Ibirapuera Park

Karina sent me this lovely card featuring The Ibirapuera Park, a major urban park in São Paulo, Brazil. It has a large area for leisure, jogging and walking, as well as a convention centre. Its importance to São Paulo is comparable to that of the Central Park to New York City. The Ibirapuera is one of Latin America largest city parks, together with Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City and Simón Bolívar Park in Bogota. Inaugurated in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the city, with buildings designed by famous architect Oscar Niemeyer and landscape by designer Roberto Burle Marx, Ibirapuera Park covers an area of almost 2 square kilometres (0.77 sq mi). It is the second biggest park in the city.

The park complex has many interesting features for residents and visitors. They include: The Grande Marquise ("The great marquee"), location of the MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna] ("Modern Art Museum"); The Cicillo Matarazzo Pavilion, home for the Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo, and a space for events and expos, including the São Paulo Art Biennial and the São Paulo Fashion Week; The Manoel da Nóbrega Pavilion, which until 1992 was the city hall; The Lucas Nogueira Garcez Pavilion, formerly known as "Palácio das Exposições"("Expositions Palace") and now known as the Oca ("hut", given its round shape), which harbors both the Museu da Aeronáutica ("Air Force Museum") and the Museu do Folclore ("Folklore Museum"); The Armando de Arruda Pereira Pavilion, home for the Prodam - Companhia de Processamento de Dados do Município ("Municipal Data Processing Company"); The Palácio da Agricultura ("Agriculture Palace"), home of Detran, municipal transit department. The building was originally intended to harbor the municipal agriculture department; The Planetarium and Municipal Astrophysics School. The Planetarium building which is shaped like a flying saucer. It was the first Planetarium in the Southern Hemisphere and has a dome, which is 20 meters in diameter. The German projection machine shows the sky above São Paulo from dusk to dawn. During the projection a professional astronomer explains the most famous stars and constellations as well as the movements of the Earth and other planets; The Gymnasium; The Japanese Pavilion; The Monumento às Bandeiras; The Ibirapuera Auditorium, controversial building that was on the original Niemeyer plan, but was only built recently; The Obelisk of São Paulo, symbol of the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932 and the statue of Pedro Alvares Cabral that proclaims "Brazilians owe everything to Portugal."

A very innovative way indeed of portraying the map of the World. Thank you Anouchka for this very interesting card.

St. Michael the Archangel Church, Kaunas

St. Michael the Archangel's Church or the Garrison Church is a Roman Catholic church in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, closing the perspective of the Laisvės alėja, the main pedestrian street. It was built between 1891 and 1895 when Kaunas was part of the Russian empire, in Neo-Byzantine style largely for the use of the Russian Orthodox garrison of Kaunas Fortress. Toma send me this impressive card.

The Dutch Friesian was bred for many years as a dual-purpose, it is now a prime milk-producing breed with milk yields highest in the cows of North Holland with a yield per lactation of 5,222 kg with a fat yield of 4.09%.

The exact origins of the breed are difficult to determine but it is known that in the 18th century, herds of small black-and-white cattle were brought into northern Holland and Friesland from northern Jutland to replace animals that had fallen victim to disease and flooding.  These animals were crossed with the existing Dutch cattle and formed the basis of the Dutch Friesian.  Before the establishment of the Netherlands herdbook in 1873 and the Friesland herdbook in 1879, both black-pied and red-pied animals were maintained separately.  The preference for black-pied cattle, particularly in the United States, led to the further segregation of red-pied animals and presently this color variation only exists in small number in the Netherlands.

Production levels of this breed declined during the 1950s when excessive emphasis was placed on correct color pattern.  During the 1970s Holstein's were imported from the United States and used to improved the milk production.  This resulted in larger animals with a more pronounced diary characteristics.  The mixing of these two breeds is such that now many Dutch Friesians are 25% to 75% Holstein. This pretty card was sent to me by Bianca.

The Intriguing Film "Take Shelter"

Take Shelter is a 2011 American drama-thriller film starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. The film is written and directed by Jeff Nichols. Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father (Shannon) questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself. The story is spun in a small town in Ohio, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) has apocalyptic dreams of being harmed by people close to him, but he keeps them from his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and their deaf daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart). He focuses on building a storm shelter in his backyard, but the strange behavior strains his relationship with his family. Curtis goes to see a counselor at a free clinic, with whom he talks about his family's psychological history. His mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, which set on at about the same age that Curtis is now.

He buys gas masks for his family and continues work on the shelter, extending his previous health insurance policy for a few weeks. His former counselor gets replaced by a new one with whom he has to start over; he storms out of the office. Curtis and his wife fight over him getting fired, but she decides to stay, to get him to see an actual psychiatrist, and for both of them to get jobs. He and Dewart run into each other at a community gathering, where they start to fight. Curtis winds up screaming to the room about a storm that is coming that none of them are prepared for. Some time later, a tornado warning sends him with his daughter and wife into the shelter. After they awaken, Curtis reluctantly removes his gas mask, prompted by Samantha. They go to open the shelter doors, but he says he still hears a storm outside and feels it through the door. His wife implores him that there's no storm and that he needs to open the door for the family. After a tense standoff he throws the doors open into the blinding sun; a minor storm has passed and his neighbors are cleaning up debris.
A therapist tells them to go through with their planned beach vacation, but that Curtis will need to undergo real therapy when he returns. At Myrtle Beach, while Curtis is playing with Hannah, she signs the word "storm." As Samantha exits the house, the thick, dark rain that Curtis experienced in his dreams begins to fall. In the reflection of the doors, a storm brewing over the ocean is shown. Simultaneously, the tide pulls back, creating a tsunami in the distance. This card was sent to me by Sabine from Germany.

Staphorst

Staphorst is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands.This card shows a few views of the villages of Staphorst and its southern neighbour Rouveen, which came into existence, as in the 13th century monks, started to bring the bogs and swamps into culture. All the farms were built along the long road through the bog area. Thus a lengthy row of farms was built, becoming the 7 miles long village of Staphorst-Rouveen. This phenomenon is called in Dutch: lintbebouwing (ribbon urbanization). In many parts of the Netherlands this type of village is quite common, e.g. Vriezenveen, the villages along river dykes in the Netherlands, the so-called moor-colonies in the provinces
Drenthe and Groningen, as well as the German regions opposite the border. A specialty for Staphorst is, that after a farmer's death, his land was often divided between his sons. The son, who didn't inherit his father's farm, built a farmhouse for his own behind the other. Therefore, many pieces of farmland are very lengthy; yet narrow (e.g.1500 x 40 metres). Originally, each piece of land was 125 metres wide. The farms are of the traditional Low Saxon type. They have green doors and window shutters. Most farms existing now were built between 1850 and 1910. This pretty card was sent to me by Jan from Holland. 

Novodevichy Convent

Novodevichy Convent, also known as Bogoroditse-Smolensky Monastery is probably the best-known cloister of Moscow. Its name, sometimes translated as the New Maidens' Monastery, was devised to differ from an ancient maidens' convent within the Moscow Kremlin. Unlike other Moscow cloisters, it has remained virtually intact since the 17th century. In 2004, it was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Novodevichy Convent was founded in 1524 by Grand Prince Vasili III in commemoration of the conquest of Smolensk in 1514. It was built as a fortress at a curve of the Moskva River and became an important part of the southern defensive belt of the capital, which had already included a number of other monasteries. Upon its founding, the Novodevichy Convent was granted 3,000 rubles and the villages of Akhabinevo and Troparevo. Ivan the Terrible would later grant a number of other villages to the convent.
Novodevichy Convent was known to have sheltered many ladies from the Russian royal families and boyar clans, who had been forced to take the veil, such as Feodor I's wife Boris Godunov until he became a ruler himself), Sophia Alekseyevna (Peter the Great’s sister), Eudoxia Lopukhina (Peter the Great's first wife), and others. In 1610–1611, the Novodevichy Convent was captured by a Polish unit under the command of Aleksander Gosiewski. Once the convent was retaken by Russian forces, the tsar supplied it with permanent guards (100 Streltsy in 1616, 350 soldiers in 1618). By the end of the 17th century, the Novodevichy Convent possessed 36 villages (164,215 desyatinas of land) in 27 uyezds of Russia. In 1744, it owned 14,489 peasants. This pretty card was sent to me by my friend Olga.