An "official" from Australia. It was mailed from Adelaide, and I would LOVE to be on the beaches there today, doesn't that look relaxing?

The Peter and Paul Fortress (Петропа́вловская кре́пость)

Peter the Great called for this fortress in 1703 and it was completed in 1740. It was meant to defend St. Petersburg against Sweden, but was never needed for that.

Originally it served as a garrison for St. Petersburg's soldiers and a place to hold political prisoners. Until the Revolution in 1917, when all the prisoners were freed, then revolutionaries used it to hold the Tsarist officials. Then it went back and forth for a while, and was heavily damaged during WWII. It's been restored and now it's a museum.

The tall steeple there is the Peter and Paul Cathedral. It's the oldest landmark in St. Petersburg. Sts. Peter and Paul are the patron saint of the city. The steeple is 404 ft tall and is topped with an angel holding a cross.

This says, "Winter Greetings"

And Suomi is the Finnish word for Finland :-)

A Christmas card from Lithuania!

The sender translated it for me:

Christmas and New Year
This is a time when hears are getting warm
when candles are burning at home cosily
and the gentle scent of spruce branches
and people share the goodness and love...

It says, "Santo Domingo Plaza, Mexico City, 14th Century."

This is the Plaza de Santo Domingo in Mexico City, Mexico. Most of the wikipedia article about this deals with how this is apparently a great place to get falsified documents, so I'd just skip it because I'm betting that's not your thing. There is a good bit about how the fountain there has a statue of Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, a heroine from the Mexican War of Independence.

Julie, who sent the postcard, says that the Plaza is also a cool place to see concerts, and that the best one she's seen there was a band called "Los Explosivos." I think this is their Myspace page. They look like fun, I think it would be very cool to see them at this venue!

This is an "official" from Norway and says "Merry Christmas!"

This is a photograph of The Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer/Savior in Moscow, Russia. In Russian, it looks like this: Храм Христа Спасителя. I can cut and paste, cool huh?

Apparently it was originally planned by Tsar Alexander I in 1812, but not completed until 1883. Then, there was that whole Russian Revolution, and the government dynamited the cathedral! On purpose! They planned to build a monument to socialism, the The Palace of the Soviets in its place.

But, that never actually materialized, because of funding issues and WWII and the fall of the Soviet Union, etc. So from 1958 until 1995 they used the foundation as an open air swimming pool. You gotta love the Soviets, they sure knew how to make lemonade I guess!

In 1995, the Russian Orthodox Church gathered funds from around the world and rebuilt the cathedral. Isn't it beautiful? You can read more about it here. I had no idea there was so much behind this building until I started poking around. Fascinating stuff!

The Great Wall.

A portion from The Birth of Venus. Dagmar chose this postcard to send me from her hometown from Frankfurt, Germany because right now, Frankfurt is the home of a large exhibit of the works of Botticelli. I'd love to be able to go there and see it!

This is a lovely multi-view of the Abbaye Saint-Léger in Soissons, France. This was part of a cathedral, but is now used as a museum, it appears.

Changhua Great Buddha Statue of Baguashan

This is an 86 foot tall statue of Buddha in Taiwan. Visitors can go inside and look out his eyes! How cool is that?

It says View of the Parque da Cidade in Niterói. According the Bruno, the author of the postcard, it's about 8 miles from Rio de Janeiro.

This is from Matilda Bay in Western Australia.

This is from a school in Great Britain. Their classroom is using Postcrossing to learn about the world!

Suomi is the Finnish word for Finland.

This is from Poland and says, "Greetings from Gliwice" in Polish.

This came from from Switzerland, it's called "Water."

From Isabel in Portugal, this is the Douro wine region.

From "Quu" a student at The University of Turku in Finland!