🎶Whenever, Wherever

[asakiyume]

You've heard of USPS Forever stamps, but how about Wherever stamps?



I got a letter from my friend C, who was in Barcelona recently.

"Oooh, a letter from C from overseas!" I thought. Then I looked at the stamp and saw it was a US international stamp. I know these well, as we have family in the UK and Japan, so I buy them often.

"Hmmm, so, she must have sent this letter when she got home," I thought. "But in that case, why did she use an international stamp? ... And why is the cancellation in Spanish?" But the letter was kind of heavy, so I decided she must have used the international stamp to cover the extra cost. As for the cancellation, well, Spanish is a widely used language in this country, so maybe her post office in Pittsburgh just happened to have a Spanish cancellation stamp.

I sent her a text saying how the stamp had confused me, but I'd figured things out.

She replied:

I sent it from Spain! I just happened to have some leftover international stamps and I didn’t even think that they wouldn’t work in the Spanish mail system, LOL! I didn’t even think about that until now!

Mind = Blown

I looked at the cancellation again, and sure enough, you can just make out "Barcelona" over the stamp. (If you click through to Flickr, you can see it larger.)

So the Spanish postal clerk either didn't notice, or saw it and thought, "Eh, it's a stamp--good enough."

And now I'm thinking how great it would be if we had international postal reciprocity like that! (Although I really enjoy foreign stamps, so I wouldn't want *everyone* to use their own postage overseas.)

Note: I was so mindblown by the US stamp passing in Spain that I wondered if I've been wrong all this time and you can use your own nation's stamps to mail things home from another nation, and the answer is no. No, you can't.

Here is a Spanish international-mail stamp:

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Oh intriguing! I'll have to research!

[asakiyume]

I did do a little research myself before posting, and think in this case it's just a slip-up. I don't want people thinking they can go to China, Poland, Mali, or Chile and get by with using US stamps, because I think in most cases that won't fly. But if you turn up other interesting facts, I'll be interested to hear!

[sonia]

I love these small kindnesses from strangers. I think the world would fly apart without them.

[asakiyume]

I like what this conjures for me: the world held together by this net.

[sonia]

I think so! When people say everyone and everything is awful, I remember all the drivers who pause to let me cross a busy intersection on my bike. And all the kindnesses we never notice, the mistakes someone else covers for or forgives. It's huge.

[asakiyume]

💛💛💛 It is.

[wayfaringwordhack]

so cool! And I have one of those succulent stamps from someone special. ;)

[asakiyume]

:D

I am blessed in my international correspondence (and correspondents, hee)

[mourningdove333]

I like that circular international stamp. Those little succulent plants grow wild here, in this area of Quebec, on the mossy, rocky landscape. Someone told me they're called "Hens and Chicks", but I think they're also called House Leeks (not house leaks! haha). They form tiny balls that tumble off, take root, and become new plants nearby. Some of them have a red colour.

[asakiyume]

Yes! Around here they're called hens and chicks--but they don't grow wild! How neat that they do where you live. They also can send up pretty pink flowers on a stiff stalk that looks very cute but very alien to me.

here are four of the many pictures I've taken of some of them...

[mourningdove333]

Re: here are four of the many pictures I've taken of some of them...

[asakiyume]

Adorable!! I love the little red baby with the green parents especially ^_^