T A B L E_T A L K It's not just where you go but how you get there. Discuss the vintage vehicles of your driving history in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk   ___________________ Have your own postal adventure -- check out barnesandnoble.com for books about the Galapagos ___________________   R E C E N T L Y Strangers in paradise By Douglas A. Konecky Batam, Indonesia, was a lot less than the brochure promised -- until two traveling musicians found the Nagoya ice cream shop (03/02/99) Mardi Gras unmasked By Zachary Karabell New Orleans' biggest bash features days of flesh, booze and flashy costumes. But what happened to the festival? (02/28/99) Railway ties By Morrie Erickson A traveler discovers the real Burma on a train to Mandalay (02/26/99) Escape from Tashkent By Jeffrey Tayler A Peace Corps worker unwittingly falls into a romantic adventure with a Russian waitress stranded in Uzbekistan (02/25/99) Ground zero By Ellen Meloy Excerpt: The Last Cheater's Waltz (01/24/99) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		-----Hand delivering a postcard from the Galapagos ------------------------to Italy starts a string of delightful surprises. BY LINDSY VAN GELDER I certainly didn't volunteer to deliver the postcard because I wanted to make new friends in exotic foreign lands. Au contraire, I'm a person whose travels are motivated by nature, architecture and food -- in other words, all the attractions Barbra Streisand isn't referring to when she natters on about "peeeeeeople who need people." But there I was on Floreana Island, at the ass end of the Galapagos, 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, and I wanted to send a postcard home to my partner Pamela in Miami. If I expected hand delivery of my own mail, mano a mano, it seemed only sporting to pick up somebody else's. The Floreana post office is really just a raffish wooden barrel plunked down in the middle of the sand, a descendant of one installed in the 18th century by whaling crews. In those days it was an optimally efficient system: Sailors who were passing through checked the mailbox for letters addressed to their ships' ports of call. Today the barrel is stuffed with postcards from tourists of all nations. You could schlep them home and stamp them, obviously, but the true spirit of the olde mail barrel, according to our guidebook, demands the personal touch. The day my daughter Miranda and I were in Floreana, most of the mail was addressed to Norwegians and Argentines. But there was one postcard with frolicking sea lions on one side and Saluti scrawled on the other, intended for someone named Gina at an erboristeria, or herbal pharmacy, in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. I knew this was the home of grappa, the firewater liqueur. I had even been through it once on a train, so I also knew it was located at the foot of the Alps, in the Veneto region, about 120 miles from Venice. Pamela and I had frequent flier tickets to go to Venice in a few months. I pocketed the card. Still, I wasn't prepared just to show up cold. When I got back home, I decided to write Gina a letter. I speak a little Italian -- that is, I know a lot of hotel and menu words, which I sometimes say in Spanish by mistake. But with the help of a dictionary, I managed to explain all about the mailbox traditions. I assured Gina that there was no social obligation that went along with her receipt of the postcard -- although I'd be glad to buy her a beer. "Mom, you can't send this to strangers," warned Miranda, who majored in Italian. "They'll understand you, but they'll think you're a serial killer." She rehabilitated my felonious grammar. Off went a letter to Bassano del Grappa. A month later I got an e-mail from someone named Luca. There was a note in Italian, plus a serial killer English translation that read: "Dear Sirs VAN GELDER, let off ourself for the postpone what we replay at your letter, but we were outside for a travel. We are very happy to meet yuo in Veneto for make a friendship. If yuo send to as the date of yuor travel we can organize ourself for meeting. Reverence, Gina" It was around this time that Pamela, who speaks no Italian at all, began asking me pointed questions about exactly how much of our time in Venice was going to be devoted to this project. But I had made a commitment to the spirit of the mailbox, damn it. I sent the dates. Gina/Luca e-mailed back phone numbers and said we should call when we got to Venice. N E X T+P A G E | Doubting the existence of Gina   _________________________________ For more information: _________________________________