extra flower.

Once I tried to buy all her flowers at once, but she just shook her head. "No." I don't know why. Maybe she, too, is in love with someone and wants to be there to sell him flowers when he comes.

- an excerpt from Robert Fulghum's True Love, a collection of short love stories

Temple of Venus

Here's a postcard of the Temple of Venus during winter in the Linderhof Palace, Bavaria, Germany. The sculpture is larger than life. The site of the temple was originally intended for a theater but due to the royal finances being serious difficulty in 1878, a smaller project which was the temple was commissioned instead.

Visit Raya @ Colors & Contrasts for more Wednesday White photos and stories.

Austrian & Finnish stamps

20 years Kunst Haus Wien commemorative stamp from Austria

The stamp is glittery, the first of its kind that I have so far. The Kunst Haus displays a unique Friedensreich Hundertwasser collection. The museum used to be a furniture factory transformed by the artist into his characteristic style of mosaics using glass, metal, bricks, wood, and ceramic in many colors.

Torronsuo from Finland's National Park Stamp Series
The Torronsuo National Park was established in 1990, covering 30 km in the province of Häme, south of Finland. It includes a mire that is considered the deepest in the country with up to 12-meter thick layer of peat.


I am linking up with Viridian for the Sunday Stamps. Visit her page today and next Sunday to learn more about European stamps.

Velika Panda & Alfons Mucha from CZ

It's the typhoon season here in the Philippines so it's no longer a surprise that we've got our second typhoon in a single week. Forgive me for saying this, but sometimes I like it when there's a typhoon. The scents of leaves; the smell of nature floats in the air, as the rainwater washes the city greens free from dusts and pollution...

And because I am dreamy about taking a hike into the woods to smell more freshness this weekend, I am sharing a green postcard with a cutie velika panda in it. I learned that velika is Croatian word for giant.

What's more interesting about this postcard from Czechoslovakia (which I always have a hard time pronouncing properly) is the zodiac stamp at the back. The stamp was issued on May 26, 2010 to commemorate the 150 years of Alfons Maria Mucha,. 

Trivia: Alfons Maria Mucha was the first artist to design the postage stamps, banknotes, and other government documents for the Chechoslovak republic when it won its independence after World War I. 

Trivia: Mucha's distinct art nouveau style was the inspiration for the Japanese manga artist, Naoko Takeuchi for the design of a series of posters depicting five of the main characters of his manga series, Sailor Moon.
Source: wikipedia.org