Remember the Little Mail Carrier’s cousin? It’s been a while since he was last on the blog… Earlier this year, he threw a huge tantrum and demanded to be sent on new adventures — so we sent him off to Romania, where an exciting meeting was about to take place! Here’s their report, as told by the participants in this unique meeting.
Once upon a very special day, on February 29th of 2016, the Romanian Postcrossing Community organized the first Postcrossing train meetup in the world, a round-trip journey between Bucharest and Ploiești. The day started with the arrival of the Little Mail Carriers’ cousin in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. As every tourist would have done, he first went on a sightseeing tour through the wonders of Bucharest.
Naturally, he took some selfies and because he is so small, a special “magnifier tool” was used to be sure everything is in focus!
He started with the Palace of the Parliament which is the heaviest building in the world. It is also the second largest administrative building in the world (after the Pentagon in the USA) housing the Romanian Senate and Parliament and the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
He continued his tour to two of the most prestigious buildings in Bucharest: the House of Economies (CEC) and the National Museum of Music (Cantacuzino Palace).
In front of the Romanian Athenaeum he got really excited, because inside is the longest circular fresco in the world! It was done by Costin Petrescu, and is a stunning piece depicting 25 different scenes of Romanian history over 70 meters of canvas… wow!
The final stop before the meetup was at the Revolution Square, admiring the National Museum of Art (The Royal Palace), the statue of King Carol I of Romania (1866–1914) and the Central University Library.
Finally he arrived at Gara de Nord (train station). The little couriers’ cousin met with members of the Romanian Postcrossing Community and quickly jumped on the train to grab some seats.
We had lots of fun activities during our trip from Bucharest to Ploiești (60 km), such as: signing postcards, organizing lotteries, tasting cupcakes and of course taking photos with our small guest, who even received a nickname for the day: Max!
With this special occasion, we printed a limited edition meetup postcard, showing the Royal train of Romania (Photo by Mihai Raitaru). Everybody signed it — even the train inspectors, who were quite impressed by it!
Once arrived in Ploiești, we gathered for a nice group photo and went on sightseeing, having a few hours available before the train back to Bucharest.
We first visited the Clocks Museum – the biggest clocks collection in South-Eastern Europe.
The Art Museum was next on our list, where we took more photos and signed some more postcards in the lobby. Max got a special surprise from one of our colleagues, who played the piano for him.
Before heading back, one last stop was made at the Postal Office to send our “train traveling meetup” postcards to fellow Postcrossers around the world and to say goodbye to little Max, who continued his journey back to Portugal. At the end of this full and fun day we all went back to our homes with many wonderful memories.
We also found out that this was the first train traveling meetup in the world and all this was possible because Postcrossing exists! Thank you Postcrossing team for bringing us together, thank you for building bridges among people and nations! Happy Postcrossing, everyone!
Train meetup participants (who came from a bit all over Romania):
Anca, bardamu1964, cristinaS, corneljipa, dienuca, DrAmpie, eumihai2003, lamelemon, MaraMilu, MihneaR, modranhoria, mpalade, Nazareanu, NoarVladimir, Schumi99, spiderpc and susanica.Concept: Mihnea (MihneaR)
Organizers: Mihnea (MihneaR), George (Nazareanu), Eugen (eumihai2003)
Photos: Eugen (eumihai2003) and George (Nazareanu) — you can see lots more here!
Article: George (Nazareanu) with the help of Beatrice ( boopilina), Diana (dienuca), Anca (Annajo) and Mihnea (MihneaR)
Thank you guys, that was brilliant! And what do you think… it’s time the Little Mail Carriers’ cousin had a name — should we stick to “Postman Max”? :)