Momo, Nuuksio, Finland

BlackCat Posted May 24, 2008, 1:35 am	Hello everybody, I arrived in Essen on the 19th May, but I didn't had the chance to write something before today. I was adopted by Fabi from Delenna and I am happy to be in Essen now ! The postman was really nice and woke up Fabi with the bell, so that she could help me out of the envelope. HERE can you read my story, before I got to Fabi's house. We have made some photos until now and I am thinking of some life missions for me. When I have found some, I will began to search for people who wants to host me. Before that I will travel with Fabi, Wauzi and at the moment Chocolate Moose! Chocolate Moose welcomed me very warm. I really like him ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted May 24, 2008, 1:43 am	Hello ! Today Chocolate Moose and I made a puzzle together. I was responsible for the frame and Chocolate Moose made the core with the motive. We had a lot of fun and I really like the result. The picture is nice, isn't it?! Maybe we will hang it up on the wall. We will see. Enjoy the pictures, Momo
BlackCat Posted May 28, 2008, 5:04 pm	On Saturday Hueso arrived, but we hadn't the time to update our travelogs (Fabi doesn't feel good), so we will do this today ! He is a cute little dog and I like him !
BlackCat Posted May 28, 2008, 5:07 pm	Today we played a little bit Nintendo 64. We played Banjo and Kazooie. It was a real fun. Hueso was too small to play alone, so I helped him and at the end we all played together !
BlackCat Posted Jun 7, 2008, 9:40 pm	Today we visited the Hundertwasserhaus here in Essen. It is a really colourful house. It was built for the parents of children, that have to get a chemotherapy in the hospital here. There are living people from all over the world.
BlackCat Posted Jun 16, 2008, 10:56 pm	Hello ! We visited the castle ruin 'Altendorf' today. We didn't go in, but it was a nice view from outside, too. Maybe we will go there again one day and I can take photos from inside ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Jun 21, 2008, 12:07 am	Hello everybody, today we visited the Villa Hügel. You can find out more about it on the homepage: www.villahuegel.de/english/ . It was really nice to go around there and see the nice park and so. We also have a new friend here. Burrimul Memu arrived here ! He is really nice. Hope you like my pictures, Momo
BlackCat Posted Jun 22, 2008, 6:41 pm	Hello ! Today we met olgamaus and her ToyVoyager for a walk in Essen. She came here the long way from Remscheid to see the Zeche Zollverein and to go into the Gruga Park. I don't know the reason but BlackCat didn't make a photo of us in the Gruga Park, but we will go there again, soon. But we made a photo at the Zeche Zollverein for you. The coal mine Zollverein is an UNESCO world heritage site. You can learn more about it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeche_Zollverein Have a nice day, Momo A group picture (from left): Burrimul Memu, Aquila, Wauzi, BertieTheDuck, Brownie (who isn't at ToyVoyagers), Hueso, Percy, Me, Desmond and Chocolate Moose
BlackCat Posted Jun 22, 2008, 9:49 pm	Hello everybody, today we went into the forest. It isn't far away from home, so we decided to go out for some hours. It was really nice there and we had a lot of fun climbing around. Momo
BlackCat Posted Jun 29, 2008, 7:24 pm	It rained a lot the last days, so we decided to stay inside. I hope the weather will turn better again, because it is really sad to sit inside the room all the day.
BlackCat Posted Jun 29, 2008, 7:25 pm	Today the weather turned better, so we went into the park. It was really nice there and we had a lot of fun watching the children playing. We were really happy to see the sun again !
BlackCat Posted Jun 29, 2008, 7:28 pm	GO!!!!!!!!! GERMANY GO!!!!!!!!! Today is the European Championship finale. GERMANY against SPAIN... I am totally for Germany and BlackCat is already rouged for the game. I am so excited. We saved us a pillow for sitting there and watching the game. Hopefully Germany will win against Spain! GERMANY GO!!!!!!!!!!!
BlackCat Posted Jul 1, 2008, 3:30 pm	Hello , today Chocolate Moose left us. He is on his way to Russia now and I am missing him. He was the first TV I have met and he is such a friendly guy. I hope, he will have a good travel and maybe we will meet again somewhere. Have a good travel, buddy, Momo
BlackCat Posted Jul 5, 2008, 4:56 pm	Hello everybody, today a new ToyVoyager arrived. A nice rabbit called Hoppity. She is a nice girl and I like her allready. We welcomed her really nice and I hope she will have a nice time here ! Momo
BlackCat Posted Jul 5, 2008, 4:58 pm	Hello , today we visited BlackCat's Mum ! It was a nice time and we had a lot of fun. I met a lot cows ! Really nice ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Jul 23, 2008, 6:53 am	Hello everybody, a new ToyVoyager arrived here today. A little cat with a t-shirt on his head. Oh my god, I was laughing so much. Nepomuk is his name. He is a really nice cat and I like him a lot ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Jul 24, 2008, 7:11 am	Good morning, today we tried to catch the sunrise on a bridge near our flat. It was too cloudy to see the sunrise and when we made the photos, it started to rain. Hopefully it will stop soon. As I don't like rain ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Jul 26, 2008, 9:05 pm	Hello, today we said Goodbye to Burrimul Memu, which wasn't easy for me. I really like him and I hope we will meet again, one day. Goodbye my friend...have a nice travel! Momo
BlackCat Posted Jul 26, 2008, 9:08 pm	Hello, after saying goodbye to Burrimul Memu we welcomed Lady. She is one of the Toys of my mummy, so I was really happy to meet her. I hope she will have a great time with us ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Aug 10, 2008, 9:59 pm	Hello ! Today we welcomed Titch, the little monkey. He is really cute and I hope he will have a great time with us ! Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Aug 17, 2008, 7:02 pm	Hello ! Today we went to the open pit Garzweiler. We went on the highest place where we can go and watched the people inside while working. It was a really nice view! Momo
BlackCat Posted Aug 31, 2008, 12:10 pm	Hello ! Today I welcomed Nicki Bear, who is some days longer here allready and Hurley, who arrived today. They are both nice little TVs and I really like them ! Hope, that they will have a great time here. Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Aug 31, 2008, 9:29 pm	Hello, here I am again. Today we meet Mums best friend and drove to Xanten. We wanted to go into the archaeological park there, but Mums best friend didn't want to. So we just made some photos outside. It was really nice there and the sun was shining so wonderful. Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Aug 31, 2008, 9:45 pm	Guess where we are! GUESS ! It is not San Francisco! It is Emmerich at the Rhine. This bridge is over the Rhine. It looks really nice and while driving by we really felt like in San Francisco.
BlackCat Posted Sep 7, 2008, 9:34 pm	The watchful Chicken Als Essen noch eine kleine Stadt war mit hölzernen Häusern und verwinkelten Gassen, als es noch keine Straßenbeleuchtung innerhalb der Stadtmauern gab, da drohten ständig Gefahren: überraschende Feuerbrünste konnten verherrende Auswirkungen haben und nachts war man vor Überfällen räuberischer Banden nie sicher. Zu ihrem Schutze hatten die Essener Bürger mancherlei Vorkehrungen getroffen. So gab es den Nachtwächter, der mit einem Helm, einer Hellebarde, einer Laterne und einem Horn bewaffnet war und der zu bestimmten Zeiten in sein Horn tutete und dazu seinen Vers sang: "Hört ihr Herrn, und lass euch sagen, die Glocke hat zehn, elf... geschlagen. Bewacht das Feuer und das Licht, das diese Nacht kein Schaden geschieht, und lobet Gott, den Herrn." Neben dem Nachtwächter durchstreiften zeitweise auch mit Piken ausgerüstete Bürgerwehren die Stadt. Auf die stets drohende Feuergefahr hatte besonders der Turmwächter auf der Marktkirche zu achten. Auch er hatte die einzelnen Nachtstunden durch Blasen aus allen vier Schallöchern anzuzeigen. Wenn ein Brand ausgebrochen war, mußte er die Brandglocke ziehen und außerdem in die entsprechende Himmelsrichtung eine Laterne hinaushängen, damit jedermann wußte, wo er sich zu wenden hatte. Denn alle Bürger waren in diesen Fällen zur Hilfeleistung verpflichtet. ********* Es war an einem heißen Sommertag, als ganz Essen die Hochzeit der Tochter des Bürgermeisters feierte.Nach der Trauungszeromonie im alten Münster hatte man sich vor der Toren der Stadt zusammen gefunden, um dort auf den Wiesen den Tag mit Spiel und Tanz zu verbringen. Am Abend als die Stadttore geschlossen wurde, feierte man in den Schenkstuben weiter, und erst am frühen Morgen begaben sich die letzten weinseeligen Zecher zu Bett. Zu diesen gehörten auch der Nachtwächter und der Turmbläser, die selbstverständlich an den Feierlichkeiten teilgenommen hatten. Auf den Gedanken, nun, wo die Nacht schon fast vorüber war, noch ihren Dienst anzutreten, waren sie gar nicht mehr gekommen. Was sollte auch passieren in dieser warmen Jahreszeit, in der kein Kamin mehr brannte und alle Herdfeuer und Kerzen gelöscht waren? Doch die Gefahr zog bereits von den Stadtmauern herauf: leise huschten etwa 20 Männer heran. Es war eine Räuberbande die einen Überfall geplant hatte und die Gelegenheit nach der Hochzeitsfeier als günstig ansah, um ans Werk zu gehen. Aufmerksame Wachen hätten sie entdecken können, die wüsten Gesellen, die da auf leisen Sohlen von allen Seiten heranschlichen. Ihre Pferde hatten sie ein Stück zurück gelassen. Und so war nun hin und wieder ein leises Wispern oder das Klappern herabhängernder Waffen zu vernehmen. Schließlich hatten sich alle Männer an der verabredeten Stelle unterhalb der Stadtmauer versammelt. Sie hatten ein langes Seil mit Widerhaken mitgebracht, das sie nun über die Mauer warfen und an dem sie sich hochziehen wollten. Mit leisem Knirschen rastete der Haken in die Mauernische ein. Niemand innerhalb der Stadt vernahm das Geräusch. Niemand? Doch da war jemand, der schon zu so früher Morgenstunde auf den Beinen war und darauf wartete, mit seinem lärmenden Tagewerk zu beginnen: es war ein Hahn. Aufgeschreckt durch die unerwarteten fremden Geräusche meinte er, die ersten Sonnenstrahlen nicht abwarten zu sollen und mit einem lautem "Kikerikiii .....!" machte er seine Empörung über die morgendliche Störung Luft. Und noch einmal "Kikerikiii....!" Gewohnt beim ersten Hahnenschrei aufzustehen begoben sich nun viele Bürger aus den Betten und es dauerte nicht lange, bis die Räuber die bereits die Stadtmauer erklommen hatten, entdeckt waren. Eilends ließ man die Glocken läuten, die Schützen griffen zu den Waffen und mutig machte man sich daran die Räuber zu vertreiben. Als diese sahen, daß sie bemerkt worden waren und mit ernsthaften Widerstand zu rechnen hatten, da ließen sie sich schnell wieder an ihrem Seil hinab und flohen, so schnell die Beine sie trugen, froh, wenigstens mit dem Leben davon gekommen zu sein. Die Essener sahen aber allen Grund, ihr Abenteuer damit zu beenden, daß sie die Feier des Vortages fröhlich fortsetzten. Ihren Retter, den Hahn, vergaßen sie jedoch nicht. Zeit seines Lebens genoß er jegliche Freiheit. ************ Und später setzten die Essener Schützen ihrem "wachsamen Hähnchen" sogar ein Denkmal, das heute seinen Standort auf dem Kurienplatz gefunden hat. Auch ein Schützenlied läßt die Erinnerung an das "wachsame Hähnchen" fortleben. Der ehemalige Musikdirektor der Stadt Essen, Max Fiedler, hat es in der von ihm 1931 komponierten Overtüre "Essen" verarbeitet: "Wer kaufet , wer kaufet ein wachsames Hähnchen? Es ist ja so lieblich, so weiß wie ein Schwänchen. Wer kaufet einen wachsamen Hahn?" *english.translation.will.follow*
BlackCat Posted Sep 7, 2008, 9:35 pm	Hello, today we went into the city and saw a really nice church there. It is the church "St. Johann Baptist". It is in the middle of the city and right next to the "Essener Münster". We will make better photos, if we will come there again. Momo
BlackCat Posted Sep 20, 2008, 10:34 pm	Hello ! Today a new ToyVoyager arrived here. Her name is Odette and she is a little bee. She is really nice and we welcomed her with a lei. She had a lot of fun sitting in this lei and making photos. Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Sep 25, 2008, 8:01 pm	Hello ! We went through Huttrop today. The part of Essen where BlackCat is working ! That's the look on the highway which is called "A 40" in Essen. It is a highway which is going through the Ruhr area. There is always a lot of traffic and at the rush hours there is always a traffic jam. That is me in front of the water tower in Huttrop. It was half rebuilt after the second world war and now there is the "Tafel" - a social activity, where people without money can get food really cheap. Momo
BlackCat Posted Sep 25, 2008, 8:04 pm	GOODBYE HURLEY
BlackCat Posted Sep 29, 2008, 5:03 pm	Today we welcomed Dieuwerke and Hueso. And we said Goodbye to Cloudy. She is on her way to her first host. Bye, Momo
BlackCat Posted Oct 15, 2008, 11:45 pm	Hello, here is my update from the zoo. We went to the zoo Duisburg this Sunday. It was really nice there. An Amazon river dolphin Koala bears A rhino Penguins Sea lion and her baby Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Oct 17, 2008, 9:35 pm	Today we had to say goodbye to Nicki Bear. She is traveling again now and we are still staying here. Tomorrow we will say Goodbye to Odette. So this is the last photo with her, too. Have a nice day, Momo
BlackCat Posted Oct 21, 2008, 6:14 pm	BlackCat met olgamaus and we went together to Venlo for shopping. We made some photos, as you can see. And a photo of me and Wauzi at the river meuse:
Marjolein Posted May 2, 2009, 9:20 pm	Hello! I have been found by Marjolein! I already like it here, she has a very nice couch for me to sit on! She will show you some photo's of today soon Hugs, Momo
Marjolein Posted May 5, 2009, 9:53 pm	Hi mum!! Here are the photo's of today! It was very nice at the Postcrossing/ToyVoyagersmeeting! And allthough it was very hard to say goodbye to you, Marjolein promised me she is going to take very good care of me! This is all of the tv's in giant wooden shoes at the Miniature City Madurodam! This is us with Dandilion and Marjolein! I said goodbye to Bran who was going to be released! This is me with real Dutch tulips. This is me at the cheesemarket in Alkmaar with extremely little people haha. This is what Madurodam looks like. Here are all the tv's again at a windmill! I hope Bran will be found soon!
Marjolein Posted May 5, 2009, 9:59 pm	After Madurodam we went to Scheveningen. The weather was very nice and I very much enjoyed it! This is the famous Pier of Scheveningen from which you can bungeejump. We also saw this really cool sandcastle! I wonder what other cool things I will be doing with Marjolein! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jun 7, 2009, 4:58 pm	Today the wheather was the best! I went on a bicyclytour with Marjolein and her best friend Dieuwerke. We started and ended in the city Groningen. We drove about 26 kilometres and had a picknick in Wierumerschouw! Marjolein had also never heard of it, but apparently it's a very small village near the city Groningen. In Wierumerschouw I saw this great bridge. It was a very nice day! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jun 27, 2009, 10:54 am	Hello mum! The weather is very great today! So, since Marjolein doesn't have a garden, we went to the park. It was a very pretty park! I enjoyed the view. I read a book. Bathed in the sun. Had some orange juice. I watched the clouds. I read Kasper's book for a bit. I chilled under this amazing tree. And I helped Marjolein writing a letter to you mum! It's a letter inside a little book! It was a great day! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 15, 2009, 2:27 pm	Hi mum! Since today Marjolein and me are at a training in Ommen. In a building called Olde Vechte. The goal of the training is: To create more successes in life while enjoying it. Today Marjolein had to do a performance and she did not know what to do or tell so she told the rest of the group about ToyVoyagers. This is the photo she made as an example: That's the house we will stay in the next 13 days! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 15, 2009, 2:38 pm	Dear mum, Today I went to another Postcrossingmeeting! It was at the themepark The Efteling. This is all of us: Isagv (Postcrosser), Dandilion, holding me (Postcrosser and ToyVoyagerhost), Goofychicken (Postcrosser), Carolien25 (Postcrosser) and of course Marjolein holding Jelle. The Efteling is a park with lots of rollercoasters but also with lots of fairytales. This is in the fairytaleforest. I met a big scary dragon! And saw these coloured pigeons. They have these colours since there birth, or so the Efteling says. They are from the fairytale 'The wedding dress of Genoveva'. This is inside the Fata Morgana. An attraction in which you sit inside a boot and go trough 1001 nights. The photo's are a bit blurry. Fortunately the photo's of 'Laafland' are much better. It rained a bit but that didn't matter because we had lots of postcards to write in the restaurant haha. Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 21, 2009, 10:24 am	We went to a tea museum today! It's called the Theefabriek (tea factory) and is in the north of The Netherlands. We went there by car. This is what most of the province Groningen looks like. This is the Tea Museum in Houwerzijl. It's located in an old church and the house of the Pastor. The Museum also has a very cool garden with roadssigns. This is the entrance of the museum. This is in the the place where you can actually drink tea and stuff you eat at a High Tea. And you see the sign to the teashop. (Theewinkel) Marjolein had Turkish Appletea and a sandwich and scones with whipped cream and strawberryjam. Oohlala. Of course we also got some Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 26, 2009, 4:39 pm	Dear mummy, I went to Nijmegen! Nijmegen is the oldest city of The Netherlands! First I went into the woods. Then I took a ride in a Big Wheel (I really don't know the English name!) and I had a really cool view over Nijmegen! And this is me and Marjolein's boyfriend Kasper! Well this was it, now excuse me as I am getting ready to going to Paris! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 26, 2009, 5:14 pm	Getting ready for Paris! Our hotel is in the neighbourhood Montmartre where the Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur is! And do you know the most famous sight of Paris? I have packed my bag! There is a cookie in there and 20 euros, should be enough. And this time I am not traveling in an envelop, but with the Thalys! And I have also learned some French: Yes = Oui No = Non Thank you = Merci beaucoup Please = S'il vous plaît Excuse me = Excusez-moi I don't speak French = Je ne parle pas français Goodday = Bonjour Goodmorning = Bonjour Goodafternoon = Bonjour Goodevening = Bonsoir Goodbye = Au revoir I am happy to see you = Je suis content de vour voir How are you? = Comment allez-vous? How much is this? = Quel est le prix? What time is it? = Quelle heure est-il? Now I am ready to go to PARIS! Our train leaves tomorrow at 8:38 from 's-Hertogenbosch and the Thalys leaves from Rotterdam at 10:26!!!! Around half past one we will arrive in Paris! Till soon!
Marjolein Posted Aug 3, 2009, 11:09 am	Day 1! I arrived in Paris! We left by Thalys this morning! It's a very cool and classy train! Around half past 2 we arrived in Paris! We went to our Hostel, called Perfect Hotel. It is in the neighbourhood Montmartre and we almost have a view on the Sacre Coeur. (But not really haha) Here you see our view. Our first touriststop was the Eiffel Tour! Look at the beautiful views! This is Parc des Champs. We went around the tower, going left. On the hill in the background you see the Sacre Coeur! This is the Palais de Chaillot. Inside the tower I watched movies with the Eiffel Tower inside it. For example this one. How cool is the Tower?! After the Eiffel Tower we had some very nice Fillet Mignon at a restaurant at Place Cambronne! And after that we decided to go to see the Sacre Coeur for ourselves! The sun was already down, so I really love these photo's! And this is the view from the church. The first day rocked! I hope the second day will be even better! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Aug 3, 2009, 12:01 pm	Day 2! We took the metro to the sewer of Paris today! It's a museum under the ground, in the sewer, called Les Égouts. The sewer of Paris is 2100 km long! In the tunnels there are roadsigns and housenumebers, just like in the streets. This is so that the sewerworkers know where they are. And if you drop something in the toilet, you can just call the sewer and tell them in which house you dropped it, there is a 80% chance they will find it back! When there is no rain the chance is 100%! Marjolein and me saved a rat from the sewer! He really wants to be a ToyVoyager, so when we get home I will see what I can do! Right next to the Sewermuseum is the place where British Princess Diana passed away! She died in the tunnel bij Pont D'Alma because of the press following her and making the driver crash into the tunnel. There is a flame as a monument to her. After the real bad smell in the sewer we went for a walk in the park. It was Jardin du Luxembourg. This is Palais du Luxembourg. It was once built by a rich Italian woman. She bought the land from a man called Luxembourg, that's why everything is called Luxembourg. We walked to Les Invalides. This building was built for wounded soldiers. After all this walking we had some pizza and afterwards we walked by the Seine. And we found a really cool band just playing cool music like Elvis Presley, near the Seine! Let's see what tomorrow will bring! Momo
Marjolein Posted Aug 3, 2009, 12:46 pm	Day 3! Today was arttime! We went to Musée Rodin. Marjolein really wanted to see 'The Kiss', so she ran over there and took like 10000 photo's Behind the Museum was a big garden also filled with sculptures from Rodin. Like 'The Thinker'. Looks just like me, right? The faces Rodin could make are so perfect! This is what the museum looks like. And even the flowers in the garden are pretty! After all this art we had a nice lunch at this cute little park near the Champs-Élysées. And of course we where in the neighbourhood of.... The Arc the Triomphe! From here we took the metro to La Défense and we saw the La Grande Arche! From here we went to the Notre Dame! This is the inside. And of course you know what the Notre Dame is famous for?! The glasses: And the Gargoyles: We went to another museum, after all today was arttime. Can you guess which museum? Yes it's the Louvre! Marjolein made like a million photo's in here too, so I will show you the most important ones! Of course the Mona Lisa. The Dying Slave by Michelangelo Buonarotti. Venus de Milo. And The Madonna of the Meadow of Raphael. Outside the Louvre we chilled in the fountain. Aaahw very nice! Now I really need a sleep! Au revoir! Momo
Marjolein Posted Aug 3, 2009, 1:27 pm	Aah yes Day 4. Well day 4 was not really a happy day. Marjolein's boyfriend Kasper was sick all night and day, so we didn't get out of the hotel much. Marjolein did some shopping and I kept Kasper company the whole day! We didn't take any photo's though. But we will make it up to you tomorrow
Marjolein Posted Aug 3, 2009, 1:48 pm	Day 5! The last day! Onooo! But it was a very cool day The first thing we did was go to Versailles! First we went into Château de Versailles. The most famous place in here is The Hall of Mirrors. The Gardens of Versailles where also very beautiful! The Garden had so many flowers! After Château Versailles we went back with the train to Paris (it's about 35 minutes by train). We decided to go to Montmartre, we where staying in the neighbourhood but hadn't really had a good look around. So we saw The Moulin Rouge. And Place de Tertre, where all the artists are. But the most important photo's are still to come! So stand by! And be prepared for some serious goosbumps!
Marjolein Posted Aug 3, 2009, 2:11 pm	So are you ready? Because of course you know that ToyVoyagers started with the movie Amélie. So it also started in some way in Paris. Which means that I am in the place where it all started right now! And what do you think? We went to the Café des 2 Moulins, where Amélie works in the movie!!! This is what is looks like from the inside in 2009. And now, please sit down. I've saved the best for last. THE GODFATHER OF TOYVOYAGERS!!! O MY GOD! I love this vacation! Too bad it's time to go home again! I've loved every part of it! And I hope you like the photo's! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Aug 15, 2009, 11:08 am	Hi mama! Today I went on a surprisetrip with Marjolein: to Berlin! We just arrived in the hostel! Our first stop was Potsdammer Platz where pieces of the wall are! We walked on to the Holocaust memorial. It was very impressive! The idea of the builder was that you could easily feel lost because all the bricks look the same when you walk trough them. Just like the way the Jews felt in the war. We walked on and saw the Brandenburger Tor! The final building we saw today was the Reichstag. In the street Unter der Linden we had great currywursten!
Marjolein Posted Aug 15, 2009, 11:12 am	Day 2! Today was museumday! We went to the Altes Museum with Greek and Roman art. And Pergamon in which a Greek Tempel is rebuilt. I was not allowed to go in, Marjolein had to leave everything behind except her camera so if you like I can show you some photo's without me, just tell me! Today we rented bicycles to get around the city faster. We came accros this beautiful sight. It's the Dom of Berlin. We stayed in the museums for many hours and after that we took our bikes and looked for the Berlin Wall! Unfortunately it got too dark to take anymore photo's so we drove back home.
Marjolein Posted Aug 15, 2009, 11:24 am	Day 3! We drove into the park Tiergarten, which is near our hostel. We saw the Sieggessäule! It's built for the victory over the Danes in the 17th century. We climbed it! We drove on to see Checkpoint Charlie. It was very impressive to read stories about people trying to get over the wall to West-Berlin. Somen succeeded but a lot died trying. We took a biketrip in the neighbourhood and we saw beautiful buildings. We did some shopping and ate pizza. Afterwards we went to the cinema to see an American movie: Public Enemies. It was cool!
Marjolein Posted Aug 15, 2009, 11:27 am	Day 4! Today was mostly trainday! But we did first go to the Jüdischen Museum. Marjolein really wanted to go there, because she saw a documentaire about the architect Liebeskind. It contained lots of Holocaust stories and upstairs the story of Jewish people from a thousand years ago. We took the train to Duisburg and I saw the trainstation of Essen! I wanted to jump out, but Marjolein stopped me telling me we have lots more adventures ahead! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Aug 20, 2009, 8:50 am	Hello mama! Marjoleins parents asked us to go with them to Amsterdam! So of course we went! This is me on the Dam. This is the WWII-monument. The shop Bijenkorf. The Royal Palace. We did lots of shopping, Marjolein bought Breaking Dawn! But we also had to go back to Den Bosch sometime of course. We took the train back, but we couldn't say goodbye to Amsterdam. This is the musuem Nemo. It's a museum more for children and about how things work. Like the sewer or rockets. The footballstadium Ajax Arena of the club Ajax.
Marjolein Posted Aug 20, 2009, 8:57 am	In Den Bosch we where hungry! So we went to the Wok to Go! It was really nice! I had Tropical Chicken, oohlala. And I ate it all with chopsticks!! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Aug 25, 2009, 10:11 pm	A sunny day, so time to go to the sea! We went to Delfsail in the town Delfzijl! It was all so pretty! Here are the beautiful photo's we made
Marjolein Posted Sep 3, 2009, 9:33 am	Goodmorning mum! Kasper and Marjolein had the car of Kasper's father today, so we went driving! First we went to a town near Nijmegen called Heilig Landstichting, where we went to Museumpark Orientalis which is a museum about religion. First we visited the town Beth Juda. This town looks exactly like the ancient town Nazareth, where Jesus Christ lived. It was built in 1916 at a schale 1:4. In the town we found an ancient wooden synagogue. The house and workshop of Marie and Joseph was also there. Next to it we found this cool house. Just like lots of other buildings here, we found this UNESCO-sight. It's the House of Pilates. In another part of the parc, there was a Roman part. Next to all these interesting religious stuff, there was an exibition about humor throughout the whole parc. It included funny films and drawings about humor like this one: It's a drawing about the extreme Dutch politician Geert Wilders who wants to ban the Qo'ran. In this drawing he says he also wants to ban the phonebook because that's where terrorists can find each others phonenumbers haha.
Marjolein Posted Sep 3, 2009, 10:06 am	Zzzzzzz... Huh? What?! We are in Germany? Just when I am taking a nap... We went to the Kaufland for buying some cheap food. Then we went into the city and I saw this cool statue! We did some shopping, bought cool boardgames and we walked to the Schwanenburg. We saw lots of swans, like this one. Love Momo
Marjolein Posted Sep 3, 2009, 11:35 am	Today it's partytime in the city Groningen! (the city Marjolein is from) So we went there to party! They celebrate the siege of Groningen in 1672. There is always a horse parade and a fair! But before showing you all this, I will show you the photo's of museum we went to today: The Comicmuseum! Before looking at the comics we made some drawings ourself! We look like comics ourselves now! I saw this drawing about Germany. Don't know exactly what it's about but I guess it got something to do with April's Fool. We played on the computer! Check out the Sudoku I made! So finally, the comics. These people are Sjors and Sjimmie. And this is there car. Well this is what they looked like decades ago. Now they look more modern of course. This is the witch in the forest of Paulus de Boskabouter. The boot of Eric de Noorman. This is the cat from the comis Jan Jans en de kinderen. This is the car of Franka. The Belgian comic Suske en Wiske. The doll of Wiske, called Scharnulleke. The founder of Ducktown from Donald Duck, called Cornelis Prul in Dutch. Then it was time for the special exibition, about shrink Sigmund. (The little guy) The man asks: Also urinating? Yes... says Sigmund. This comic is about Nordic Walking and the people around Sigmund say: Hey, he can do it without sticks! The other special exibition is about Nickelodeon. I made my own comic! And I also made a drawing! I drew Spongebob myself! There was a mail box! For kids to write to Nickelodeon. And I learned some Dutch. It is for Dutch kids to learn English, but for me it works the other way around. Hmm what would Aap be? And Walvis?
Marjolein Posted Sep 3, 2009, 11:52 am	Time to party in the city! Here you see the Grote Markt and the Martinitower. The most famous sight of Groningen. This is Marjolein's favourite attraction: rollercoaster Super Mouse. This is the city hall where Kasper and Marjolein are getting married next year! The Goudkantoor where the taxes of Groningen where received in the old days. Now it's a restaurant. Back to bed, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Marjolein Posted Sep 16, 2009, 11:30 am	Hello! A new friend arrived! His name is Mumble and he is very nice! We watched a cool movie today! It's callled Ratatouille and is about a rat that is a very good cook but not allowed to cook because he is a rat, so he found a human to help him. And it's is Paris!
Marjolein Posted Sep 16, 2009, 11:53 am	Hi mum! I went to a party today! It was for a surpriseparty for the father of a friend of Marjolein, who turned 50! It was a gardenparty in his own garden. He lives in a village near the city Groningen and has a very big garden! Everybody he knows was at the party! His daughter had made sure there where nice lights all over the garden. They had nice food! He got nice and personal gifts. He went on a biketrip to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. And familymembers made a collage. 'Hello, who is there?' Okay okay Mumble I will talk to you! We had a great time
Marjolein Posted Sep 16, 2009, 12:25 pm	Today we took a walk in the province Drenthe, in the nature called Noordsche Veld. There where lots of toadstools! Wow this is a big one! And there a words on it! In the province Drenthe the nature looks like this: This kind of nature is called 'heide'. After walking we rested at a Thea House in the middle of nature. The weather was nice and the nature and of course the scones also
Marjolein Posted Sep 30, 2009, 3:33 pm	Hello mum! It was Maritiem Den Bosch this weekend! That means lots of boats in Den Bosch! And this is the Saint John's Cathedral! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Oct 2, 2009, 9:02 pm	Hi! I am just back from a Postcrossing-  and ToyVoyagersmeeting!! It was in Zwolle and much fun! We wrote many cards! Let's see in a few day if you know this card! On the photo's you see another ToyVoyager of Marjolein, Persephone. Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Oct 31, 2009, 11:41 am	Hello! We where walking in the city Marjolein lives in, 's-Hertogenbosch. And we saw a Medieval market! So here are the photo's We had really no idea what they where doing at the market but it looked cool! Momo
Marjolein Posted Nov 3, 2009, 8:42 pm	We took a tour through the city Den Bosch today! Our first stop was the mailbox! Which is next to the docter and pharmacist of Marjolein! It's an old church with modern buildings next to it. Den Bosch is really pretty, look at this: We went to the Tourist Information to get some postcards from Den Bosch. It's the oldest building in Den Bosch. It's called the Moriaan. It was built in circa 1220. In the basement there is a café. Den Bosch was already a city in 1220, it got cityrights somewhere between 1185 and 1196. Do you remember me being at the Bijenkorf in Amsterdam? This is the Bijenkorf in Den Bosch! It's a bit less pretty, right. Haha. This is the townhall. A nice halleyway. According to the book of Den Bosch, Marjolein bought at the Tourist Information, this is the most beautiful place in the city. And then the battery was dead! Onoo! Marjolein, you should have brought new ones! Well nothing we can do now, let's go back home!
Marjolein Posted Nov 22, 2009, 11:06 am	Hi mum! I went to another Postcrossingmeeting! It was in Amsterdam this time! Firstly we wrote lots of cards of course Then we went to a museum, which is called Ons' Lieve  Heer op Solder and it was a hidden church when the Catholics where not allowed to have churches. Unfortunately they where renovating it, so it wasn't as pretty as it is supposed to be, but you get the idea The church is devoted to Saint Nicholas. And! When we went outside we saw the real Saint Nicholas! And then we went to find postcardstores! But look what I saw: I saw the Dam again and everything, it was very cool And Marjolein sent and bought lots of postcards! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Dec 13, 2009, 1:47 pm	Hi! Today I went to the National Heritage Museum in Arnhem! It is a museum about everything about the Netherlands, through all of history. It's an open air museum, so it's like walking through a Dutch village in different times. You could so inside all the houses, like this one. You could also take the tram to see everything. This is a little bakeryshop. And this is Dutch new year in old times. At the square there was this carroussel. It was not all houses but also Dutch industry, with the package-delivery company Van Gend en Loos. These kind of cars where seen in Holland untill the fifties. Now there are many more railways. We watched old newsshows about winter in Holland. And we sat in a bar watching Dutch football! There was also a special exibition about collecters. This man collects everything about the Dutch royals. This is Queen Wilhelmina, the grandmother of our present Queen. And this is Queen Juliana, the mother of our present Queen. And this is a photo of our present Queen, Queen Beatrix! With her husband, who passed away a couple of years ago. Greetings from Arnhem!
Marjolein Posted Dec 17, 2009, 5:31 pm	Snow!! Walking in a Winter Wonderland, lalalala... It is snowing in Den Bosch! We took a walk in the snow! We also went to the famous nativity scene in the Saint John's Cathedral! Sorry for the moving photo's, but we where not allowed to use the flash  because it was inside a church! This is what the rest of the cathedral looks like. And this is a photo of the church, wow isn't it beautiful?!! Let it snow! Momo
Marjolein Posted Jan 7, 2010, 11:04 am	Merry Christmas! We made muffins from Germany to celebrate!
Marjolein Posted Jan 7, 2010, 11:11 am	And we walked in the snow again! Brr cold! Remember this park from the summer?
Marjolein Posted Jan 7, 2010, 11:21 am	And of course we sat by the Christmas tree and sang Christmas carols!
Marjolein Posted May 1, 2010, 8:13 pm	Dear mum, Here I am again! It's been too long! I am so sorry, but as you know Marjolein is getting married soon and she is so busy with that and has been all year! But the good news is that I have been to Antwerp, Belgium today! It was very cool! We went by train, it was about an hour from Den Bosch. This is the trainstation of Antwerp! The market with the Cathedral of Our Lady. The weather was so good! The sun was shining and it was really hot for the time of year! Another market but this time with the famous cityhall and fountain. The also have an harbour in Antwerp! This is the view from the harbour onto the city. It's so beautiful don't you think? You can see the Cathedral. And in the harbour they also have a castle. It's simple called The Rock (Het Steen). Of course we bought some real Belgium chocolate. But that's already gone mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted May 13, 2010, 9:03 pm	Marjolein and Kasper got married today! I was there! This is my proof: And I also saw you mum!! I was so happy! Hugs Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 7, 2011, 8:46 am	Hi mum! We have made a great biketrip today! First we went to Engelen. It's a very beautiful and old little village close to 's-Hertogenbosch. Next to Engelen they built new little villages in the shape of castles! We drove there to see it for ourselves and it was so cool! And we drove further into the country. This water is the Maas, a very big river in the south of The Netherlands. I found lots of flowers so I decided to pick some and put one behind my ear!
Marjolein Posted Jul 7, 2011, 8:52 am	And we came into an even more beautiful and old little village called Heusden! Walking in this village is just like walking back in time! And after all this biking and sightseeing we decided to have pancakes! On this map in the pancakehouse you can see where we are. And this was my farmerspancake! Oohlala! We had a great day!! Momo
Marjolein Posted Jul 7, 2011, 9:09 am	Hello dear mum! I went to Moviepark Germany today! Marjolein got a trip here for her birthday, from her parents! I met lots of cool cartoons, like Shrek and Spongebob! And we saw a Shrekmovie in the Roxy theater!! The rest of the park was also very cool! And of course Marjolein also went into lots of rollercoasters and other scary stuff! But I just watched her getting sick and wet haha. I had a great time!
Marjolein Posted Jul 7, 2011, 9:35 am	Hi sweet mummie! Today is my last day with Marjolein! So I will show you where I spend most of my time here. Byeeeeeeeeeeee Den Bosch!!!! And Marjolein!!!!
BlackCat Posted Aug 21, 2011, 11:37 am	Hello, today we had a nice and sunny walk through the fields in Essen-Kettwig. Love, Momo
BlackCat Posted Aug 21, 2011, 11:52 am	Hello everyone, today BlackCat visited a pen pal who is living not so far away from her home. We went with her and had a lot of fun in Viersen. You will see on the pictures. Love, Momo
Leslee Posted Nov 12, 2011, 3:43 pm	Hello!  I just popped over to York in England. I brought some yummy treats (Leslee says thank you) with me and when I got out of the packet, Karlie and Yewlee were there to great me. I arrived in time for breakfast but I was too busy eating to photograph that. Then I was glad to get out for some fresh air.  Those envelopes are cosy but it sure is nice to get out. It is a sunny day with clear skies and not too cold.  There are lots of leaves on the ground here.  I did take photos but Leslee said they went 'funny' in the computer so... I went to the post office to get a parcel and then had a lovely sit by the river to watch Leslee open the package. The package had some new friends in and other treats. This outing was a bit tiring for me when I had only just arrived so when I got back I had a little sleep next to the cat. Love from Momo
Leslee Posted Nov 13, 2011, 4:27 pm	Hello,  today I got to go to York town. I walked there along a cycle track.  It used to be a train track and the train would take fruits to markets.  There are fruits growing along here from seeds falling off the carriages. Here are some raspberries.  Leslee said the weather has been strange so the raspberries think it is spring again already! It only took 20 minutes to walk into town.  Lesley said that you know when you are at the town centre because of these medieval walls all around it. We passed the quilt museum.  I wish I could go in but it is closed today. In the middle of town there are lots of pigeons. This is why I came to town today.  I came to see what Leslee's son O' was buying with his birthday money. This is the Anti Gravity shop. Most boys that live in York like to have the latest micro scooters from here and customise them but not O'.  He came here for a remote controlled tank. I made sure I went past the York Minster on the way home.  It is the second biggest Gothic cathedral in Europe. Lots of people come here to see it. Today there were lots of soldiers arriving for a special service for remembrance Sunday. Back home I got to have a little go with O's new tank.  It fires little balls! I am going to make targets with O' now, he just asked me to help him because he needs something to fire at... Bye!
Leslee Posted Nov 13, 2011, 4:32 pm	Hi, look at this my host had left over from Halloween!! It is a light up balloon.  I had great fun playing with this! Night night!
Leslee Posted Nov 16, 2011, 6:55 pm	Hello, this evening I learned to play some new games. This is Monkey Madness. You have to take monkeys out of the bag one at a time and try to fill the cards with the right colour.  This one is double madness because there are extra monkeys here from the Monkey Mayhem game too!!! Next I learned to play Mancala.  All those beans get moved around in a circle and I get to keep all the ones that finish at this end.  I thought it would be a good idea to play with the monkeys in the mancala!!! My host's son had other plans and he wanted to play celebrity chef game that he made up himself, but I think Monkey Mancala would have been better. Bye, love Momo
Leslee Posted Nov 19, 2011, 9:02 am	Hello! This week I have just been going to work with my host.  I can't take photos there because it is a school.  But I go there every day because you never know what might see on the way. Today, on the way home, I went to the 'chippy' for fish and chips. Here is the fish and chip shop. It was dark out.  My host went in and asked for "One of each please" This means a fish and a portion of chips.  This is usually enough for one person but my host will share this with me and her son.  We went to a little grocery shop while the fish was being cooked. Here is our fish. It is cod, covered in batter and then deep fried.  The other bits in there is fried batter which is called scraps. The lady behind the counter said "do you want scraps?"  but my host said "no" because they are unhealthy. Back at home we unwrap the fish and chips. They are wrapped in grease proof paper and newspaper.  This is a very greasy meal, so you couldn't eat it very often. Here is is all ready to eat.  People usually have beans or mushy peas with them but my hosts will have fresh fruit after their meal instead. Most people add salt and vinegar to the chips and put ketchup on the plate to dip in.  My host said that If I wanted to be healthier I could just eat the fish out of the batter and leave most of the batter which is what she does. It doesn't look too tasty here but it smelled gorgeous and tasted wonderful.
Leslee Posted Nov 19, 2011, 9:04 pm	Happy Birthday Mommy :OD I hope you had a good day xxx Momo
Leslee Posted Nov 25, 2011, 6:49 pm	Hello! Today I got to go into York town for a bit of charity shopping. The first shop wouldn't let me take photos but the next two did. This charity shop is run by the Salvation Army. I found a little bee. I might make him into a tv. This is the big bag of Christmas decorations my host bought In the next charity shop, I bought a little puppy! I might make her into a tv! After the charity shops, I passed by Stonegate. It is a lovely old street.  I want to go there one day to look at the teddy bear shop. I got another look at the Minster Here is what it looks like altogether! And here is the big doorway.  This building is being restored all the time and these stones have been restored at some time.
Leslee Posted Nov 26, 2011, 10:42 am	Today I went into the town before everything closed. It is getting a bit Christmasy here! Here, at the art gallery a Santa's Grotto has arrived, In the town center there is a Christmas market I wanted some of those roasted chestnuts but my host said I would get all sooty. So instead I went to watch the children's Christmas fair for a while.
Leslee Posted Nov 27, 2011, 12:57 pm	Today is car boot sale day.  This place is a cattle market, but on a Sunday people pay to park their car there and sell things.  First, bacon sandwich for breakfast Then I traveled there by car This is what the car boot sale loos like.  My host says that is is usually busier than this. some parts are indoors, which is a good job because it was very windy outside. I found someone to buy I might help him to become a toy voyager! Here is Blaze, who I bought and the things my host bought too. The sun was bright and the wind was strong and cold so I am tired now and am going to relax with blaze. Bye
Leslee Posted Dec 1, 2011, 7:40 am	It is the first of December, and so the countdown to Christmas begins! I have my own advent calendar and I opened the first door. It is a little toy soldier.
Leslee Posted Dec 3, 2011, 8:14 am	I have opened the second door and the third door of my calendar.  Still I am opening my calendar with no other ToyVoyager from company.  Two have been invited but I am still waiting.  Luckily, as you can see, there are other friends here for me.  Especially now that the Christmas decoration box is opened. Cleaning and tidying is happening here so I hope to do some Christmas decorating very soon. Bye
Leslee Posted Dec 4, 2011, 11:47 pm	Hello, today was a day for Christmas shopping which was a bit hectic, but I had a lovely walk into town by the river Foss. I met two huge swans and their three babies. and I got a bit of swan on me! I also met a storm trooper waiting outside a shop. I wonder if he was waiting for his wife while she shopped for perfume for her aunty.
Leslee Posted Dec 5, 2011, 5:21 pm	Back at my host's home, We made Christmas decorations. First around draw something round onto the back of old Christmas cards Then cut them out.  We cut lots of circles but my host says it is best to have at least 6 but more than 12 is probably too much. I folded them all and tied a big knot in a bit of wool to make a hanging loop. and then stuck them all together And finally, let them all pop open,  put the loop of ribbon or wool in the middle and glue both sides together. I think they look great! Bye for now x
Leslee Posted Dec 5, 2011, 6:09 pm	Today I open the fourth door! then it was time to cook with my hosts son! We are making butternut cups. Mmmm, melted chocolate.  It was hard to spread the chocolate on the sides but they look ok. So then they needed to set in the fridge and I went up a ladder to look in the loft. It is very dark up here... Oh look, we need this Well back to the cooking and to add the peanut butter (with a bit of sugar mixed in). and the more chocolate on top They were so yummy that I can't show you what they look like finished because my host's friends came to visit and we all ate them. Sorry. Oh, and the tree is up and with some decorations on I must go and add more decorations. Goodbye
Leslee Posted Dec 5, 2011, 8:22 pm	Yay, 5th of December already, and today there was a few snowflakes! This is the mini tree.
Leslee Posted Dec 5, 2011, 8:48 pm	Here are the new friends I have rescued.  One of them, the lovely green dragon, is going to travel to the Czech Republic tomorrow hoping to have a mentor and become a Toyvoyager!
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 9:37 am	I have been such a busy cow!!!  So, here are lots of my calendar opening photos all in one go. Door 6 got lost in my host's computer Oh dear! door 7 8 9 and 10 I saw this while out shopping.  It is a big painted sign that was painted ages ago and someone has painted it again so everyone can still see it. There was a tiny bit of snow here too, but not much!
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 10:04 am	Hi, today was my hosts dad's birthday so I went there and met Screen Wipe Pig and had a lovely birthday tea which was gammon, chips and peas.
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 10:17 am	Hello again, things have been so busy here that I came here with my host to get a Chinese takeaway. There was lots to choose from but we just got chips, curry and prawn crackers which I ate with some carrots sticks too. Here's door number 12, and I am eating chocolate :OD Phew, I don't know when I will be able to write again...
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 10:25 am	Hello, here is door number 13 My host got some lovely candies form Finland and shared some with me. Door number 14 and a little lamb came to live here sent from Brighton. We are a bit sad here because a friend Alien Queen was going to come here for Christmas but has taken so long in the post that we think she has gone surprise visiting somewhere else instead. This was her calendar.  Perhaps she may still find her way home or here but my host said I shouldn't get my hopes up. Below the calendar is a little bundle of sock pieces and Lesley says that this is a surprise.  I wonder what it is? There is some good news though!  The little dragon I rescued from the charity shop has arrived in the Czech Republic and is now named Rishu!  Eventually his first ToyVoyager host will be my mentor Blackcat!!!  I wonder if I will meet Rishu again one day? Bye for now
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 10:27 am	Hi, door number 15 bye :OD
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 10:55 am	Hi I was out and about today but the computer ate the best photos!  That is great new because I get to go back to the same places AGAIN!  Yippee! Here I am having a drink and a rest in McDonalds. And sharing sausage roll for lunch in the town centre. Mmmm, the weather was cold.  I could see my breath but the sausage roll was nice and hot Bye!
Leslee Posted Dec 21, 2011, 10:58 am	I opened door number 21 today.  There are not many left to open now!!! It was a picture of a penguin. I notice that there is a present near Alien queen's calendar.  My host says that it is from Alien Queen herself. I wonder what is in there? I wonder when we can open it?
Leslee Posted Dec 24, 2011, 6:12 pm	Hi, look!!  I really enjoyed helping my host fetch a tv Weeeeeeeee! It is bigger than the one that was already here.  Now I can watch all the Christmas films in style!
Leslee Posted Dec 24, 2011, 9:37 pm	Hello again.  It is the 22nd of December!  Nearly Christmas. Today, my host's son's medical appointment took us to a different part of York.  I went back home through a really nice park, called the homestead park. It was a beautiful day.  Very warm and Sunny for December.  My host says it is never this warm in December and she was wearing short sleeves and no coat!!! Today was the winter solstice so the sun was very low. Then I got to the river. And had a lovely walk along it. This is the back of St Peters private school.  this grass is designed to hold flood water when needed.  My host said it is good to roll down the little hill but we didn't have time to do that today!! You can see the back of the National Railway Museum here.  The big wheel has only just been erected.  There are houses along side this part of the river and they have their own floodgates. I enjoyed going past lits of shops.  This cake shop had some lovely Christmas cakes in the window and I liked the decorations in the Beatrix Potter shop Finally I got to the bus stop and went on a bus all the way to my hosts parents house in a small village. I liked using this curly bridge.  I had to go up and round and round and up and round and round... It smelled lovely when we got there! Grandma had been baking mince pies.  They are made with sweet pastry and filled with a sweet mixture of dried fruits, like a sweet chutney. I ate quite a lot! I liked my the recycled bracelet that my host's mother gave her.  She had just learned how to make them out of crisp packets. Before home time, I got comfy and enjoyed plum pie while watching a Norman Wisdom film on the TV. A lovely day! Nearly Christmas... x Momo
Leslee Posted Dec 24, 2011, 10:21 pm	Hi, today was interesting!!! Firstly, I met Alien Princess.  Her Mum Alien Queen was supposed to come here to have Christmas with us all but apparently she went somewhere else by accident.  She is ok but she can't get back here so she sent her little daughter Alien Princess to travel for her instead.  Then she can tell her Mum all about it if she ever finds her. Mary and Joseph and all the wise men and shepherds were a bit bored waiting for Baby Jesus to be born so We let them join in with the excitement of meeting Alien Princess. I will look after her because she is new to everything!!  I told her it was Christmas eve but I think she was just excited to be here! There are no more doors to open on my calendar. The last door was Santa. :O)
Leslee Posted Dec 24, 2011, 11:19 pm	Hi again, Today was a busy day.  After the excitement of Alien Princess arriving there were jobs to be done. First was delivering the last Christmas presents. Then a big tidying job.  There were toys ALL over in this room.  I have never been allowed in before. I watched as my host helped to tidy her son's bedroom.  Nearly everything came out of the room and all the furniture got moved around.  It took ages and my host was tired and said "this will do for today" It is much better and I could go in to look with Alien Princess. There are lots of toys but I am glad I don't have to sleep in those toy baskets! We all have a nice tea of toasted sandwiches, vegetable sticks and ham but now it is time for bed. I will find out in the morning if Santa has been to visit...
Leslee Posted Dec 26, 2011, 11:41 am	It's Christmas day!!!!! The first thing to be done today was opening presents! It was so exciting that I almost forgot to take photos!!! Here I am sitting on most of my hosts gifts she received. Yewlee was so excited with this basement for her house that she just lay there on the floor staring at it!! My host says that we are going to Grandma and Grandad's for Christmas dinner, so Alien Queen and I thought it would be great to travel there in a Christmas stocking! It seemed like a long time waiting for our Christmas dinner So Grandma gave us something to play with.  A Christmas cracker. Dinner's here! There was roast turkey, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes stuffing, mashed carrot and swede and sprouts.  Mmmmmmmm. and then for desert... Christmas pudding in white sauce! It was all so yummy.  I helped wash the dishes afterwards. After that it was time to play.  Grandam and I played Super Mario Kart on Owen's new Wii. I stopped for a while to watch my host Leslee, knitting. This knitting kit was a Christmas present. Oh my goodness, then there was more food!  Sandwiches, pork pies, olives, picked onions, crisps and salad, followed by mince pies and cream.   Time to rest now I think!
Leslee Posted Dec 26, 2011, 10:33 pm	Hello!  I did a little bit of shopping today at Range.  A big shop that sells 'everything' I saw a horse on the way.  He was waiting for a man who was walking across with some hay. Here is inside the shop.  This part is where the craft things are. And here is the furniture upstairs. From upstairs I could see a lot I thought I could see the toy section so I went off to have a look. I found the toys, hey look, I found a cow! Hi cow. I helped my host choose this green lantern for her dressing table. When I finished shopping it was so dark!  I was hungry and thirsty so I had some cola and a chocolate frog. I saw some houses on the way home that has Christmas lights. Well, I think I need another rest :OD Bye
Leslee Posted Dec 27, 2011, 7:29 pm	Hi there, I just had to show you this mess!!! This is the craft area that my host wouldn't let me show you until today.  It is ok though because I helped to tidy it. I took things off Alien Princess fell over in the plastic beads! I put things in these new boxes that we all bought at Range yesterday. And then it was finished!   :OD
Leslee Posted Dec 29, 2011, 9:46 am	Hi, I went for a quick shop today. It was so windy that I didn't take photos outside, but it wasn't very interesting anyway! I took shopping bags. Here are the shopping bags full of food. I put some money in a machine and this ball came out.  I am going to ask my host's son to open it with him. Owen was still in bed!!  He helped me open it.  It is a football that lights up. My host has recycling bins at her apartment so I helped to recycle lots of card and paper left over from Christmas. It is so very windy here, I want to go out but it is not nice. Bye!
Leslee Posted Dec 31, 2011, 9:24 am	Hi, I had a shopping day in town today.  It was quite a nice day at first and I had a nice walk to get there. The first thing I saw was the model shop. It is called Monk bar model shop as it is under the Monk bar. It sells train sets, model cars and kits for making planes and boats. The bars are actually huge gateways in the medieval walls that circle most of the city. I love this nativity scene I found. It started to rain a bit but I didn't mind. Then I came upon this place at the Coppergate center. I bought some giant candy laces. I liked this in the Coppergate too. It is a giant snowglobe to have your photo taken in. Here is Clifford's tower.  Bad things happened there.  Some people call this the eye of York. It got even wetter with the rain so I started walking back home. Can you see the York Minster at the end of this street? I could see some swans on the river but I think they are too far away in this photo to see. I saw this guy from across the road! That building used to be a cinema. I put some money in the pot On the way back I went into the model shop and actually went in. Here is a better look at the Monk Bar I walked back in the rain along an old railway line which is used for bikes now. Bye!
Leslee Posted Jan 1, 2012, 9:39 pm	Well you'll never guess who came today!!! Alien Queen!! We found her at the post office on our way out for a shopping trip so the first thing we did was go for some lunch to get to know each other. We were all so excited as you can imagine!!! Alien Queen brought us candy too! So Alien Queen came shopping with me and Alien Princess. We went in Grandma's car and I popped back into the Range again, and then parked in a multistory car park in town. Grandma went clothes shopping while I helped my host with her bags outside. And finally some food shopping. x
Leslee Posted Jan 3, 2012, 10:04 pm	Hi there.  I was very busy on New years eve because I spent the evening helping my host with Yewlee's house. But when it was nearly midnight we stopped working and went to the window We did a count down, but then we couldn't see any fireworks!  Oh dear, so I ran to the tv and saw lots of fireworks live from London. Happy New Year Then time for bed :O)
Leslee Posted Jan 21, 2012, 9:10 am	Hi! I got to go to work!  This is where my host works.  It is a school.  There were no children there today so I just got to play. I went in the cave and helped paint bugs with glow-in-the-dark paint. The children will have fun here tomorrow looking for bugs in the dark.
Leslee Posted Jan 21, 2012, 9:20 am	Hello, We haven't been out much because my host has been poorly and she was even off work for a bit. We did lovely things like stay in bed sewing and eating biscuits.
Leslee Posted Jan 21, 2012, 9:35 am	Hello, Alien Princess left today.  She is going to America. I hope she has a good journey. My host says that we a re going out today, into town to see things.  It is a bit windy and cold but we will try to have fun.
Leslee Posted Feb 14, 2012, 10:12 am	I went out for a walk into York today to go sight seeing. On the way we stopped of at a toy shop.  It has been here since my host was a girl. As I got closer to town I could see this It is part of the walls and there is a doorway to get onto it. So I crossed the road to get a closer look and went up I walked along a little bit and could see that there was a long way to go. Over the side we could see the gardens of the Quilting Museum some house and the Minster I wonder what this was for? Something went wrong with the rest of my photos, but it was raining a lot a lot anyway so we went home when we got to the other side.  This was just one part of the bar walls so maybe there is time to go on some more.
Leslee Posted Feb 14, 2012, 10:19 am	Yay!  Remember this little dragon? I found him in a car bootsale and now he is a ToyVoyager!  Thank you Mailianne!  He is called Rishu and Soon he is going to Germany.
Leslee Posted Feb 14, 2012, 11:45 am	I went out to see York again today but it wasn't very nice! It started snowing. brrrrrrr. Some places looked really pretty with the snow like this, St Williams college behind the Minster but it was a really cold snow storm, too cold for taking photos.  It was laying on the ground very fast so I needed to get back to my host's house. I went to the supermarket on the way home and met Paddington Bear. He didn't hold me very nicely but I think his fingers were numb from the cold weather.
Leslee Posted Feb 14, 2012, 11:51 am	Today the snow has stopped but there is lots of snow to play with!! I made a snow angel and I made a snowman with Alien Queen
Leslee Posted May 20, 2012, 8:48 am	I went all the way in a car to Hull with Alien Queen! I could see the famous Humber Bridge and we drove underneath it! I knew when I was nearly there because of the blocks of flats. Hull is not a very pretty city.  It has lots of industry. I just came here for The Deep Inside I climbed to the top and looked out of the window to see the estuary. The fish were so lovely There were cute amphibians too and activities to do. At last it was time to eat. I was ready for food by then!!!
Leslee Posted May 20, 2012, 10:14 am	I went to see the ruined abbey at the Museum gardens. It was lovely but it was such a cold day! I kept warm in the city library for a while and helped my host choose some books.
Leslee Posted May 20, 2012, 10:54 am	Well it is time to move on again.  There were things I wanted to do but didn't seem to find time! I forgot to photograph myself getting into the envelope but I am in there! See you soon Mommy!
BlackCat Posted Oct 27, 2012, 7:28 pm	I am at home...just wanted to write that. Not searching for a new host right now. But I am at home !
BlackCat Posted Oct 28, 2012, 2:07 pm	I am alive, I am at home and I am happy.
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Mar 19, 2015, 9:22 pm	Hello, dear mom!  This is a very short update just to announce I've arrived safely, and that I'm havimg lots of fun here in Portugal with Henna and Zoe and the rest of the gang. Our trip was very peaceful, if not taking into account the fact that somehow there was an ant who had managed to sneak into our envelope, and she was running every now and then over our toes and making us squirm.  I got a great bearhug from everyone!  I like hugging! Moo! Here is full summer already (well, not on Portuguese scale, but on my German scale!) Fresh, green grass for a little cow to eat!  And wonderfull flowers everywhere! This one is a wild crocus. We have been seeing many things and places, but I'll write the updates afterwards, like all the other voyagers here. Because of Henna's UV -allergy we spend every second here outside as long as we can!  These are wonderful, blooming mimosas - they are now everywhere! If you walk under them and it happens to be windy you turn all yellow!  So - it is two different flowers allready for my target of 100! I'm going to count!  Here is my first Portuguese dinner. Delicious vegetables with olive oil and lemon, njam njam!  Kisses from your little Momo! See you when the UV radiation gets too high for us to be outside, or while we´re already in Finland!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Mar 28, 2015, 2:31 pm	Hello, mom!  Today we are staying at home, so I have a good opportunity to write an update!  It was a bit hard to decide what update to make, since I don't honestly even remember the right order in which we have been seeing things. But I decided to write about our hiking trip to Peninha, because I like the photos a lot. So, we took a bus onto the border of the Sintra-Cascais Nature Conservation Area, and after we had got rid of the last urban zone, we were hiking trough a wonderful, green woodland.  The tall trees on the right side are eucalyptuses, and they made the whole forest smell lovely! I diwed to eat some lustrous, fresh grass under the trees and found many cute little flowers called Geranium Purpureum, alias Little Robin. This is my third species for flowers here.  We were climbing upwards, and the forest was making way for smaller flora - bushes of mimosa and laurels. The blooming mimosas had invited thousands of busy bees to buzz upon the flowers! We had to pass very carefully under the branches not to disturb the bees. They would not have liked it!  After passing the buzzing bushes we suddenly popped into more open landscape!  When watching towards east, we saw beautiful green hills. When watching towards west, we saw a small village behind the hills, and the Atlantic ocean behind the village.  It was hard to see where the horizon was - where the sea ended and the sky started - they were of such a similar colour. Our path took us still upwards. I started to realize the peace and silence of the hills.  It was wonderful! Just us, the hills and the sky! Walking here can be like a meditation. Maybe that's what the holy cows of India do?  Some hills were covered with flowers and looked almost golden under the sun.  When we watched closer, we saw that the flowers were Picris echioides or Bristly ox-tongue.  Four species already! 96 to go.  Every now and then we saw another small village in the horizon. Henna was telling me their names - there were Azoia, Quincho, Almogaçeme, but I don´t remember which was which. Seen from the hills they all looked just the same - little white houses hunching together, forming a sort of termite hill. We climbed still upwards, and here started to feel the wind on our fur. The upper we climbed the stronger the wind get, and soon it started to be a hard work to walk against it, but it was fun and made us giggle, and then it and the beauty of the landscape made us to sing too!  Zoe was teaching us a Finnish children's song, often sung while hiking, and as a linguistically talented cow I learned it fast: "Terve metsä! Terve vuori! Terve metsän ruhtinas! Täs on poikas uljas, nuori esiin käy hän voimaa täys kuin tuima tunturin tuuli. Viherjäisel laattialla jos ei seinät hämmennä tähtitaivaan korkeen alla käyskelen ja katselen ja maailma unholaan jääköön!" about: "Hail, forest! Hail, mountain! Hail, Lord of the Forest! Here is your child, valiant and young, stepping forward, ready to serve, powerfull like the stern wind on the fjälls. Upon the green floor without any walls mixing my head, under the high starlit sky I wander and wonder. The world can be erased from my memory." Isn't that something? As I told you - nowadays it is a children´s song, but originally it was a greeting to the forest. The singing was carrying us forward, and soon we got a first glimpse of Santuário da Peninha, towards which we were hiking. It was a refuge of some hermite monks in the mediaeval times, but it was considered a holy place long before that, probably because it is one of the highest points of the serra - a place in which the heaven and earth touch each other, and in which you are closer to the moon and the sun. In this photo you can see the Peninha behind us, but we are sitting around a sacrifice bowl carved on the rock on some prehistoric period.People were putting into it offerings. I don't know exactly to whom. Maybe to the serra itself. Here is the holy fountain of Peninha. Here a shephard girl, who was unable to talk, met a radiant woman in white clothes, while searching for a lost sheep. The woman was taking care of the sheep, giving it water from the fountain. After meeting her the girl suddenly could talk.  The water looked clear and tasted good!  The big boulders, over which the sanctuary is built, were carried here by the selfsame radiant lady.  She is called "Virgem da Peninha", but actually she is a much older pagan goddess worshipped here in Iberia.. she has been carrying big stones a bit here and there round the peninsula, building the dolmens, for example. The sanctuary itslef wasn't very interesting. And it was also closed. It is open only during summertime. But the hike here was super!  The wind started to be abit too refreshing (brrr!), and so we started to hike downwards again, and trough new forests.  See you soon again! I hope you enjoyed our hike!  Your Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Apr 17, 2015, 4:32 pm	Hello, hello, mom and everybody else!  How are you doing? How is the spring ascending? I´m swell, and I´m continuing with the Portugal -updates. Today I´m telling about a walking trip we made from Almada to Trafaria. We walked along a small road, which led us through  countryside -looking landscapes.  We saw couple of small villages. The inhabitants of the houses were peeping behind their curtains while we passed.  Although we were quite near the urban area, it is very rare to see any outsiders walking there. We saw the small town of Trafaria far away behind the fields.  On the roadside there was a shrine for a saint, where people bring flowers and candles.  Actually, it was originally a much older goddess, who recided on this spot, a female water spirit, to whom people brought flowers and bread. Soon we reached Trafaria. It is a very small town - its birth was in a small fishing village. Many of the townsfolk are still fishermen, and the shoreline is full of their boats.  It was very interesting to walk amongst the boats and some fishing equipment, and the fishermen thought it was very interesting to watch us.  Trafaria is situated just on the mouth of the river, where the river Tejo and the Atlantic ocean meet each other. So it is a wonderful spot for the fishermen, who can fish either on the river or go to the sea. Behind the boats we saw a harbour and some big grain silos.  We left the village and walked forward on the shore. This is nowadays a wild area. In the 1920´s and 1930´s here was a popular swimming and sunbathing beach, but then the bigger beaches in Caparica became more trendy and this beach was forgotten. That is just great - we have nothing against wild spaces.  A bit forward on the beach there is an illegal village. It was started in the 1970´s, after the revolution, when people were able to leave their slavery in countryside and move freely. Thousands of people came to Lisbon to search for work and better life, but there simply wasn´t enough apartments for all of them. So people started to build little huts and cottages here on the beach, and throughout the years it grew bigger. The Almada commun has made plans lately to demolish it, and force the people to move elsewhere (the land is valuable), but people don´t want to leave. It is their home. We didn´t took any photos there. People of the village don´t like to be photographed, understandably. We were inspecting all sort of seashells, and laying on the warm sun.  We also took some photos of each other. Crawfish took this photo, I did´t notice Zoe was behind me making horns. Hah!  Of course I then chased her round the beach a bit, but we were all giggling and having fun. We could see the town of Lisbon on the other shore of Tejo, and on the sky very dark clouds were gathering fast! So we returned home and ate some strawberries!  I wish you could have had them with us!  Many many kisses from Momo! See you soon again!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Apr 23, 2015, 12:36 am	Olá, dear mom! How are you doing? I´m getting on with the updates from Portugal. We try to get them made until the end of April, so we can move onwards to Finland. Today I´m going to share here photos we took on my first sightseeing walk in Lisbon, the Portuguese capitol. To get to Lisbon we usually take one of these little ferries over the river Tejo. The ferries are called "cacilheiros", since the harbour on the Almada side is called Cacilhas.  I was watching the river views from the ferry window. I saw the bridge Ponte Vinte e Sinque de Abril, which crosses the river. Sadly it is not possible to walk along it, it is meant only for cars and trains. There was a sailing boat gliding along the river. It´s white sails looked very beautiful against the blue Tejo. Zoe said it reminded her about the Finnish flag.  We left the ferry on the Lisbon side of the river in a harbour called Cais de Sodre, and walked along the shore towards the city center.  In the times when the Portuguese cogs sailed to discover new continents, on this area was an important shipyard where many of those cogs were built. Sadly it was also when the forests were erased from the Portuguese landscape.  This place is called Cais das Colunas (Wharf of Columns). Here were the wharves from which the ships sailed far away, and where they returned to. The columns are a memorial for those ships.  Next to the old harbour area is the square Praça do Comércio (Commece Square). The headquarters of the ship companies and commercial companies were situated around this square. The square is often called also Terreiro do Paço, because one of the royal palaces was situated here before the earthquake 1755. On the middle of the square is the Statue of King José I, by Machado de Castro (1775). The King on his horse is symbolically crushing snakes on his path, which I, personally, think a very disgusting habit.  Snakes are usually quite nice fellows!  The buildings around the square were of course totally destroyed in the earthquake, so the nowadays buildings are all built after 1755. The square has certainly seen many things during its existence, and many of them rather sad: people have been hung and burned here for different reasons. This is a triumphal arch, usually called the Arco da Rua Augusta. It has a clock and statues of the Glory, Ingenuity and Valour, Viriatus, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Vasco da Gama and, of course, the Marquis of Pombal, who built the square and most of the whole town anew after the big earthquake. We hopped into one of the famous Lisbon trams in front of the Arch and took a ride.  The trams are mainly from the 1930´s, and their insides are made of wood. They make entertaining animal sounds pushing their way through the narrow alleys.  While we were sitting in the tram Henna told us a bit more about the big Lisbon earthquake. It happened on 1.11. 1755, and most residents of the town had gathered into various churches, because it was the All Saints Day. So, when the earthquake hit the town, many people were simply buried under the churches when they collapsed..  After the earthquake various fires raged in the ruins, and then came the tsunami. About 1/4 of the inhabitants of Lisbon were dead, and people thought it was the God´s wrath because of the sinful life.. Usch, after such a horrible story it took some time to feel cheerful again, even for us toyvoyagers!  We stepped out from the tram in Alfama, which is the oldest part of Lisbon. For some twist of fate it didn´t suffer much in the erthquake either, so there is some very old buildings left, and most important of all - it´s web of alleys wasn´t modernized when rest of the Lisbon was.  Here the alleys still continue on their medieval routes - zigzagging with many odd stairs and surprising turns and quirks.  Originally Alfama was a district of poor people, and it has stayed such until these days, only now the tourism is creeping here too, and turning old bars and shops into souvenier kiosks and touristical fado restaurants.. I peeped into a shop selling different traditional canned fish products.  Here it is very common to have flowers and other decorations making the street more lively looking.  This azulejo (tile) on the wall says: "Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony how beautiful you are! I go to collect basil to spread on your feet." Saint Anthony (is one of the guardian saints of Lisbon He is celebrated in June and people are giving basil in little pots to their beloved ones. Here is a typical fado restaurant targeted for tourists. There must now be hundreds in Lisbon. The inhabitants of Lisbon have a very twofold opinion towards tourism. On one hand, Portugal is living on tourism. It is nowadays its most important source of income, and Lisbon is the most important target of the tourists. On the other hand, the tourism is turning local super markets into souvenier shops and making investors to demolish beautiful old buildings to make room for ultramodern hotels. The tourists are a real pain in the ass too - filling the busses and trams and streets and shops and shooting the poor inhabitants everywhere with their cameras.  Sadly some tourists are not behaving very well either.  One day we saw a group of six Spanish tourists totally filling one of the small trams - they were taking all the places with their backbags, and there were little old local grannies standing!  We toyvoyagers went and bit them on the ankles so that they jumped up from their seats, and then we told them in not so very polite terms how to behave.  Our host Henna was in total awe, and said she would have never expected to see the day when toyvoyagers are telling others how to behave! You see we can be surprising!  We came to a place, from where there was a nice view over the old part of the town and the river.  Our little paws started to be tired! Isn´t it odd, by the way, how two kilometers in town is more tiring than twenty in a forest?  So we decided to return home. But of course we had to walk through the narrow, mazelike streets again.  Back at home we ate very good soup!  I send you many kisses! I´ll put here more pics of Lisbon soon! Your little cow, Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Apr 24, 2015, 12:20 am	Hello again, mom and everyone else  Today I'll be showing you photos from the Lisbon zoo. I'm sorry the quality of the pics is often rather lousy - the animals where behaving like animals usually are when they spot a camera - they walk behind a bush or a corner or at least turn their asses towards the camera.  It is quite amazing, actually: there we have a beautiful tiger in a perfect pose, but one second later it has seen the camera and is walking away as fast as it can.. The Lisbon zoo has been built on an old farm, and it is a somewhat big area. Besides the zoo itself, to which you have to buy a ticket to visit, there is also a free area with nice parks, restaurants, ponds and some amusement rides.  Many people, especially old people, come to spend time on the free area, to sit on the sun. Do you see the black swan? She darted for the bushes immediately when Henna took the camera out, but she was slightly too slow!  We moved on into the zoo to see the animals. First we went to see a small section of farm animals. The bunnies were too lazy to hop away - they were in deep sleep!  It is that time of the year that many of the animals had little babies. Te sheep had too, but they didn't bring them near people (smart, I think). So we took some photos using the zoom. Here you can see the little lambs sucking their mom. Oh, how they were cute!  I also met a relation!  She was a very sweet young cow! She was delighted to meet me too, and she gave me a kiss!  The ducks weren´t too shy. They tried to eat the camera!  We went to see the big cats next. Most of them were sleeping. Well, they are nocturnal animals, what else? This cheetah wasn't sleepy at all! I think she was actually in heat..  Here you can see her a bit better.  She came to stare at us, but found soon out we weren't suitable as partners.  The lions were asleep! But I noticed some movement amongst them anyway, and when I watched with the camera zoom I could see there were some young ones!  They were behaving just like any kittens - a little playfight going on all the time, even while having a nap!  We took a ride around the zoo area in the small cable cars. It was great!  The animals were used to the cable cars running above them and didn't mind much. So we could see some species better than from the ground.  From the cable car we were able to see quite well some animals, which we saw only as distant shapes from the ground level. Then we sauntered along and saw two bears. One of them was having a sack in his head. Don't worry - in this pick their area looks very gloomy, but it is just one small corner we saw. The area is actually it was quite nice. There was a big pool and trees and grass and even a waterfall for their joy.  So that's not why one of them had decided to put a sack over his head.  Here they are.  We saw a young crocodile. Or is it an alligator? I always mix those.  Here is the same rhino now from the ground level.  The giraffees were showing some curiosity towards people.  The bisonts were not, although they´re some sort of cousins of mine too! I was chatting for a long time with this antilope.She was telling about the life in the zoo. It seemed to be nowadays about ok, although the spaces could always be bigger and more variable and have more stimulus for the inhabitants. A zoo can never be equal to nature, but for some of these animals there is no nature left, like for example for the Iberian lynx, who is almost extinct. There is simply too many people on this globe.  This babuan was really turning his ass to me!   We saw still some big birds. These are royal pelicans. Their foreparents moved here from the kings palace in the beginning of the 20th century. They still remembered their royal origins.  These nice girls are nandus (Rhea americana), some sort of ostrichs. I remembered the horror story of a toyvoyager eaten by a ostrich and kept my distance, although they looked friendly enough!  The flamingoes were making lots of noise when they saw us. I wonder why. One could imagine that birs living in a zoo would be used seeing a donkey, a cow, a crawfish, a dog, a kiwi bird and a woman walking together, but no, certainly we were a sight.  We ended our visit with a little walk round the gardens.  It was a nice day, although most of the animals were sleeping and we didn't see them at all. But that is normal in a zoo visit.  I send you kisses and hugs! Your Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Apr 29, 2015, 2:04 pm	Muito bom dia para ti, mamã amada!  Como está? É o teu pequeno explorador que tá a escrever de Portugal novamente.   One day we took a train and went to a small town called Sintra, not far away from Lisbon. Here I´m standing in front the Rossio railway station. I saw very nice landscapes from the train window.  When we got to Sintra, we just run trough the town (sorry mami, no town photos this time!) until we reached the edge of the forest, and then we dived in.  Sintra area is one of the last forested areas in Portugal, and a real paradise for people (or toyvoyaer) feeling suffocated by the urbanism.  There is also few little pools, like this. Henna, who is from Finland, loves this area, because it reminds her of home - forest and lakes.  Of course even here part of the land is privately owned and the owners are restricting people from walking trough their lands by erecting fences and putting up this kind of signs. It is good my portuguese is not SO very good yet, so I didn´t understand what was written there. Zoe said she suffered from a sudden loss of memory, and Henna said she had never even bothered to learn so stupid words. So we just walked happily forward.  We saw many beautiful flowers. This is for you, mom!  We walked some kilometers trough the forest, climbing some fences every now and then, until we reached these stairs and a plaque which told us we had come to the Capuchos Cork Convent.  The nature as the best expression of divinity - an admirable filosophy, think I!  We followed the stairs, admiring the cork oaks along our path.  There was little cross signalling us that we were now entering an area dedicated to the worship of god. We reached the small front yard of the convent, where there was couple of stone tables where the monks could sit near to the nature eating their meals.  This is the main entrance to the convent. This sanctuary was  inspiration of the former fourth Viceroy of India, D. João de Castro (1500 - 1548). According to a legend, João de Castro was hunting in the mountains of Sintra, and chasing a deer, he found himself lost. Tired from his search, he fell asleep against a rock, and in a dream, he received a divine revelation to erect a Christian temple on the site.  There was originally eight monks living here, and amongst them was a real celebrity -  Friar Honório, who, according to the book "Mirror of Penitents", lived to be 100 years old, despite which he lived his last three decades in a small cave next to the convent.  We entered the monks humble recidings, which consisted of tiny cells in which they lived and a bit bigger common areas for worshipping and eating and such. As you can see, many surfaces - walls, ceilings, doors and benches are coated with cork to make the space at least a BIT warmer. That´s why it is called "Cork Convent". The convent didn´t have any kind of heating system besides the hearth  in the kitchen. It must have been freezing cold in the wintertime inside the stone walls!  Of course the winters here are not so very cold, but at winter nights the temperature can drop under zero. The doors inside the convent were so small that even Henna, who is not a big woman, had to bend almost double to get trough them. Either the friars were very tiny, or the doors were planned so that they had to almost roam trough them to grow their humility.  The monks were living in very small cells, where they just and just had room to lay down on their hard, narrow beds. Only the oldest monks or those who were sick, had windows in their rooms to be able to see the nature. It was too dark to get any photos inside the cells, sadly. Here I am sitting on the monk´s window. And then we climbed to the roof. I wonder if the monks ever did that.  While we were sitting on the roof Henna told us more about friar Honório. So, this 70 years old monk was once walking on the road, when a naughty young village girl, carrying a basquet of apples, wanted to have some fun and teased the poor monk, asking "Do you want to taste my appless?", besides which she was smiling seductively for the old guy, who undoubtedly almost got a heart attack.  The monk then decided to retreat into a cave to rest of his life, to avoid further encounters with horrible maidens.  Anyway, he became a real superstar of his age - even the king was once visiting his cave. So, not much peace, after all. It was nice on the roof. The convent really is built on a beautiful spot!  Then we went to investigate the yards and side buildings of the convent. This is the inner yard of the convent, round which the buildings are organized. It had a small fountain and a shrine.  Well, living in the convent building doesn´t much appeal to me, but living in these surroundins does! Add, let´s say, some light and heating and carpets and nice beds to the cells, and it would be all right!  I entered a small sidebuilding, and guess what it was!  The monks´s toilet!  There could be three of them at the same time. How.. ..fraternal.  Then I entered another side building, and there was the monks´s kitchen!  I wonder what they ate. Probably not much. Next to the kitchen was a small chapel. We returned to our yard-investigations, and started to follow a path up to nearby rocks. We passed the owen in which the monks baked their bread.  The path led us on a small platform on top of the rocks, where the monks climbed to admire the landscape.  On those times all they saw was forest and sea, but sadly the overpopulation is now too easy to see. This is the cave in which our friend Honório lived 30 years. In very cold nights, they say, he covered himself with dry leafs.  I´m not sure if I would like to meet the guy.. Near Honorio´s cave was another cave, in which was living Jesus. Nice they had some company. Maybe they were shouting from cave to cave if they got bored. We returned to the convent yard and started our walk back trough the forest.  It was an interesting visit, don´t you think? Muitos beijinhos from Momo! See you soon!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted May 4, 2015, 8:28 pm	Hip hei again from Lisbon!  One day we visited Jardim Botanico Botanical Garden and natural scientific museum. It is situated quite near the center of Lisbon, but it is between the houses so that it is impossible to notice if you don´t know where to search. There are actually two other botanical gardens in Lisbon, but this is the best of them, says Henna. This garden was opened 1878.  In the upper part of the garden there are plant species which originate from Portugal, and in the lower part are species from the various former Portuguese colonies. I felt so much like diving into this beautiful big fountain, but then I saw it was full of giant sized carps! Zoe pulled me back fast! They could have eaten my tail or worse!    Thanks, pal! We were going first round in the upper part and admiring the plants.  There was also an exhibition about the plants of the age of dinosaurs inside a greenhouse.  Then we moved to the lower part of the garden to watch the more exotic species.  First we saw many different palm trees and big araucarias. There is sadly some fungal disease which has attacked the palms in Portugal. We saw many sick palms in the gardens too. They had lost their hair!  Then we walked inside a beautiful thicket of young bamboos.  No pandas eating them here. We saw another beautiful pond. Henna says it is because besides being interesting this place is also beautiful and usually peaceful that she prefers this to the other botanical gardens. Next we went to see the section of cacti and succulents.  First thing we saw there was this big dragon tree, Dracaena draco. Here it is seen from another perspective.  Next to the dragon trees we saw Opuntia Robusta.  It is from Mexico and it is formed with a bit rounder "plates" than the Opuntia ficus indica from India we usually see here. I don´t know the names of all of these plants. I should have written them down.  Maybe you know them better than I do!  This is a Golden barrel cactus, Echinocactus grusonii. Henna told me in Finnish they say Mother in law´s stool.  We left the cactuses baking in the sun and went to see the other parts of the garden.  We saw so many wonderful things! Here are banana plants. No bananas, though.  Shame.  During winter this is like a forest refuge inside the city, a good place to come and read for an exam, for example. In summertime there are too many tourists.  I´m sure you would love to spend time in here too.  Usually there are water channels running here and there, from pool to pool, but they were now been fixed and dry. We spent almost whole day in the gardens, and then we went to see the museum of natural history too.  There was an exhibition about Allosauruses as probable foreparents of nowadays birds. Zoe went totally kukkuu. She was foaming like a little steam boat around and babbling about the theories of dino extinction because of a meteorite and how only her foreparents were smart enough to turn into birds and continue living.  Well, I´m sad these animals disappeared! It would be really something if they were still here. Maybe they could have slowed down the human overpopulation a bit too.  These are allosauruses, who are those who probably turned into birds. They had bigger brains compared to the body size than the other dinos. Zoe told this fact to us about hundred times until we told her that compared to a maggot a slug is a genius.  Actually, it was quite an interesting collection and I was enjoying myself watching those huge sculls and bones, and we all were imagining them trampling in a city, muhahahah!  Mr Casanova had been drooling for sometime between all those giant bones, and he started to gnaw a rib of a raptor without realizing it was fossilized!  So, we had to get him out from there and feed him (and us) before the guardians would get angry.  So we returned home. See you soon again! Kisses and hugs from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted May 11, 2015, 7:05 pm	Hello, hello, all my dear people and toyvoyagers!  Now I´m going to tell you about our visit to the Pena palace gardens on the hills of Sintra. We took again the train to the town of Sintra. Behind my back the white funnily shaped chimneys belong to the Palácio da Vila. We walked through the town until we reached the edge of the forest.  We walked along a path towards the Pena palace area. This is a path only the local people know. Henna told me she found it just because she happens to be curious as hell when it comes to unknown paths.  Usually we don´t meet anybody on this path. Only one time, I think, we saw a young couple who had come to kiss there.  They looked insulted and moved rapidly away when we approached them. "Sorry, we don´t want to interrupt anything" we said, and the young couple looked even more insulted.  We saw ruins of a medieval castle on top of one of the hills. It was built by the moorish people who were reigning the country for some centuries. After some more walking we came to an old wall and climbed over it and came to the Pena palace gardens.  There were more ruins of fortifications from the same period also on the lower ground. They made the forest to look somehow very peculiar. I saw my first glimpse of the Pena palace when I climbed over some rocks. I thought it looked like a castle from fairy tales. There are many artificial lakes in the gardens. They form a fancy water system - little channels leading water from pool to pool and to the many fountains. The tower standing in the lake is a very fancy house for the ducks who live in the lakes.  We saw fantastical fern trees, which formed little jungles in some parts of the gardens. These are called Feteiras da rainha = Queen´s fern gardens. We were discussing the prehistory of the planet earth itself - how it looked when there weren´t yet other trees than fern trees, and not yet any seed producing plants, just spore producing ferns and horsetails and mushrooms.  These gardens were forgotten for many decades and let to take care of themselves. Only about five years ago the gardens started to be tamed again and turned into a tourist attraction. I wish they don´t destroy their charm with too much taming! In this house lived a remarkable woman, Countess d´Edla, the second wife of the last king of Portugal. She was the one who actually planned the gardens of the Pena palace - ordered the fern trees and sequoias and various other trees to be planted and took actively part into the works.  While we walked through the gardens Henna told us more about the countess. Her marriage with the king was a big scandal.  She was an actress and a singer, and had a daughter outside marriage when she met the king. The aristocratic circles were horrified, and many of the numerous children of the king refused from talking to their father and his new wife. The couple lived, anyway, happily, spending lots of time in the small house around which they planted the gardens.  We walked past "rhinoceros trees".  I don´t know to which species they actually belong. Now reached the wonderful flower garden. In this time of the year there wasn´t yet flowers, but the trees were in bloom! I saw beautiful azaleas and magnolias and whatnot! In midst of the wonderful trees there was pool, and the petals from the trees colored its surface pink. [color=darkblue][size=2]The magnolias were also smelling far and wide. I started to feel a bit drunk. We had come near the Palace, and went to see it a bit nearer. The palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal.  In the Middle Ages there was a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena on the hill where the palace stands nowadays. According to tradition, its construction occurred after an apparition of the Virgin Mary. That lady must be responsible of 90% of construction works in Portugal!   After the sanctuary there was a small convent on this site. King Manuel I ordered the construction of the monastery, which was donated to the Order of Saint Jerome. For centuries Pena was a small, quiet place for meditation, housing a maximum of eighteen monks. Considering the history of the place, I find the pretty pagan symbolism of the latest construction quite enthralling. Of course it depends on the viewpoint whom we consider pagan. The christianity was for a long time too an odd, exotic sect from Near East.  The monastery was ruined first by a lightning and then by the big earthquake in 1755. People were telling stories about the sinful life of the monks, which caused this destruction. Numerous stories tell about underground tunnel leading to nunneries and such.   For many decades the ruins remained untouched, until 1838, when king consort Ferdinand II decided to acquire the old monastery, all of the surrounding lands, the nearby Castle of the Moors and a few other estates in the area. King Ferdinand then set out to transform the remains of the monastery into a palace that would serve as a summer residence for the Portuguese royal family. These landscapes I saw up from the palace walls. In them we see part of the area king Ferdinand bought. Just think about it! "I went shopping yesterday and bought couple of palaces, and old castle and some hundred hectares of forest."   I saw again the medieval castle ruins.   After the Republican Revolution of 1910 the palace was classified as a national monument and transformed into a museum. The last queen of Portugal, Queen Amélia, spent her last night at the palace before leaving the country in exile. Nowadays it is also used for state occasions by the President of the Portuguese Republic and other government officials. I wonder if they would rent it for a toyvoyager ball. We left palace and rested for awhile in front of some kind of royal gazebo.  We decided to walk and see the rest of the big garden area. We saw amazing sequoias growing near the palace, planted here by the countess d'Edla. This is from the palace yard, the so called modificated garden with hedgerows and flowerbenches. These are Bergenia crassifolia or Siberian tea.   We saw another "gazebo", built in the Moorish style, which was very popular here in the Romantical period. The bergola must be wonderful in summertime, but now it didn´t look much anything.  We followed again a small path, which led us onto a bit higher grounds. We saw a statue called The Giant. Actually it is the King Fernando II (countess d´Edla´s husband who built the palace). He didn´t look so gigantic up there. We came into a more forest -like area. It is not so easy in Portugal!  There is very little forest left, and people have drifted so far from nature that they are actually afraid of it. It is very sad! I think it would be a really great idea to organize kind of "back to the nature" camps or courses for too urbanized people. They could live a month in a tent in the Finnish forests and drink from brooks and pick mushrooms.   They would be much healthier and happier people after the month, I believe!  We saw a cave in which a hermit was living in the 17th century. I guess he wanted to get back to nature too.  Think about this forest in the 17th century! Half a kilometer to the East there was the Jeromete convent. About three kilometers to the West there was the Capuchos convent. Besides the hermit living in this cave here there were at least three others living in different caves and holes. What kind of hermiting is that?  Of course it is nice they could always pop into the neighbour cave to loan some dry bread.   We found a bench high on the top of some rocks. The place is called The Seat of the Queen. I guess the countess d'Edla liked to sit here watching the view. This is the view I saw from there. Watching to the other direction I saw the Pena palace. It was already somehow far. We came to the Cruz Alta (High Cross) which stands on the border of the Pena area, and on one of the highest spots of the serra, 529 meters from the sea level.  No doubt some apparition has been the reason for rising this cross too. Sometimes I wonder what kind of mushrooms the Portuguese people were eating in the past times..  We watched again towards the Pena palace. It was time to start our walk back towards Sintra and home. I´m sending you kisses! Your Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted May 14, 2015, 8:24 pm	Hullo hullo again, dear mom and everyone else! We are almost reaching the end of Portugal-updates. This time I´m going to show you photos from a walking trip in Almada and Lisbon. I started the day by drinking a mug of coffee in Cacilhas. You see, Henna has a nasty habit to wake us up at seven in the morning when she gets up herself, but if we feel lazy and doze away anew, she just put us, in full sleep, into her backpack and heads out. So, we wake up in various places, and of course we need to have coffee to get the sleep away from our heads. We walked along the old harbour area of Cacilhas. Some decades ago it was still a busy place, there were warehouses from which various products (like wine) were shipped to faraway markets. Nowadays the old warehouses are in ruins, and there is nothing left of the small scale boat industries or fishing companies. Old men spend time here fishing, and there is couple of small restaurants, but otherwise there isn´t much life left. The gypsies from Eastern Europe are invading the buildings every now and then, and every now and then the police throws them out again. We could see the bridge Ponte Vinte e Cinco de Abril again.  In the white building is one of the small restaurants. It is kept by friendly people, who are feeding a herd of homeless cats and building for them little huts where to keep dry when it rains.  We climbed a bit upwards and saw Lisbon on the other side of Tejo.  I picked a poppy for you, mom.  We popped into a shopping center to have ice cream, and then we continued our walk on the other side of the river Tejo.  We walked along Avenida de Liberdade, which is one of the biggest avenues in Lisbon, until we reached the park Parque Eduardo VII. It is impressive, monumental park, if you happen to like parks with geometrically trimmed bushes. I don´t much. If the bushes don´t look like bushes, they could as well we done of plastic.  We walked onwards to Principe Real and saw this gigantic cedar tree.  A scaffolding has been put to support its huge branches.  This is an elevator station, Ascensor da Bica. Here is the elevator itself or a  funicular, as they say. It forms the connection between the Calçada do Combro/Rua do Loreto and the Rua de S. Paulo. Certainly the street is deep to climb, especially on a hot summer day - so the elevator is a good help for older people. The Bica funicular was opened in 1892. It climbs the Rua da Bica de Duarte Belo for 245 metres  from the Rua S. Paulo. In 2002 it was designated a National Monument.  After admiring the ascensor enough and following its route up, we walked back downwards again. We walked past a nice old building. It has been a small hospital, but now it is turned into a hotel. We saw again the river Tejo glistening behind the houses. We came to viewpoint from which we could watch over the central Lisbon.  W wended our walk onto the Rossio square. It is one of the most important squares in Lisbon. Round it are situated many of the historical coffee houses and bakeries.  Then we headed back to Almada and home again. The sun was already setting.  Good night! My next update will be the last one from Portugal. Hug from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted May 23, 2015, 11:50 am	Hello, mom and my other dears!  Our last day in Portugal had arrived! The UV radiation levels were creeping over five, and my host Henna had to flee from it back to Finland not to get ill. I´m very happy the toyvoyagers can´t get the UV allergy!  We started our day with a nice breakfast! Funny word that, by the way!  How can I break a fast if I have been secretly eating sweets throughout the night? Anyway, I was doing my best!  We were debating how to spend our last day in Portugal. There were three of us who wanted t visit the famous Belém area in Lisbon, and thus we shot down Zoe´s suggestion of worm hunting trip and Mr Casanova´s idea about a combined bone digging and girl-spotting excursion, and headed to Belém.  We reached the area from East, and walked through the gardens towards the Belém monastery. These gardens are very popular places to spend summer days. The youngsters are sitting on the lawns, chatting and kissing, the older people are sitting on the benches, deprecating the morals of the youngsters, and the kids are running around, kicking balls or each other. I think the youngsters are having the best time.  We reached the monastery garden, which lies between the river Tejo and the monastery itself. In middle of the garden, there is a big fountain, which spits a very high column of water towards the sky. On windy days all people inside a radius of 200 meters get a free shower. It was nice to watch innocent tourists run screaming away, their clothes dripping water.  Behind the fountain we got our first glimpse of the monastery. It was a huge glimpse, since it is a huge building! After laughing enough on the account of the screaming people, we walked to see the monastery itself.  Jerónimos monastery is an UNESCO world heritage site. Its building started 1501, and an older church, built by Henry the Navigator, was demolished from the site. The old church had been a place for the sailors, on the time of the sea expeditions, to spend the last night in prayers, before setting sail towards the unknown parts of the world. The new monastery was built to celebrate the fact that Vasco da Gama had found the sea route to India. The custom continued in the new monastery, and for example Christopher Columbus and his men spent here their last night, before they went and accidentally found America. The construction of the monastery and church began on 6 January 1501, and was completed 100 years later. Its building was funded by a tax given to the crown from all the spice trade. So, as you see, this is a very historical spot indeed. Big (and maybe not so positive) events have started on these very stones we were hopping over. We saw a tourist drop a chewing gum on the yard, and went and bit him on the leg. While he was hopping on one leg and whining, we told him that a) It is an insult to litter such a historical spot and b) The birds who think the chewing gum is something eat, often die because the gum is stuck into their beak and they starve to death and c) There seem to be an empty space inside his scull where other people have some porridge. He was watching us horrified, his eyes bulging from his head. I wish he corrected his behaviour after that. The monastery was designed in a manner that later became known as Manueline: a richly ornate architectural style with complex sculptural themes incorporating maritime elements and objects discovered during naval expeditions, carved in limestone.  This is the so called Axial portal, which is the most important door to the Jerónimos: in terms of its localization in front the main altar and because of its ornamentation. Henna was reading from the tourist guide: "In the tympanum there are scenes from the birth of Christ: from the left to right: the Annunciation (of the angel indicating to Maria that she would give birth); the Nativity (the birth of the Christ child); and the Epiphany (the adoration of the magi). Two angels, hold the arms of Portugal, close to the archivolt. The splays on each side of the portal are filled with statues, among them are statues of King Manuel I and Queen Maria of Aragón kneeling in a niche under a lavishly decorated baldachin, flanked by their patrons: Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, respectively. The supporting corbels are decorated with little angels holding the coat-of-arms and, at the side of the king, an armillary sphere and, at the side of the queen, three blooming twigs. This doorway, completed by Nicolau Chanterene, introduces Renaissance elements: angels in Roman garb, cherubs, the detail and realism of the Kings and nude study of Saint Jerome.  Blaa blaa.  If you would like to know (which I doubt) what are the tympanum, archivolt, splays and baldachin, you better check from a dictionary! I have no idea!  If you also find out why Saint Jerome has to be nude, tell me too!  We stepped inside the huge monastery church, trying to listen to the swishing of the wings of history ("Herstory"! announced the female members of our company and lifted their noses up to the air.)  But then they had to admit, that this place was reeking only-masculine-history of power and imperialism. Half of the building was under restauration - the delicate slimestone ornaments need washing, and they had been removed from the walls and pillars. The other half was still waiting its turn, and I met some interesting creatures there. "Do you feel like having a bath, then?" I asked from this cherub. "Weeell.." it answered, "it was just only five hundred years ago since I last took one, so I´m not in such a hurry!" After that I kept a distance to the creatures living there.  There were two huge sarcophaguses. In one rests Vasco da Gama, and in the other Luís de Camões, who lived in the 16th century and is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. I stand there, full of awe, and asked from Vasco if he was sleeping well. "Yeah, I can steel feel the rocking of the ship", he answered.  We greeted the shining Mary, and then we went out from the building, back to the sun.  There was a horse on the yard waiting for customers. We sneaked him some bits of apple.  We walked a short distance to see another UNESCO site - the Belém Tower. It is a fortified tower, whic was built simultaneously with the monastery, to guard the mouth of  river Tejo. The tower was interesting enough, but we couldn´t quite concentrate to it, because there was an ice cream booth very near, calling us with a magnetical power!  "All right, all right, go and get your ice creams then!" said Henna, seeing us turning towards it like sunflowers towards the sun.  So, we were devouring our ice creams, and a second and third and fourth ice creams, and Henna was telling us exciting things about the tower - how it had cannons and how it had been firing enemy ships and how it had been serving as a prison etc. But the ice cream was the main thing!  After some more ice cream we were ready to be rolled home. "Why rolled?" I hear you asking.  It is simple, our feet didn´t reach the ground.  In the evening we watched a procession of some sort from our balcony. They were carrying some saint round the streets. Next morning we were early as hell on the airport. I was so very sleepy! It´s not a time for little cows be dragged into airports! But.. it was nice to watch the planes come and go. Our plane is the one behind our backs. We were waiting for it to take its morning shower and get refreshed before the long flight to Finland.  On the plane I was watching the towns and rivers and lakes running under the plane´s belly. I´m sure I spotted my home when we flew over Germany! I was wawing to you, mom, did you see me?  A straight flight from Lisbon to Helsinki takes four and half hours. Can you imagine that throughout those hours we couldn´t spot even one UFO, although the skies should be full of them!  We were served quite a good meal! It was a very nice interlude, but I´m sure that all the ufo:s flew past our window while we were targeting our attention to eating.  I asked a stewardess if she had ever spotted one, but she said that if she had, she would not remember it because of all those men in black coming to her door once a month.  After the meal we slept. Henna only woke me up when we were already inside the little cottage, which is our home here in Finland. Crying out loud, where have I come into?  Zoe, Racko and Mr Casanova had warned me about the exotic residence, but still I was surprised!  The cottage is really small, but looks cosy and.. free of many rules! I´m sure it´s going to be fun to live here. See you soon again! Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted May 23, 2015, 11:53 am	Hello, mom and my other dears!  Our last day in Portugal had arrived! The UV radiation levels were creeping over five, and my host Henna had to flee from it back to Finland not to get ill. I´m very happy the toyvoyagers can´t get the UV allergy!  We started our day with a nice breakfast! Funny word that, by the way!  How can I break a fast if I have been secretly eating sweets throughout the night? Anyway, I was doing my best!  We were debating how to spend our last day in Portugal. There were three of us who wanted t visit the famous Belém area in Lisbon, and thus we shot down Zoe´s suggestion of worm hunting trip and Mr Casanova´s idea about a combined bone digging and girl-spotting excursion, and headed to Belém.  We reached the area from East, and walked through the gardens towards the Belém monastery. These gardens are very popular places to spend summer days. The youngsters are sitting on the lawns, chatting and kissing, the older people are sitting on the benches, deprecating the morals of the youngsters, and the kids are running around, kicking balls or each other. I think the youngsters are having the best time.  We reached the monastery garden, which lies between the river Tejo and the monastery itself. In middle of the garden, there is a big fountain, which spits a very high column of water towards the sky. On windy days all people inside a radius of 200 meters get a free shower. It was nice to watch innocent tourists run screaming away, their clothes dripping water.  Behind the fountain we got our first glimpse of the monastery. It was a huge glimpse, since it is a huge building! After laughing enough on the account of the screaming people, we walked to see the monastery itself.  Jerónimos monastery is an UNESCO world heritage site. Its building started 1501, and an older church, built by Henry the Navigator, was demolished from the site. The old church had been a place for the sailors, on the time of the sea expeditions, to spend the last night in prayers, before setting sail towards the unknown parts of the world. The new monastery was built to celebrate the fact that Vasco da Gama had found the sea route to India. The custom continued in the new monastery, and for example Christopher Columbus and his men spent here their last night, before they went and accidentally found America. The construction of the monastery and church began on 6 January 1501, and was completed 100 years later. Its building was funded by a tax given to the crown from all the spice trade. So, as you see, this is a very historical spot indeed. Big (and maybe not so positive) events have started on these very stones we were hopping over. We saw a tourist drop a chewing gum on the yard, and went and bit him on the leg. While he was hopping on one leg and whining, we told him that a) It is an insult to litter such a historical spot and b) The birds who think the chewing gum is something eat, often die because the gum is stuck into their beak and they starve to death and c) There seem to be an empty space inside his scull where other people have some porridge. He was watching us horrified, his eyes bulging from his head. I wish he corrected his behaviour after that. The monastery was designed in a manner that later became known as Manueline: a richly ornate architectural style with complex sculptural themes incorporating maritime elements and objects discovered during naval expeditions, carved in limestone.  This is the so called Axial portal, which is the most important door to the Jerónimos: in terms of its localization in front the main altar and because of its ornamentation. Henna was reading from the tourist guide: "In the tympanum there are scenes from the birth of Christ: from the left to right: the Annunciation (of the angel indicating to Maria that she would give birth); the Nativity (the birth of the Christ child); and the Epiphany (the adoration of the magi). Two angels, hold the arms of Portugal, close to the archivolt. The splays on each side of the portal are filled with statues, among them are statues of King Manuel I and Queen Maria of Aragón kneeling in a niche under a lavishly decorated baldachin, flanked by their patrons: Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, respectively. The supporting corbels are decorated with little angels holding the coat-of-arms and, at the side of the king, an armillary sphere and, at the side of the queen, three blooming twigs. This doorway, completed by Nicolau Chanterene, introduces Renaissance elements: angels in Roman garb, cherubs, the detail and realism of the Kings and nude study of Saint Jerome.  Blaa blaa.  If you would like to know (which I doubt) what are the tympanum, archivolt, splays and baldachin, you better check from a dictionary! I have no idea!  If you also find out why Saint Jerome has to be nude, tell me too!  We stepped inside the huge monastery church, trying to listen to the swishing of the wings of history ("Herstory"! announced the female members of our company and lifted their noses up to the air.)  But then they had to admit, that this place was reeking only-masculine-history of power and imperialism. Half of the building was under restauration - the delicate slimestone ornaments need washing, and they had been removed from the walls and pillars. The other half was still waiting its turn, and I met some interesting creatures there. "Do you feel like having a bath, then?" I asked from this cherub. "Weeell.." it answered, "it was just only five hundred years ago since I last took one, so I´m not in such a hurry!" After that I kept a distance to the creatures living there.  There were two huge sarcophaguses. In one rests Vasco da Gama, and in the other Luís de Camões, who lived in the 16th century and is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. I stand there, full of awe, and asked from Vasco if he was sleeping well. "Yeah, I can steel feel the rocking of the ship", he answered.  We greeted the shining Mary, and then we went out from the building, back to the sun.  There was a horse on the yard waiting for customers. We sneaked him some bits of apple.  We walked a short distance to see another UNESCO site - the Belém Tower. It is a fortified tower, whic was built simultaneously with the monastery, to guard the mouth of  river Tejo. The tower was interesting enough, but we couldn´t quite concentrate to it, because there was an ice cream booth very near, calling us with a magnetical power!  "All right, all right, go and get your ice creams then!" said Henna, seeing us turning towards it like sunflowers towards the sun.  So, we were devouring our ice creams, and a second and third and fourth ice creams, and Henna was telling us exciting things about the tower - how it had cannons and how it had been firing enemy ships and how it had been serving as a prison etc. But the ice cream was the main thing!  After some more ice cream we were ready to be rolled home. "Why rolled?" I hear you asking.  It is simple, our feet didn´t reach the ground.  In the evening we watched a procession of some sort from our balcony. They were carrying some saint round the streets. Next morning we were early as hell on the airport. I was so very sleepy! It´s not a time for little cows be dragged into airports! But.. it was nice to watch the planes come and go. Our plane is the one behind our backs. We were waiting for it to take its morning shower and get refreshed before the long flight to Finland.  On the plane I was watching the towns and rivers and lakes running under the plane´s belly. I´m sure I spotted my home when we flew over Germany! I was wawing to you, mom, did you see me?  A straight flight from Lisbon to Helsinki takes four and half hours. Can you imagine that throughout those hours we couldn´t spot even one UFO, although the skies should be full of them!  We were served quite a good meal! It was a very nice interlude, but I´m sure that all the ufo:s flew past our window while we were targeting our attention to eating.  I asked a stewardess if she had ever spotted one, but she said that if she had, she would not remember it because of all those men in black coming to her door once a month.  After the meal we slept. Henna only woke me up when we were already inside the little cottage, which is our home here in Finland. Crying out loud, where have I come into?  Zoe, Racko and Mr Casanova had warned me about the exotic residence, but still I was surprised!  The cottage is really small, but looks cosy and.. free of many rules! I´m sure it´s going to be fun to live here. See you soon again! Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jun 8, 2015, 7:16 pm	Ttityy, rakas äiti! (Tsirp tsirp, dear mom)  As you can see, I´ve started to learn Finnish language to be able to socialize with the locals.  When we arrived, there was still some snow in the shady spots and ditches, but we were doing some spring magic, and soon all the snow had melted away, and the spring flowers and other plants started to push their heads trough the earth.  The blue anemones were amongst the earliest arrivers. We were running from flower to flower, wellcoming them all.  "Wellcome, beautifull bells! Good spring to you!" After the bluebells came the coltsfeet. "Hello, little darlings! You look just like little suns!"  The primulas were in a hurry to get the third price.    So they were still a bit sleepy when they came. The springtime in Finland is an annual miracle, which always feels like the first one! During the winter everything green but spruces and pines turn grey and brown, and it is like all the colors were wiped away from the landscape. It has its own kind of beauty, but in the early spring, when the snow melts away, the earth is grey and barren, and there are yet no leaves in the trees. So, when the first, shy green things come up from the earth, it really feels like a miracle!  And then, in just few days, the world changes into lustrous green and everyone goes crazy with joy!  The rhubarbs emerged too, round the time when all the birds started to have their mating orgies round our cottage. Later in the summer we´re going to make wonderful rhubarb soup.  Did you know that the name rhubarb comes from the words  "Rha Barbarum"? Rha was the name used about river Volga, and the barbrians living on its shores ate rhubarbs. Suits us! As the birds, we all got a bit mad, and run and run around, not wanting to miss anything! These are Marsh Marigolds, which grow here in ditches.  Butterburs soon surrounded the cottage. The jungle they form becomes so thick when they grow, that it is hard to get from the cottage door to the sauna door.  One day we went for a trip to the sea shore. Here we are standing on top of a Bronze Age stone mound tomb. Originally there was a grave chamber under it, built of wood, but all the wooden parts have disappeared long ago. It was a wonderful, sunny spring day, and we had the whole shore just for us! The sand felt warm under our paws, and the air smelled of freshness and new, awakening life.  The water looked so inviting! "Come to swim!" it said. But when we tried it, it was still ice cold, brrrr!  So we didn´t go to swim, but anyway, we got onto the water, since we had taken two boats with us!  It was me, Racko, Mr Casanova and Orkku Orava in one boat and Zoe and Crawfish in the other. Humm.. they´re wonderful friends and I really love them both, but no one would want to be on the same boat with the two of them!  We were rowing around the bay, until we saw smoke rising from the shore, and we know what that meant! Coffee and karjalanpiirakkas (Carelian pastries) !  It was hard to wait for the pastries to get warm enough! "That one is yours!" shouted the others, "you´re drooling over it"  Aaaah!  At last I was able to devour the pastry!  They are so good! They have a thin, crusty rye skin, and inside there can be barley, rice, potato, turnip or carrot. These pastries had rice. They are often eaten with butter and egg over them, but we just put butter. Then we were sitting on the shore, enjoying the beautiful landscape and letting out digestion to work, before returning home.  See you soon again! Warm hug from your little Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jun 14, 2015, 11:06 pm	Hello, mom, and all my other friends far and wide!  My adventures here in Finland continue with gardening. When there wasn´t anymore danger of nightly frost, it was time to start the works in Zoe´s kitchen garden.  First we were raking all the branches and twigs away from the area. We were mixing fertilizer to the ground. Not any chemicals, but very biological fertilizer. I´m sure you have heard how good a fertilizer the bird poop is.  It is called "guano" and sold for gardeners. We, on the other hand, have two birds in our gang and an outhouse where they go. So, no need to buy anything.  (Yeh, it was composted before using! Don´t worry!) More precious guano coming! "At last you realize my value!" said Zoe.  Then we were turning the earth over to make it spongy and nice for plants to grow.  We were all working hard, although the maggots we encountered were leading Zoe and her son Horatio a bit astray every now and then.  It was nice work!  We were forming benches for the plants, and debating (what else!) what plants we wanted to grow. "Whatever which lures here lots of snails!" said Crawfish. Jaiks! "Lettuce!" said Racko. "I want herbs!" said Zoe. "Let´s grow beans - they make us fart!" said Horatio, and then he was giggling so that he couldn´t stand. "Some flowers would be nice.." announced Mr Casanova. I guess he plans to give them to girls. "But I want to grow a pumpkin! Want to!" said I. "A pumpkin!" shouted the others. "A pumpkin doesn´t even fit onto our kitchen garden!" Well, that was quite true.  But Henna promised I could grow a pumpkin next to her tomatoes! Jiihaa! So we continued working in good spirits, and soon it was time to put the seeds to the earth.  We put all the other seeds to the earth, but the pumpkin seeds. Those we had to first grow inside the cottage for some weeks, because it was still quite too cold for them outside to survive.  Our little garden looked so great!  I can hardly wait the seeds sprouting and starting to grow! When the work was done, we put the tools away, and admired the outcome of it. But there was still one task to do! To clean the old greenhouse for a new season! I was brooming the walkway with Racko, and then we were ushering all the spiders out from the pots. After the exertion we were all dying for hunger!So we made a fast fire place dish by wrapping all sort of things into metal folio and putting that over the hot embers (Henna had been warming water on the fire to wash dishes). It didn´t take long! About 15 minutes and a wonderfull smell started spread around us!  And then we ate!  The funny looking white lumps are "vegan cheese" Henna is learning to make. The food was really good, even the lumps!  See you soon again! Many kisses to you all! Momo the gardener
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jun 18, 2015, 1:33 pm	Hyvää huomenta, rakas äiti!  Hip hei! How are you doing? I´m having a nice time here.  We don´t have a car here in our use, which is a shame, because it limits the range of places we reach. Every time some friend of Henna´s is going somewhere by car, we try to push along. So, one day we got a lift to the small town of Inkoo. We drowe to Inkoo in about half an hour, and ended into the harbour of small boats. Henna´s friend has a boat there, and he had to paint its bottom. The paint was too strong for our heads. We all started to feel dizzy and see odd animals, so Henna ushered us to walk on the harbour area. We saw some interesting boats and smelled the fresh sea air, and pinched some ladders so that people who were doing some spring renovations in their boats were soon shouting angrily, unable to get down.  It is a rather small harbour, and soon we had seen it all, so we walked to see abit more of the town of Inkoo. Henna was shourting after us "Don´t go too far, and be aware of the cars and the sea and the river and bif dogs.." "Uh, ok" we said and run away. Inkoo is one of the oldest towns in Finland, but it must be also one of the smallest. There is about 5000 inhabitants, but most of them live in the countryside around. The church is one of the oldest too. Its oldest part is from the 13th century. Beside the church the "city center" consisted of a supermarket, a bank, a library and two pubs.  Behind the church we found a local museum.On its yard was a group of hostile aboriginals - local teenagers with their mopeds, drinking beer and trying to look scaring. We made faces to them and they run away, screaming.  The museum was shut, but we were watching the old farm buildings and empty bottles the youngsters had left lying everywhere. Most inhabitants of Inkoo (Ingå) speak swedish. The name of the town is probably originally a mocking name given by the inhabitants of the nearest town, Siuntio (Sjundeå) The name of the town Siuntio means "Sjunde å" = the seventh river (counted from Turku), and the name of Inkoo means "Ingen å" = Not even a river, because the river running through the town is so small. Here it is, Inkoo river, not even a river. We were admiring an old windmill, but then we had really seen everything there was to see in Inkoo.  We loitered back to the harbour, and saw Henna and her friend still painting the bottom of the boat and seeing odd animals, and so we went and stole Henna´s friends car.  They didn´t notice anything. We drove to Fagervik.  The lunatic sisters, Zoe and Crawfish took command.  Crawfish was steering and Zoe was shouting commands to me, Mr Casanova, Racko and Horatio, and we  were hopping accordingly on the gas and break pedals. No problemo. ) Anyway, it was about 15 kilometers to Fagervik, and we only bumped once against one light pole. Here is the Fagervik Rokoko style mansion house from the year 1773. It was the home of the family who owned the Fagervik blast furnace and iron works, which were built here on the 17th century. Here is the church, which was used by the workers and owners of the iron smithy. Many of the workers were originally from France. They were huguenots and persecuted in their own home country because of their Lutheran belief. As they were skilled smiths, they were called to work and live in Fagervik, were they and their families formed a small and tight society. With them came the first potatoes into Finland in about 1720.  We walked watching the old industrial buildings, and imagined the sounds and smells three hundred years ago.  The machinery was of course working with the water power and wood. I was trying to find what products they actually were producing here, but I didn´t find much information. They just say "iron products", and that can mean whatever.  Nowadays Fagervik is a popular place to come and spend beautiful summer days. The mansion and the church are still owned by descendants of the original family, although the iron works was shut down in 1903. They are keeping part of the buildings open on some days during the summer, and renting the church for weddings. We had soon seen everything, and hurried back to Inkoo, before Henna and her friend would notice the car was missing.. Hah, they had not noticed anything! We were just smiling angelically and told them we had been sitting in the Inkoo church. Can you believe they swalloved it?! I thing the paint was really too strong and their brains had started to melt. Don´t tell them!    Many kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 5, 2015, 7:08 pm	Hello again, dear mom, siblings (and other relations) and friends! <3 I know you want to hear news about our kitchen garden!  It is growing well, although a bit slowly, because the summer has been very cold and rainy (even more so than it normally is in Finland, Zoe is telling me). The good side of it is that we don't need to water it so often.  But now I'm telling you about one day when we were playing behind our cottage, where there runs a small brook. "Where does this brook run to?" I asked from Zoe. "Better let's find out!" she answered. Everybody agreed, and so we started to follow it.  We run after the brook through a forest area, hopping over stones and fallen trees, and it lead us out from the forest and through a wide field landscape. The sky over the fields looked rather promising.  So we were happy the brook took us back into the forest again. We were covering under the trees while a hailstorm passed over us. Here! Do you see? A hailstorm could be dangerous for a little toyvoyager - the ice balls were the size of my nose!  The brook turned into a small lake, and the sun came out a bit. We sat on the shore, and Henna told us there had been a village next to the lake, but it had disappeared in the 1960's, because there was a plan to build a rail road on it's place. Soon we found proofs of the existence of habitation - all sort of trash was still laying around where the houses had been. These are parts of some field machinery. There was also a wreck of a car.  And the remains of a once fine bike.  I felt a bit sad for the bike, but it told me not to. "In my times I was running thousands of kilometers, and now it feels just good to rest in the forest and to turn into part of it", it said.  Our brook was growing a bit faster now. There was smaller brooks coming to join it every now and then, and it was growing in size too.  I found some very funny mushrooms in the forest. They looked like little bowls or cups. Maybe they are used by the various spirits living in the forests here. Our brook decided to turn into a lake again, a bit bigger this time. Henna told us that thousands of years ago this lake had been part of a long fjord, which run from the sea deep into the area which now is known as Nuuksio. The little brook we are following had also been part of it. When the land was rising the fjord slowly turned into lakes and a river. The river (which now is our little brook) had been big enough to sail along still some hundred years ago..  Our brook dived out from the lake again, and it was running faster than ever! We could here it giggling with joy, and it was like it was in a hurry to get into some pleasant happening forward. What could it be?  The brook grew into a small river, and it started to gurgle instead of giggling! The river started to rrrrumble and we understood it was turning itself into a rapid! So, that´s why it was in a hurry!  "Jiihaaaaaa! I love to become a rapid!" it was shouting. And we were shouting too, for joy. Anyway, decided not to walk 20 more kilometers to the seashore with the river, but to walk back home instead. I enjoyed following the little brook which turned into lakes, river and rapid.  I wish you liked it too! Yours, Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 7, 2015, 11:52 am	Mooooooooo!  I'll show you photos from the Raasepori castle ruins we visited one day when we had managed to pinch a car again. We are getting quite good at it, the car pinching, I mean. So, we drowe to Raasepori, which is about 40 kilometers towards west from Nuuksio. The trip went well. Zoe was shouting commands, Crawfish was steering, and Mr Casanova, Racko, I and Horatio were jumping on the gas and break pedals. It cannot be helped - those two crazy girls are the bosses here.  Sadly we caused some road accidents. But it wasn't our fault. What can we do if other driwers are so stupid they don't see driwers under 15 centimeters tall and imagine our car is driwing by itself?  Here is the Raasepori castle, or what is left of it. It was built by the Swedish invaders on the 14th century onto an island, to guard the main water route along the coast line against competing invaders. The sea level became lower over time due to postglacial rebound (don't I know fantastical expressions?), and it became increasingly difficult to approach the castle by boat. This is one of the main reasons why the castle lost its importance in the 16th century. In normal language: the land rised so much the castle nowadays sits deep inland, so it cannot very well guard any coastal routes.  We climbed inside the castle walls, and there we found an information board. It was showing what kinds of rooms there had been inside the castle. Now there wasn't much left, but we made a tour inside anyway.  Henna told us how Swedish and Danish forces and Estonian and Carelian pirates were fighting over the control of the castle several times during the Middle Ages. It wasn't of course only the castle they were fighting for - the area of Finland was invaded by Swedes and Danes and by who knows whom - they were fighting over the right to tax the inhabitants, who just wanted to live in piece inside their forests.  Besides controlling the coast line,  the castle was administrative center of the province of Western Uusimaa. The mighty castle on the sea shore opposite Revel (Tallinn) city could also control the important trade-route form Lübeck to Novgorod. There was significant custom point and revenues were very big. "In the middle of the 15th AD viceroy Karl Knutsson Bonde kept his court in the Castle some time. In 1528 the administrative center of the province was moved to Ekenäs (Tammisaari). After that the period of decline of the castle began. It was abandoned in 1550 and was forgotten for more than 300 years." Watching the ruins and the walls, which are actually only an empty peel of what once has been a mighty castle, it was very hard for me to imagine any "viceroy" living here with his court.  We were doing our best, and added, in our imagination, plank floors and richly decorated rooms between the stone walls, dudes sipping beer in long wooden tables, virtuous damsels playing lyres and less virtuous damsels flirting with the dudes.  Henna was telling us that the castle had wide fields and lots of cows on the surrounding countryside, and of course huge working power to serve the noble bimbos in the castle. There was bakeries, breweries, fishermen, cooks, cupbearers and butchers just to feed them. The farmers were forced to work certain amount of days for the castle for free, and they were also made to build the castle. No wonder there were many farmer revolts and uprisings in those times. We got back outside again - we had got enough of the castle. It seemed to us that it didn't represent much else than history of oppression and class society forced over people living in natural democracy. Bah! ]Good bye! It is much better to live in forest!  See you again soon! Your rebellion
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 8, 2015, 4:35 pm	Hyvää päivää, kaikki ystäväni!  = Good day, all my friends! I'm learning Finnish quite fast here in Finland, and I´ve decided it is time rest of the world learns it too, because it is a wonderful language with 15 noun cases. Anyway, I'm going to use some Finnish phrases in my every update, so my readers can repeat them 10 000 times per day until they have learned them by heart. I can't even imagine how excited you all must be!  We stayed some days in Helsinki, taking care of Henna's mothers cats. Kissa = cat This one in the picture is called Nalli, and she is a very self-secure creature, who loves her infra red pointing toy over everything else. She didn't care a shit of us tv:s, which was probably good. The other cat, Miilu, is a very shy black cat, who was saved from the street in Tallinn, Estonia, as a baby. She doesn't trust everybody else than Henna's mother, so I don't have a photo of her. Besides taking care of the cats, it was our task to feed seagulls, who have their nest on the roof opposite to Henna's mothers kitchen window. They had two little fluffy, grey, spotted, seagull babies in  the nest on the roof, and we were throwing food for the parents every morning and evening, which is, of course, strictly forbidden by the city rules.  But who can resist spotted, fluffy little seagull babies?  Not us! Lokki = seagull Henna's mother has already some experience of visiting toyvoyagers - so she had loaded the place full of good things to eat! What a valiant and understanding lady!  We wanted to be polite and show our total approval, and ate everything! What do you mean "that wasn't the only reason"?  Henna's mother collects old dolls. She also makes them herself. There must be some hundreds in her home.  We were mingling with them a bit. Can you spot us?  Nukke = doll We also loaned some of the doll's toys. They didn't mind.  Soon we had got enough of being inside - we're not used to it - I don't know how those dolls can stand it! I asked from them, and they said it is "quite pleasant to be sitting here, having tea parties and discussing our new clothes". Crying out loud. We went out! We walked past Hietalahden Kauppahalli market hall, which is just round the corner. It was opened in 1903. Next we walked to watch over the Hietalahden Satama harbour area. Still some years ago this was an important industrial center - here was the famous Wärtsilä shipyard. It still exists, but the ship building has diminished, and part of the industrial area is going to be turned into very posh living areas. Still some hundred years ago this whole area had a somewhat murky reputation. Most inhabitants were shipyard workers and other working class people. There were also some factories, like the Sinebrychoff brewery. In the time of Russian rule there were some brothels and gaming dens and cheep hostels for the sailors. The members of the upper class didn't enter the area at all, at least the female population. The men sneaked here quite often.  This tower stands in middle of a park, which was originally the private park of the wealthy Sinebrychoff family, who owned the breweries. It was turned into a public park in the 1960's. It was originally ten times bigger, but the habitation has been slowly eating it away. It was planned to be totally demolished, but a strong popular movement in the 1980's saved the park.  We walked through the neighbouring part of town called Eira. This was built in the beginning of the 20th century. Before that it was a remote, countryside-like area with some summer villas of the wealthy Helsinki families, and otherwise mainly little cottages of the fishermen families. Nowadays it consists mainly of beautiful Jugend style houses. Many embassies are situated in this area. This is nowadays one of the most expensive areas in whole Finland. Had the fishermen just knew it two hundred years ago!  We came into a beautiful park between the houses, and walked around admiring it a bit.  The syringas and rhododendrons were in their most glorious bloom.  There was a nice path over which the syringas were making a tunnel, and in the bottom of it there was a quite horrible bird bath.  There were some birdies taking a bath, and our friend Zoe spent quite a good time peeping on them through the bushes.  Our walk took us along Esplanadi, and soon we saw the famous statue of three blacksmiths. Here it is - Kolmen sepän patsas = statue of three blaksmiths. It is one of the most popular things in Helsinki for tourists to take photographs with, but for example some muslim women living here cannot even walk past it, because they don't want to see dudes in the nudd.  Next to the naked smiths is the Stockmann department store, which, in its time, was the biggest department store in Europe. It was opened in the 1920´s, and it was the first building in Finland with escalators.  We walked slowly along the streets, and watched the windows, and rested a while on the Esplanadi park, where there were small carpets on the grass for people to sit on. A nasty statue in Aleksanterinkatu street tried to eat me!  Luckily I hadn't taken a bath for a week. We still walked a bit in the harbour area before heading back to spend the evening with the boring dolls.  There was a wonderful mist over the water.  See you soon again! = Nähdään pian! Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 11, 2015, 7:25 pm	Hellurei, rakas äiti, siskot, veljet, serkut, ystävät ja  kummin kaimat! (= Hi, dear mother, sisters, brothers, cousins, friends and godparent's namesakes!) Today I show you photos from a walking trip we started in Leppävaara, Espoo, and ended in Tarvonsaari island in Helsinki. Here I'm walking past Albergan kartano manor house. The now existing house was built in 1870's, and it is called as Sokerilinna (sugar castle), because it's builder was the owner of a sugar factory, and it is built mainly of the wood get from the wood boxes the sugar was shipped in to Finland.  We walked from Leppävaara through Perkkaa, along small earthen roads. We saw a sign hanging on a post, saying "children's hut building camp", and followed the sign. There were no kids around at the moment, but there were various different huts.  The huts were build from different materials - planks and branches, reeds and moss. No nails were used - all the peaces were put together by using strings, which is great, since some of the huts were up in the trees.  Nowadays kids have less possibilities to run freely around in the forests, so I think it is very nice they can at least build their huts on this kind of camps.  We left the earthen roads and continued along small paths, which circulate on the shore line. The shores were full of reeds, and there were many water birds nesting amongst them. We sat for awhile on a cable drum brought there to serve as a beach chair.  We crossed two nice bridges. There were some people fishing from the bridges.  We had reached the Tarvonsaari island and went to see the museum of the artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. This is Tarvaspää, his atelier home, which he planned and built in 1912, in which was then a long distance away from everything.  Gallen-Kallela is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity. I saw some beautiful works. This one is called Ad Astra (Into stars), and it pictures "resurrection - spiritual rising from temporal to eternal    consciousness" said Gallen-Kallela. It is from the year 1907. This is his painting Karhunputki (Angelica Sylvestris) from the year 1889. I liked them both a lot.  This painting symbolizes the shortness and temporality of human life, and the circle of life and death. There was a very nice café in the museum. We were having blueberry pie with coffee.  On the yard was a statue with a Kalevala theme - The Giant Pike.  We were admiring it and then we loitered again to the sea shore. There were some small fish swimming near the shore and they were calling us to join them. Soon we were in the water too!  Henna was clucking like a worried hen and told us to remember what happened to Tuli and stay near the shore. (Tuli is a tv of Henna's, a frog who decided to hop into a river in Portugal, where there was a frog orgy going on.)  The water was warm and wonderful! We were enjoying laying in it, and discussing about whether it was anything so horrible that happened to Tuli.. she joined an orgy in a river called "Vine river" and found a charming boyfriend, it seems. So?  I rather think I wouldn't mind an orgy myself in a Vine river.. but I would not stay there forever however charming a bull I would find! The others agreed. But frogs are a bit different.. with all that hibernation and all After couple of hours of floating around Henna told us to get back on dry earth before we would grow fins. Then we sat in the sun, drying our furs, feathers or scales. Henna said we smelled funny, and that we should soon take a proper bath. See you soon again! Love from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 13, 2015, 11:44 pm	Kukkuu!  Today I'm telling you about Finnish Juhannusaatto (Midsummer Eve). It is, with Christmas, the most important celebration of the year. In pagan times it was celebrated as the Wedding of the Sun (Aurinko).  The Finnish towns empty for Juhannus, because about everyone goes somewhere in the countryside - either into their own summer cottage or into somebody else's summer cottage, or to tenting - the main thing is to be somewhere near the nature.  We started out Juhannus celebration by swinging. Besides being fun, it was originally part of the rituals. The swinging symbolizes the travel of the Sun over the seas in her boat.(Yes, the Finnish Sun was female)(naturally - who on earth would think the sun as a masculine? Hah!  ) In the past Juhannus was a communal celebration. The whole village gathered to spend it together. Most villages had big wooden swing constructions, called kyläkiikku (village swing). In them was room for example six or eight people to swing together.  We don't have a kyläkiikku here, so we hanged these small swings between two trees for Juhannus.  There has been a kyläkiikku in ancient times on a nearby hill here, called Ilomäki (the Joy Hill).  Zoe was teaching us a Juhannus Keinulaulu (swinging song), and we were singing it while swinging. "Heilu keinuni korkealle                    Fly high, my swing Nythän on Juhannusilta                    It is Midsummer Eve Mesimarja paistaa                              The arctic brambles are shining Ja tuomi tuoksuu                        and the  bird cherries smell wonderfull Ja kuulas on taivahan silta.                The bridge of the sky is clear. Heilu, keinuni, korkealle                    Fly high, my swing Linnut ne laulavat häitä                    the birds are singing weddings Minä olen nuori kuin päivänkukka      I'm young as an oxeye daisy En muistele suruja näitä.                    I don't reminisce sorrows. Heilu, keinuni, korkealle                    Fly high, my swing Rintani riemuja laulan                        I sing my inner joy Kedon helyt                                      I pick the trinkets of the meadows kullalle kuiskien poimin                      whispering to my love ja solmin sen vihreän paulan.            and bind them into a green band."  We also picked trinkets of the meadows (wild flower) and out them on our heads, as is the custom.  After swinging and singing to our hearts's content, it was time to go to Juhannussauna. The sauna was heated up to about 70 Celsius degrees, and we were bathing in cool water, smelling of fresh birch leaves and wild mint, which were sprinkled onto the water.  We were leaning back, shutting our eyes and relaxing, enjoying the combination of the hot steam and the cool water enclosing us into a soft womb.  The Finnish sauna is not only a place to wash ourselves. It is also a holy space to clean ourselves spiritually. In Juhannus we clean ourselves to be ready to take part into the wedding joy of the Sun.  It was time to sit into the Juhannus table. There is no any traditional Juhannus food. Mainly it was about drinking..  Nowadays it is usally food made on barbecue or more simply, anything you can put on a fire in tip of a stick (sausages, corn ears..) We concentrated into drinking, as proper traditionalists.  Between drinking we were dancing. In pagan times Juhannus was one of the times of the year when "Wives were maidens". It meant that on certain times of the year everyone was considered single, not bound to monogamity by marriage.  So, in Juhannusyö (Midsummer Night) everyone could take part of the wedding joy of the Sun by sneaking into the bushes or into a hay barn with some attractive companion. This was also a ritual, which was contributing to the overall fertility of the fields, animals (and humans, hah).  This was also a way to make sure every woman in the society had a possibility to become pregnant, even if the husband happened to be infertile. I'm not quite sure if we took part into that ritual or not. My memory seems to be a bit affected by all the mead an singing.  At midnigh it was time to lit the juhannuskokko (Midsummer pyre). It is often built on a raft anchored in a lake or in the sea, but we had ours just on the yard.  There was a custom to hop over the fire in Juhannus. It symbolized a bit different things in different times. It could be the purifying fire of the holy feast, hopping over which people get purified, or it could symbolize the barrier, the boundary line between the worlds, which was possible to cross on special times, of which Juhannus was one, or it could also work as the ritual fire over which a couple hopped hand in hand, after which they were married.  We were just wondering the sparks rising towards the sky and singing. When the fire started to die down it was time to go to bed. We took the wild flowers from our heads and put them under our pillows to see our future husbands or wives in a dream. I don't tell you what I saw.  See you soon! Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 15, 2015, 7:19 pm	Hei taas! (Hi again!) Terveisiä Suomesta! (Greetings from Finland!) I wish you're all having an enjoyable summertime! Well, you who happen to be in Australia of course are having a winter time, but I wish it is good anyway.  Our Finnish summer is delightful - full of rain and mosquitoes! But, every now and then we see the sun, and our insect eating gang members are trying to eat away the mosquitoes!  Here is our little cottage in middle of the summer glory of the nature. Henna calls this place a small heaven. The cottage is so old that it doesn't actually feel like anything made by human hands - it is more like something just sprouted up from the earth, like a mushroom or something.  There are various flowers growing round the cottage. Some of them are planted by Henna, bur some of them have grown there maybe a century. These tulips (Queen of night) Henna planted here some years ago. The animals like the cottage too. An owl lives in the attick, and so does a family of bats. How do they find each other as neighbours, I dont know. Under the eaves are two nests of Pied Flycatchers, and guess what! We found out that it is the same male with TWO familes in different nests!  We have been trying to hide this fact from little baby kiwi Horatio.. These roses are very old. They are called Juhannusruusu (Midsummer rose) because they usually bloom on midsummer, not in this year, though, they are a bit late because the summer has been cold. Henna says they should be cut so they would make more flowers, but Zoe says Henna says that every summer, and the roses are never going to be cut, because they have been growing according to their own will for hundred years, so let them grow..  The old field grows wild too. It was in the 1960's when there was a crop growing last time on this field. A neighbour kept here his horse few years ago, that's why it has not turned back into forest.  On those days when it is not raining we have to water our kitchen garden. That is ok, but the weeding can be tedious task in middle of the mosquitoes. We lit little fires round the garden, and put wet leaves onto the fire, so that they form lots of smoke, to keep the blood lusty beasts away, but that is not quite enough. So last time Zoe, Crawfish and Horatio were eating mosquitoes as fast as they could while I, Mr Casanova and Racko were doing all the weeding. Well, yeah, it was usefull, I admit, but even so we find it a bit unfair that they were just eating while we were pulling the weeds off.  "This is so hard wor, oh so hard work!" they were saying, and tried to muffle down the "njom njom!".  Our onions have grown well, but the other plants are suffering from the exceptionally cool weather and lack of sun, so they are still very small. Let's see if we get any kind of crop!  Our greenhouse plants we have to water every day, of course. We do it in turns, although Mr Casanova never needs to do his turn unless he really wants to!  There are always some eager girls ready to do it on his behalf. Last time it was a young squirrel who lives on a spruce next to our well. I like the work. It is nice to feed the plants and put sticks and strings to support them if needed, and to see them growing from day to day. Besides, Zoe, Crawfish and Horatio are always ready to help me because there are many worms and plant lice to take care of and they know I don't much care about them. We never need to use any pesticides..  Henna has her own bigger greenhouse, but it rather an odd looking construction, because she made it herself from wooden bars and transparent tarpaulin. Sometimes I help her there too, because she lets me grow my pumpkin there.  Here I'm in Henna's greenhouse helping her to tighten the string supports of the tomatoes.  And here is my pumpkin! The first flower has just opened!  I was growing them inside the cottage for some weeks, because it was so cold! I only brought them here a bit before Midsummer, and still they are late, but maybe there's hope still, let's see!  Well, this was all I wanted to show you this time, but see yo soon again! Your Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Aug 3, 2015, 7:55 pm	Terve taas! (Hullo again!)  We spent again some days in Helsinki, taking care of Henna's mother's two cats. While not cleaning cat potties or feeding the little beasts, we had time to walk around the town and to watch more sights, emblematic to Helsinki.I'm now going to share them with you, if you want or not.  While leaving the apartment and walking towards the town center, we walked past this wooden church. It is called Vanha Kirkko (The Old Church), and it is in middle of a small park, which was originally a graveyard for the victims of the 18th century pestilence. Doesn't sound a nice place to hang, but it is a very popular spot to spend sunny days.  This summer we don't have any. We went into the church too, but there was a young couple rehearsing  for their wedding with a priest, so we felt awkward to take any photos.  Near the church we saw the statue of Elias Lönnrot. He was one of the guys, who trotted round the forests in Eastern Finland and Karelia, collecting the folk poetry, which later was published as "Kalevala". Next to Lönnrot sits Väinämöinen, the legendary shaman character in the old poetry. This is one of the statues in Helsinki most preferred by the pigeons and other birds as a nice platform to rest. So it has to be cleaned once a year.  (It is good our friend Zoe cannot fly). We came to Kamppi area, and saw Hiljaisuuden kappeli (Chapel of Silence), which is also build of wood. The chapel was built 2012, and it is meant for anyone who wants to escape the noise and hurry of the town for a moment, to go and to sit in peace. The shape of the chapel imitates an egg - the egg of the Sotka (common goldeneye - Bucephala clangula) from which the universe was born according to old Finno Ugric religion.  Inside it really is very peacefull and comfy, like inside an egg, I imagine. I asked Zoe, but she says she doesn't remember her egg-time so well.  We walked past Finlandia talo culture and congress center. It is very famous building, and thousands of tourists go to see it every year for some reason I don't understand, because, come one, it looks like a swimming hall and is boring as hell.  Ok ok, it was built by a famous architect Alvar Aalto, and it seems to be a groundbreaking building stylishly, but I must say I'm sorry this kind of ground was ever broken.  This building is nowadays a museum, called Hakasalmen huvila (Villa of Hakasalmi). It was originally the summer villa of a very wealthy family, outside the town and on the shore of a bay. The town was growing, and when the railroad was built, part of the bay was dried. Then we saw the Musiikkitalo music hall and the sculpture called Hauen Laulu (Song of a pike) on its yard. The sculpture is made after a poem by Finnish poet Aaro Hellaakoski. The poem tells about a pike, who rises into the top of a pine to taste a red cone and to sing.  We walked towards South along the Esplanadi boulevard. The weather had turned suddenly sunnier, and we were so amazed by it we almost forgot to walk, just stand there gaping in the sudden light.  In the Esplanadi park we met the Finnish National Poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. He was the chap who wrote for example the poem "Maamme" (Our land), which was later turned into the national anthem. In February the Finns are eating Runebergin torttu tarts, which were invented by the poet's wife Frederika. It seems the poet had a sweet tooth. He would fit well into our company!  Next we met another, very nice statue, called Aallottaret (feminine water spirits). It was sculpted by Victor Jansson, Tove Jansson's (the moomin artist, you know) father. He used Tove as model for this Aallotar. We came to Kauppatori market square. Until the end of the 18th century on the place of the market square were the docks of the fishing boats, from which the fishers were selling their catch. The proper market place was on those times on the square, where the Lutheran Cathedral was later built. 1812 the new Kauppatori was opened. Kauppatori is open the whole year round, although it is understandably more popular in summer time.  They sell here Fruit and vextables, mushrooms, fish, food, souveniers and handicrafts. Behind the square is Presidentin linna Presidential Palace, one of the official residences in Helsinki of the President of the Republic of Finland. It is there they have the Independence Day Ball, which is a very important happening in Finland, which glues about 3 million Finns in front of their TV:s (televisions, I mean, not toyvoyagers) every year, to criticize the dresses of the people who have got invitation to the ball.  On the Kauppatori square stands Keisarinnankivi memorial. It was erected 1835 to honor tsarina Aleksandra, wife of czar Nikolai I, who visited Helsinki that year. We walked along the shore, past many sightseeing boats, to see Vanha Kauppahalli, the old market hall. The hall was opened 1888. Main reason to build the hall was the need to control more the sometimes wild life in the market square, where bootleggers, prostitutes and pickpockets were horrifying the decent citizens.  In the beginning there was about 120 sellers in the hall, nowadays there is about 30. Supermarkets have of course eaten the popularity of the market halls everywhere. We went in to see what they were selling. There was a throng of people, mainly tourists. There were many fish sellers, which made Zoe and Crawfish to go all crazy.  I was more interested to see the vegetable section. We went out again and sat a bit down and watched the old sailing ship and the ferris wheel on the Katajanokka shore.  Then we walked to see the Havis Amanda statue next to Kauppatori. Havis Amanda was sculpted by Ville Vallgren and erected 1908. Havis Amanda is a mermaid who stands on seaweed as she rises from the water, with four fish spouting water at her feet and surrounded by four sea lions. Vallgren's intention was to symbolize the rebirth of Helsinki. The model for the statue was a then 19-year-old Parisian lady, Marcelle Delquini, and the respectable people of Helsinki were shocked about a "Parisian prostitute being brought to show her nudity shamelessly to everyone".  The sea lions, with their human tongues hanging out, were said to represent men lusting after the mademoiselle. Every year on Vappu (20.4), Manta serves as a centrepiece for the celebrations. Students of the local universities put a cap on the statue in an elaborate ceremony. There is also an urban legend that Havis Amanda patronizes men's sexual potency. Some men believe that washing one's face with water from one of Havis Amanda's fountains and shouting thrice "Rakastaa!" (To love!) increases men's sexual ability.  We were keeping Mr Casanova away from the water, into which he tried to jump.  We visited still some more sights, but I have to show those to you in my next update.  A big hug from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Aug 10, 2015, 6:55 pm	Titityy, everyone!  How are you all? I'm loving the green freshnes of Finnish summer. Now I have some time to show you the rest of the Helsinki sight seeing photos.  We start in Helsinki päärautatieasema (central railway station). The railway station was built on a former sea bottom, and the area was mucky and stinking swamp.  The whole area had to be ditched and piled with wooden poles, and stone and sand was driwen to turn the earth more solid. Still many people were sure the whole railway would sink.  The station building was designed by Eliel Saarinen, and inaugurated in 1919, and it was pretty famous in those times. It has been chosen among the 10 most beautiful station buildings still in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The lanterns are hold up by Light Bearers, designed by Emil Wikström. This is where the trains leave everywhere in Finland, St Petersburg and Moscow.  We walked away from the station, but I took still a photo of its tower.  We stopped for a while to watch the Helsinki trams run past. This is one of the most modern ones. We saw the statue of marshal Mannerheim, although I could as well call it the statue of Käthy, who is the horse. The guy Mannerheim was the sixth president of Finland, and the commander-in-chief of the Finnish army during the wars. Kathy was his last horse.  Behind the statue is the Helsinki modern art museum Kiasma. We went to see the Lutheran Cathedral. There was an international gymnastics happening going on, and the stairs of the cathedral were full of people watching the show.  We climbed the stairs too, and saw too fine performances by the groups of Italy and Israel.  The Israel's group did a very acrobatic show - it looked more like circus than traditional gymnastics. The Italian show was very pompous with flying flags and scenes from the high points of Italian history.  We turned to watch the cathedral itself. It was so radiantly white in the sun, that it almost hurt our eyes! We walked through the Hietaniemi cemetery. It is a huge area! There are sections for Lutheran and Orthodox christians, Jews, muslims and atheists to be buried or cremated. A graveyard is usually not one of my favorite places to spend time, but Henna told us it is actually also a rather popular touristic place to experience, because it is a beautiful place, and there are many very impressive and artistic monuments of artists, writers, poets, political leaders etc.  So, we walked a bit around, watching the place. To me it looked like a perfect place to spend the Halloween in.  It is very easy to imagine someone rising from under this stone under a full moon.. It was actually quite a beautiful place - there were lots of blooming flowers, and many big trees, interesting stones to climb on with funny names, and chains to swing with.  We chatted a bit with an old gardener, and he told there have been troubles with some young stupidos pulling stones down at night time. We suggested him we could help - we could go there at night time too, to walk around in white bedsheets to scare the stupidos away. Guess waht - the old boy said he has already been doing that!  We came out through another gate near the Sibelius park, and headed there.  There was a beautiful little pond. We tried to see if there would be any fish, but they all swam away when they saw sisters Zoe and Crawfish drooling on the shore.  On the shore was growing a really beautiful willow. We saw the famous Sibelius monument, which dedicated to the Finnish composer, Sibelius. It was inaugurated 1967, and it is made of over 600 metal pipes, which resemble both organ pipes and icicles hanging from a cliff. The monument is said to represent the symphonic music of Sibelius. Next to the pipes over the rock is a face reliefi of the composer.  We sat to chat a bit with the head of Sibelius. "Hello, why is only your head here? Where is rest of you?" asked I. "Ha ha, you little smartass creature, my body went to swim, but I don't want to get water inside my ears, so the head stays here", said Sibelius's head.  Then we went to shout through the pipes - they have a nice echo. Our shouting was scaring the tourists away very fast.  Then we went to see the newest statue of Helsinki. Here it is.  I hope you liked my pics! Many kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Aug 20, 2015, 6:55 pm	Hei taas! Terveisiä Suomesta! (Hi again! Greetings from Finland!)  It is the best berry time now here in Finland, and we spend lots of time in forest, just eating and eating, and also collecting some (not very much) to put into the freezer.  One day we had enough pluck to break away from the spell of the blueberries, and go for a trip in Suomenlinna, which is an inhabited sea fortress in front of Helsinki. We took a ferry to Suomenlinna from Kauppatori square. There is a ferry about every half an hour, and the trip to Suomenlinna takes about 15 minutes.  The ferry was really full of tourists, and there was no room to sit, so we stayed standing on the car deck, where there was no window glasses between us and the view over the sea. Here we are passing Ryssänsaari island. The little red cottages belonged originally for a fisherfamily, nowadays some society owns them. I wouldn't mind living there! In total peace, just the seagulls and herrings for company, rowing to Helsinki if I happened to feel the call of city life. I don't it would happen very often. We arrived to Suomenlinna and said good bye to the ferry, which left back to Kauppatori. This is the gate building, through which we enter the islands.  We started to follow the main road, which leads from the ferry quay towards Susisaari island. There were very cute wooden houses along the road. Most of them serve as cafés or restaurants, but there are also people living in them. This is Suomenlinna church, which also serves as a beacon, since its central dome doubles as a lighthouse.  The church was originally built as an  Eastern Orthodox garrison church for the Russian troops, and it andit had five onion domes. The Orthodox church was converted into an Evangelical Lutheran church during the 1920s, and the onion domes were taken off.  I don't think the god could care less if there are onion domes or not, but that's just my opinion.  The Suomenlinna fortress comprises six islands  (Kustaanmiekka, Susisaari, Iso-Mustasaari, Pikku-Mustasaari, Länsi-Mustasaari and Långören) joined together by bridges. This is the bridge between Iso-Mustasaari and Susisaari islands.  We made a round on the old Susisaari industrial area. There was a busy drydock, still partially in use, and a State Aircraft Factory, which built aeroplanes and powered ice sleighs in the 1920´s and 1930´s.    The big red tile building is the old aeroplane factory. Gee, wouldn't I love to have a time machine, with which I could visit the factory in its glorious days in the 1920´s!  In the beginning they built here, with a license, different German and English planes, but later they built planes after Finnish blueprints - aeroplanes called Haukka and Sääski.  Suomenlinnan telakka is the oldest drydock in Finland, and one of the oldest shipyards in Europe. Building of the dockyard started in 1750. Under the Swedish rule there were built many ships for the Swedish navy. During the Russian rule and the Independence the ship building continued until 1974. Nowadays the shipyard is rented by a society, which is repairing there old wooden sailing ships.  The drydock works so, that when the water pool is dry, they put up rests for the ships. Then the gate (which is the black thing behind my back) is opened so that the water flows in, and the ships can sail into the pool. The water level is then lowered gradually, so that the ships land over their rests, and the pool is emptied again. Originally this was done with a windmill, which pumped water out.  We left the old industrial area and walked towards Kustaanmiekka island, where most of the fortifications are. Henna was telling us about the history of Suomenlinna. We saw the tomb of Augustin Ehrenswärd, who was a military architect, artist, and creator of the Suomenlinna. He was chosen by king Frederick I of Sweden to design and construct the fortress, and building the fortress became his life's work.  The construction of Suomenlinna fortress started in 1748. Its main purpose was to guard the Swedish coast against Russia, which was trying to expand its borders in many directions. Ehrensvärd's design was a low-profile bastion-type fortress that would follow the natural contours of the islands and thus remain inconspicuous to enemy fleets. That's why there are no imposing buildings to be seen.  At the time Suomenlinna was built, Helsinki was still a very small town - there were only about 3000 inhabitants. Of course the real amount was much bigger, because the official count involved only the people whom the official could reach.  The construction works of the fortress brought suddenly 6000 inhabitants more to the area. Besides the soldiers, officers and their families and servants, lots of people from countryside and other towns came to Helsinki, lured there by the possibilities to find work around the fortress, or to sell something. Part of the soldiers lived on the islands. Originally they lived on tent camps or on the vaults of the fortress they were building. Later barracks were built for their use. Officers lived mainly in Helsinki town - Ehrenswärd himself and some other high officers lived in Susisaari island in their own housing.  We walked still along the main road, which took us through a gateway towards the sea shore. We walked along the beautiful shore, admiring both the nature and the fortification buildings. Most of the shore was somehow deep rock, and the fortifications were lurking in between them, many of them still with hidden cannons. There were little pools between the rocks, and I went to see if there would be any interesting life forms. Yeah, there were some little polyps waving their tentacles to me.    The weather was cloudy, and there was a thin rain pouring down every now and then. The moss was blooming, and the stonecrops (sedium) looked wonderfully red on many rocksides.  Here is one of the many cannons we saw. The interesting thing is, that Suomenlinna was, on its time, the strongest maritime fortification in Europe, but the only time it get into real action, in the Siege of Sveaborg  in early 1808, during the Finnish War, it surrendered only after two months to the Russian fleet. Sweden lost Finland to Russia, and the destiny of Finland took a new turn (to the better direction, to be honest, but people didn't know it at those times).  The plausible reason for this were that the fortress had earlier received very poor funding. Since its completion in 1791, Suomelinna received no extra financial support from the government (the reason for that is still a mystery, but naturally related to the weak Swedish economic situation). The military equipment was in an unsatisfactory condition. Most of the supplies were of bad quality and the fortress was lacking most supplies. The cannons too, were old and partially obsolete. This meant that their range was shorter than that of the Russian artillery (which is a problem if cannons are stationed on a fortress). The fortress was unable to return fire on the Russian troops that were bombarding the fortress heavily.  The fortress was also in shortage of gunpowder.  Hah - so it was like if kids built a great snow castle, but didn't make any snow balls to whirl towards the brats of the next block.  This looks like the Shire - the hobbit village, but actually the turf covered buildings are gunpowder storages. The turf was both hiding them from the enemy, and it was thought to somehow also soften a possible accidental explosion. The old stone constructions are under constant repair works. The repair works are done by the prisoners of the Suomenlinna open prison, where the prisoners are learning the skills they need in the society after getting to freedom. They can also graduate to the construction work. We peeped inside some of the old stone constructions, which is always a bit risky, because according to many tales they are so full of ghosts it is hard to turn.  During the Finnish civil war they kept prisoners in these dark, cold buildings, and many of them died here because of dysentery and Spanish flu, which both raged amongst the prisoners. It is their ghosts supposedly wandering in here.  And possibly also the ghost of Carl Olof Cronstedt, who was the commander of Suomenlinna, who decided that the fortress would surrender.  We didn't see any ghosts (sadly), but it was very damp in there, and the ceilings were covered with some yellow, slimy looking substance, and that was horrifying enough!  We got out again through a tunnel, and Zoe was being a pain in the ass, and talking about a light on the other end of a dark tunnel after the death, and made us all feel a bit uneasy, and very glad to get out!  We rested a bit on the shore, and were happy to be alive and free to walk around, and able to hear the waves and see the seagulls on the sky.  Then we started our walk back towards the ferry to take us to Helsinki. We passed some old garrison buildings. Some of them are turned into apartments, and some of them serve as restaurants, art halls, workshops and for example spaces in which bands can rehearse. We took the main road again. Or maybe it was the road who took us, who knows.  We saw the ferry approaching, and started run towards the quay! It was this time a blue ferry. We reached the Susisaari bridge about the same time as the ferry! ( What do you mean - "how come you're taking photos if you're running in a hurry?" - camoon, have you not yet learned we toyvoyagers are able to do many tasks at the same time! Like eating herring and whipped cream simultaneously!) The ferry was honking for us to move our asses, and so we moved them to Helsinki and home.  See you soon again! Toodle-oo! Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Oct 6, 2015, 7:35 pm	Hello, dear mom I´m sorry I´ve not had time to make my updates - we have been helping an old neighbour of Henna's to repair his roof. The guy is so old he shouldn't be up there at all, and his roof was leaking, so our help was very wellcome.  But I´m not going to tell you about the roof repairing works this time, but about something totally different. Mr Casanova had been buried in books and papers for couple of days, and we were sure he was writing a love letter in some difficult language, but he surprised us all by telling us that according to his careful analysis of the water level changes after the ice age, he was pretty sure there was a prehistorical site on our yard here!  One wouldn't think Mr Casanova has anything else in his mind besides girls, but that just shows how wrong one can be! Anyway, we decided to organize an archaeological excavation on the spot! Henna promised to help us with the procedure, hah, like we needed her help!  Mr Casanova naturally acted as some sort of excavation leader, and was very pompous about it all.  We started by determining the exact place and extent of the excavation plot and clearing away the vegetation. There were lots of branches and twigs, growing hay and a whatnot. We piled all of it onto a heap.  After clearing away all the vegetation, it was time to dig up a rather thick layer of turf - the layer of decomposing plant material. It was hard work! There were lots of thick and stubborn roots we had to saw away, and after some time the buckets filled with turf also started to feel a bit heavy! The excavation leader Casanova (who was also feeling a bit hot, because of work, not because of ladies) let us to have a small pause. I spent the pause in a raspberry bush!  We continued our work, and at last we reached the end of the turf layer and reached first the earth and then the fine sand under it! It was time to bring out our high tech equipment - a camera to photograph all our findings and the cultural layers, and a tachymeter to determine the exact geographic position of everything on the site.  We took turns in using the tachymeter and holding the measuring rod and writing down all the figures, until we had created proper coordinates for the site.  We photographed the first under-turf layer. Boss Casanova informed us that what we were watching was the landform as it had been somewhere in Middle Ages.  Makes one to think a bit. Then we continued digging - but now we were not using spades anymore, but little trowels.  We were digging very carefully, taking away earth about a centimeters level on the whole area and then moving to the next layer. Even so we were sieving all the earth, in case there could be some so small artifacts we would not be able to see them while digging.  Thus we excavated away the middle ages and reached the layer of Iron Age.  Suddenly we found something! Our first find! We were so excited! We had no idea what it was - but it was big and looked like something carved out of stone.  There were more finds! This one was clearly part of a runestone!  We marked all the finds with marker sticks and measured their position with the tachymeter, and made careful markings of everything to our findings list, like "E29: A blue glass bead (not a beetle, ask Zoe, she tried to eat it)"  We photographed the finds "in situ". We let little Racko to do it, because the rest of us were too heavy (all those berries..)  It was time for a small pause again. It felt great to lay on the grass, watch the clouds to sail past above, and let the muscles to relax. But soon the boss ushered us back to work again.  One task we had to do, was to draw maps of all our excavation layers, where we had to situate all the findings, bigger stones, charcoal and color differences in the soil, because they can mark different activity areas.  It was an interesting task. I had troubles because a ladybird I was drawing on the map, was moving all the time!  I asked her politely if she could sit on one place, but she just showed me her tongue!  We excavated through the Iron Age and reached the Bronze Age layers, and found more exiting things. Now we were able to see that the carved stone was some kind of idol or statue, and that there had been a fireplace in front of it!  There seemed to be a fish inside the fireplace! But it wasn't a real fish at all! It was made of clay!   And then - I just couldn't believe it! I noticed there was something roundish emerging next to the fireplace, and removed carefully the sand from it´s surface, and, crying out loud!  I don't know if you have heard of the famous Himmelsscheibe or not, but you should! The Himmelsscheibe or Sky Disk of Nebra, was found in  a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, in Germany. It has been dated to the Bronze Age, and it features the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos worldwide. In June 2013 it was included in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register and termed "one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century. And here we had something that looked very similar!  So you can understand why I was so exited! This place we are excavating, must have been a rather remarkable place one time!  The excavation continued, and on each step we found more evidence which hinted that what were now excavating, had been an important cult central for long period of time. When we reached the Stone Age level, there were remains of big cheramic vessels, and also something which looked like bones. Every ow and then we found some small things also from the sieve - mainly tiny fragments of quarz arrowheads or flakes. I think I could become an archaeologist, like auntie Henna, when I grow up. What do you think? Or maybe it is a better plan never to grow up. Then I can do whatever I will!  There was an odd round object surfacing in one corner of our site. I couldn't make my mind of what to think of it, and neither could our leader Mr Casanova. We asked Zoe's opinion on the matter (just shows the level of our desperation) and she took one glimpse on the object, and said: "You imbecills! It is an EGG!" Damn it, she was right! It was an egg! A huge egg!  We started then to clean the bones. There were lots of items - glass beads, ceramics etc, which seemed to be positioned round the heap of bones!  It was a rather big sceleton we were cleaning. First we thought it might have been the remains of a prey animal the folks here had been eating, but no - it was a whole skeleton - no parts were cut or missing. Suddenly Zoe the kiwi started to yell like a  foghorn, and to run around like a hen. "My ancestors!" she yelled, "It is my ancestors!" And she was right again. It was clearly an allosaurus skeleton!  What I cannot understand is how come it had spectacles on its nose.  Our excavation had reached it's end. There was only hard podsol under the skeletons, and there wasn't any reason to excavate deeper. Excavation leader Casanova now gave us a lecture. "Dear excavators! I have now made my scientific analysis on this site, and it is this: Approximately 145 million years ago there were a family of allosauruses living here, on this site. When the big meteorite hit the earth, forming the Gulf of Mexico and killing the dinosaurs, the unhappy family met its untimely end here (snif). In the Mesolithic Stone Age a family of cave kiwis wobbled on the site, saw the bones and realized it was a burial ground of their ancestors, and declared the place holy.  Generation after generation, the local kiwi population came here to bring offerings, burn fires and erect statues and rune stones - each generation according to its own style, bringing the best valuables they had. Who would have guessed!  A holy place of the ancient kiwi birds! Our friend Zoe was mute with ave after Mr Casanova's lecture. It was time to organize our findings. "An artist, who is specialized in recreating pictures of archaeological sites as they were in a certain time in past, is going to give us some paintings of the site tomorrow, promised leader Casanova.  Here you can see some of our most interesting finds! They´re going to shake the science world a bit! I put here the recreations of the site the artist had made for us. They are made to capture the site as it was in Early Iron Age. As you can see, the place was on a sea shore at that time. The allosaurus remains are surrounded by valuabe items from different times, and there is a small altar in front of the stone stone statue. The Star Disk is situated in front of the rune stone. Here the artist has imagined a family of kiwis bowing in front of the statue.  The language in the rune stone is ancient Finnish, and it says about: "This is a holy place created in honor of our ancestors." That was really all now. I must say it was an interesting experience. Auntie Henna is rather surprised too! A remarkable cult center in her yard! And she thinks she's an archaeologist! Hah! Many kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Oct 17, 2015, 7:02 pm	Hyvää päivää, rakkaat ystävät! = Good day, dear friends!  The autumn here is turning darker and colder, the earth is already often white in the mornings before the sun rises up and melts the rime away. But we will get there later - now I'm telling you about our late summer here in Nuuksio  . I think I mentioned last time that we were helping Henna's nearest neighbor to repair his roof. The roof had been leaking already for couple of years, and the neighbour is too old to do much himself. So, when Henna found out about the leaking roof she decided she has to do something about it and asked us to help her.  Of course none of us is a roof-fixing expert, but Henna said she hopes common sense would be enough to guide us. "Common sense? Is that something to eat?" asked our friend Zoe. So, as you can see, our "guide" was barely reliable.  It took us about two months to fix the roof, using almost all the free time we had, and there is still something to do next summer. But, we managed to stop the leaking!  While Henna was planning the next steps and using very many interesting Finnish words, which almost burned our ears, we used the roof as our sliding hill.  There was time anyway also for walking in the nature.  Sometimes when we had been especially helpfull, Henna told us to go for a little walk to use our energy to something else. We found this interesting little hollow under big rocks in the forest. It was a good place to play stone age toyvoyagers.  Quite near by we found a toyvoyager sized dolmen! How extraordinary!   It seems almost like archaeology was our destiny! Henna told us how the dolmens were tombs into which all the members of communities were buried democratically. But they were not only tombs - they were gateways to the other worlds. The people buried into them, were actually seeds, which were put there to sprout again, so that they could be reborn. Interesting, huh? We roamed inside the dolmen to see if there happened to be still any bones loitering about. There weren't. The blueberries were ripe and juicy, and we both ate and picked them to take home, well, mainly ate..  What we took home we ate in the mornings with honey and cream. If you have not tried that, you should! You don't know what you're missing!  The small, wonderful, wild forest strawberries were ready too and waiting to be eaten! We fulfilled their will eagerly and as often as possible.  Cannot stand disappointed strawberries! I don't know how many of you have been eating wild forest strawberries. They are the original strawberries, from which the tame ones have been bred, and they taste quite different. The difference is.. a bit like between a wolf and a lapdog. Both are wonderful, but the wild forms are just more, well, wild and energetic and individual. On our yard the currants were ripe too. We found red, white and black currants and ate them all.  In the forest the chanterelles were hiding behind the first fallen yellow leafs and giggling when we walked past without noticing them. We found many, though.  The birch boletes were also popping up from the earth here and there and making us smile, because for us they meant a wonderful dinner. The chanterelles are sometimes called here "metsän kulta" = the gold of the forest. Not because they are extremely valuable, they are not, economically, I mean, but because they are so exceptionally good.  Have you read J.R.R. Tolkien's book Lord of the rings? If you have, you know that hobbits were crazy about mushrooms. In a way which "outshadowed all the cravings and desires of big people." Do you think I might be a hobbit, anyway?  These photos are from a small forest lake called Vuohijärvi. It was full of waterlilies, and over the lily leafs we spotted some frogs having drunken orgies.  Over the ethereal looking white flowers the air was full of their lustful croaking and drunken singing.  "Hi you, frogs!" I shouted, "do you do anything else than to have drunken orgies?" There was a three second's silence, and then they answered "not much!" and continued.  We made also couple of trips to the seaside, to walk on the rocks and to enjoy the wind and beautiful landscapes.  We walked against the brisk wind or leaned onto it and teased the waves by letting them almost get us, but not quite - keeping all the time just and just over the line they were able to reach. They hissed to us angrily.  "Don't you brats tease them too much!" warned Henna, when a pissed off, white capped wave stretched towards us. "Let's go and make a fire instead!" There was a nice place for an open fire, and benches to sit around it. We had soon the fire burning. It felt wonderfully warm after the brisk wind and the salty water sprinkles on the shore, and the coffee smelled sweetly.  There was a bird watching tower on a hill, and we of course climbed it. "What, to watch birds? If you want to watch birds, here I am - no need to climb towers!" said Zoe, but she was just trying to be fun. She likes to watch birdies too.  It was quite a high tower and took some climbing to get there. The views from the tower were very beautiful! A mix of green forest and blue sea.  I was trying to spot birds flying past, but the only bird I saw was a kiwi. Don't believe she is flying! She is just trying to fool you!  In many evenings we admired the moon over the old field behind our cottage.  Hyvää yötä teille kaikille! = Good night to all of you! Yours, Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Oct 19, 2015, 11:56 pm	Hello, dear mom and all siblings and friends! I wish you're happy and in good health!  Do you still remember our kitchen garden? Well, it was a very cold and rainy summer, so we didn't need to do much watering. As a matter of fact - we left the plants pretty much to take care of themselves.  But one day Henna remarked that it would maybe be time to go and harvest our kitchen garden crops - they had looked rather ripe when she walked past. So - next day we harvested our garden, and now I'm showing you photos of it.  Look at our cabbages!  They were simply a marvel! So round and green and glossy and plump! They had clearly benefited from the rain.  We were all so happy to see them! Then we walked to the next patch to see how our radishes were doing. They had grown so well too! They were so beautiful! And of so splendid color!  I bet you have never seen such a healthy growth of french fries either!  It is actually quite a miracle! We put some little seeds to earth and voilá! After couple of months we have lots of wonderful foodstuff! There was a burst of colorado beetles this summer, but luckily they had not attacked our fries! They had grown so bright yellow and beautifully crinkled!  We started harvesting the wonderful vegetables. It was very enjoyable work! Henna came to see our crops too, and she was a bit puzzled. "What did you actually plant there?" she asked, and looked rather stupid, standing there  mouth open. Donno what she meant.  The radishes were so big they hardly fit into the buckets! Have you ever heard about such radishes?  "What about the greenhouse?" asked Henna "What about your crops there?" Let's go and see! Our pot bananas looked just glorious!  I gave one to Henna, whose eyes were rolling a bit in her head. "Is this all?" she asked. "Not quite" said I, "come and see our orchyard!"  The bush bananas looked even more delicious than the pot brand!  The popcorn tree's branches were heavy with wonderful, white, greasy popcorns!  We finished the harvest and carried or crop home, and Henna too. She was feeling a bit faint.  As you can see, it was a very happy harvest day!  Love from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Oct 23, 2015, 8:11 pm	Kukkuu again, everyone!  It's update time once again. One rainy day in September we made a day trip into the small town of Porvoo about an hour's driwe in a bus from Helsinki. It was still dark outside when we took the bus in Helsinki bus station. We had lots of provisions with us, and we started to eat right away. It is one of the best things in travelling - eating provisions!  In Porvoo we were just walking around and around the narrow, cobbled streets, watching views and the quaint little wooden houses.  Porvoo is one of the oldest towns in Finland. It has its beginning somewhere in the 13th century. Before that there was already an important Iron Age castle and village.  Porvoo has got its name from Swedish words borg+å = castle+river. Here you can see the river. Logically its name is Porvoon joki (Porvoo's river). It has provided a good passage from the sea to the town, and forward towards the faraway inland regions. This is the old townhouse of Porvoo. Nowadays there is the historical museum. It was nice to peep into the yards of the small houses. Of course the town has grown lately, and there is a modern town around the old Porvoo, but I think a town of this size, as it was some hundred years ago, would be optimal. You would know all the faces around you, but still would not know them too well to feel suffocated. This is the mediaeval church of Porvoo. It is an important spot in Finnish history, because in here the Russian Czar promised Finland would maintain its autonomy after it had been become part of Russia 1809. Some young imbesills, who thought it would be a cool thing to play to be Satan worshippers, burned the church 2006, and its roof was totally destroyed. The whole old town and its wooden houses were too in great danger. The roof was built anew and the church opened again 2008.  We took a peep inside. It was quite a peacefull place, although there were some tourists..  We continued our walking around, but soon it started to feel like we had walked past the same café too many times, and knew already what we would see behind the next corner.  There was a Moomin house in a shop window, and I spent some time talking with the moomins behind the glass. They told me that they had quite a satisfacting life, taking into account that it was a sweet shop inside which their house was situated. How handy.  The evening was already getting a bit darker, and we were watching the people who live in these cute houses getting home from work.  The wind was rising and the colourful autumn leaves were flying around us. The wind also brought the rain back, and so, on our next round past the café, we hopped in, and spent the last our inside until our bus back to Helsinki was ready to leave. It was quite a nice, little visit.  Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Nov 30, 2015, 6:38 pm	Hallo, dear mom!  My adventures with the lunatics continue. Today I'll show you pics from Turku, where we went with Henna. She went to take part into some demonstration, and meanwhile we were loitering around. There are not very many pics, though, because we were in  a hurry! Let me introduce you to Aurajoki river. The river was an important route towards the inland, and that's why there was a big centre on it's shore already in the Iron Age. Turku town was grounded on 13th century, and it was also the first capitol of Finland. There are eleven bridges over Aurajoki in Turku. The people in Turku think it is somehow meaningful on which shore of the river you have been born, but I have not yet find out why and what. "You must be from the other side of the river" they say if people behave in somehow unwanted way. We heard it a lot.  The Turun Tuomiokirkko cathedral is also on the river front, next to the old market place. The oldest parts of the church are from the late 13th century. It was for years the most important place to be buried - the high ranking people were queuing to get buried under its floor.  In the archaeological excavations, says Henna, was found also for example a cat in it own little cascet. Someone in medieval times had loved her/his cat so much that they had smuggled the dead cat under the church floor to make sure it's soul gets into heaven too.  I met a chap called Mikael Agricola.  He was a bishop in 16th century, and the first one to translate the Bible into Finnish language. He was maybe also the first person who was writing Finnish with Latin alphabeth. Before that Finnish had been written in runes.  We met also this other guy. He belongs into a species called "vaivaisukko". They are sculpted in wood and painted, and fixed into church walls to collect money for poor people.  They have a hole in their stomach or back to put coins in. They were made from 17th century to the 20th century. Next we went to see the Turun linna castle. Castle is the largest surviving medieval building in Finland. It was founded in the late 13th century. The Swedish conquerors of Finland intended it originally as a military fortress. During the next two centuries its defences were strengthened and living quarters were added. The castle served as a bastion and administrative centre. Later the castle served for example as a jail, and it was turned into a museum in 1880. It sometimes seems to me that all the written history is just of invading, fighting, power struggle and other stupid, mainly masculine activities.  What I would like to learn about history is how common people lived and how they did see the world in the context of all those idiotical happenings in the back ground. There were some renovation work of the walls going on again, while we passed. Inside the castle it was a too dark to take many photos. I tried to took one every time there seemed to be enough light. We saw the castle's church, which was very beautiful. It is a very popular place to get married. If ever I'll get married, I think I would rather do it just under the full moon on some crawfish populated shore.  There was an exhibition to show the clothing and other items of all sorts the royal people living here would have used in the 17th century. This is the hall in which the court was eating its meals in long tables. In this photo you can see how thick the castle walls are. I cam imagine the brats living in the castle spending lots of time on the window sills.  That was all we saw of Turku, sadly. Henna came from her demo and collected us and we get back to Nuuksio again. See you soon! Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Dec 2, 2015, 3:51 pm	Hello again, dear mom, siblings and all the rest!  The autumn had arrived and brought the colourfull leaves and mushrooms with it. We made an autumn trip to the forest, and I´m now putting here photos we took then.  The nights had turned cold, and when we went onto the yard in the morning, we noticed that there was ice in the water buckets. It looks like a piece of art, doesn't it? There was a beautiful print of a dry leaf on it's surface. The weather was wonderful, and there were inviting heaps of dry leaves everywhere. We decided to make a mushroom trip into the forest. So we packed our bags and took a tent with us too.  We walked trough the wonderful forest, and started to sing wandering songs. ♪♫♫♪ Lähtekäämme maailmalle, reppu selkään, keppi kouraan, matkaan vain! Soikoon laulu koko pitkän tien, matkaan mukanani laulun vien. Pellon poikki, kuusten alle, sieltä alkaa polku kauas matkaajain. Polveillen käy virran juoksu, mutkikas on polkummekin maailmaan! Soikoon laulu koko pitkän tien, matkaan mukanani laulun vien. Pellon poikki, kuusten alle, sieltä alkaa polku kauas matkaajain. ♪♫♫♪ Let's go to the world take your bagback, take your wand, let's just go! Let the song echo troughout the whole trip, I the the song with me into the world. Trough the fields, under the spruces, there begins the path for travellers who want ot get far! The brook is meandering in it's run, and so is our path to the world. Let the song echo troughout the whole trip, I the the song with me into the world. Trough the fields, under the spruces, there begins the path for travellers who want to get far! The glorious trees looked like flames against the blue skies, and we stopped to admire them every now and then.  We couldn't resist the call of the leaf heaps, and why should we?  We dived  under the leaves, made somersaults, hopped  and roamed around.  And then we rested panting on the soft, nice smelling leaves and watched the clouds sailing across the sky, like sheep grazing in a blue meadow. We continued our hike through the forest, in search for a perfect spot to put our tent up.  When we saw the first birch boletos, we knew we had found our place to stay.  So we put the tent up. Isn't it a splendid one? Just the right size to home a bunch of voyagers! Then we went to pick mushrooms! To fill the larder for winter!  I wouldn't mind living like they did in stone age - just by collecting stuff from the nature! Berries, mushrooms, hay, herbs, roots.. only thing missing from the list is chocolate! That's not so easy to collect! Unless you collect it from a super market, but then they send the security after you..  Many people don't know these mushrooms are also very good to eat. Lycoperdon perlatum, common buffball. When they get old and dry, their spore spreads up to the air like smoke, if you step over them. He he, Henna told us that in Portugal they are called Bufas da Velha = old woman's fart.  In Finnish they're called käsnätuhkelo. A nice a useful Finnish word of the day into your vocabulary.  Soon we had got more mushrooms than we could very easily carry home. So we called Henna and told her to drag her lazy ass intothe forest next morning to carry the mushrooms!  Then we went back to our tent and slept very well, although Zoe was snoring, as usually.  Good night! See you soon again! Kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Dec 14, 2015, 4:40 pm	Titityy, my belowed ones! A hug for you!  The autumn was turning muddy and cold, and Henna said she was tired of pulling us toyvoyagers from each others throats, since clearly the lousy weather was effecting our mental atmosphere too.  I admit it.  Anyway, Henna decided it was time to get into warmer climate, which would put the smile back on our faces. It was time to say goodbye to the little cottage. It felt a bit melancholic. The poor cottage looked a bit melancholic too, standing there in middle of late autumn and dying nature and all. Good bye! In our last evening in Finland we had a candle light dance on the yard - we lit candles behind the differently formed ice blocks we got from buckets.  Then we, umm, danced around the flaming ice blocks, sang and drank a bit of something called Salmiakkikossu (which we found hidden under Henna´s bed) I don´t know exactly what it is, but it made our dancing faster and singing wilder.  It also made us to fall asleep and forgot rest of the evening. I doubt this was a devious plan by our host Henna, since I heard her earlier muttering something about a "bunch of restles enfant terribles to handle on a night flight, what would I pay to make them to sleep!"and also by the fact that she had hidden the bottle in a place from which she certainly knew we would find it!  Anyway, there is no photos of our flight to Portugal, because we were all slumbering like little angels.  We were waken up next day by a rather pungent smell, and by Henna who told us to get out from her backbag and greet the sun. I roamed out into a totally different world! There was sun, light, warmth, a blue glistening sea, a sand beach, and the source of the piercing smell - fish drying in the sun!  What else could a toyvoyager ask for? It certainly put a smile onto our faces, like our cunning host had forecasted.  We walked towards the blue Atlantic ocean. Henna told us that traditionally this was a town of fishermen - about everyone made their living by fishing or by turning the fish into conserves or other products. There are still some active fishermen, and some traditional, colourful fishing boats on the shore.  The fishing could be a dangerous occupation, though - specially in former times when the fishermen didn´t have motors to fight the Atlantic wawes - just oars or small sails. The fishermen´s wives had their own way to deal with the risks. When their husbands were on the sea, and it turned stormy, they took a statue of Saint Peter, the patron saint of fishermen, and put him into a bowl of water up to his neck, and told him that he would only get out of the water when the husband was safe back at home. If the storm get worse, or the husband was late of returning, the wives rised the water level in the bowl slowly.  Up upon the cliff behind the beach is the other part of the town. There was an important center of pilgrimage, which was built around a wooden image of Madonna and child, which appeared mysteriously into a cave in the cliff in the 8th century. It was believed to be carved by Josef, the step daddy of Jesus, who was a carpenter.  We climbed up to see the church and the famous madonna, Nossa Senhora de Nazaré. (The whole town got its name after the image, who was believed to have wandered here from Nazareth. Yeah, wandered. The holy images here have a long tradition of wandering around according to their own mind.)  Here is the church in which the precious image is reciding. Some hundred years ago the pilgrimages brought lots of wealth to the town - they of course payed for their accommodation and food, and if they were wealthy people they were ready to pay a lot, and also leave valuable gifts for the church, and maybe purchase pieces of some relics with good price.  Here is the famous wandering Madonna. We couldn´t get very near, so I had to use a zoom, and couldn´t be in the same photo with her. There are many theories about why she is black, since people from Nazareth at those times usually weren´t. We came out from the church and walked following the edge of the cliff, admiring the view over the town.  Nossa Senhora da Nazaré -image made here an miracle in 1182 I´m sure you all want to read about: "On the early morning of September 14, 1182, Dom Fuas Roupinho alcalde of Porto de Mós, Portugal (quite a name!), was out hunting near the coast, when he saw a deer which he immediately began chasing. All of a sudden a heavy fog rose up from the sea. The deer ran towards the edge of the cliff (on purpose, I´m sure) and Dom Fuas  realised he was next to the small cave where the image of Nossa Senhora da Nazaré had appeared.  Thus he prayed out loud "Our Lady, Help Me!" All of a sudden the horse miraculously stopped just on the edge, one hoof already outside the cliff. "  Ok. Miracle it was - the deer was saved!  We saw the lighthouse of Nazaré. It is the building in the end of the cliff. We didn´t go near, because there was a modern pilgrimage of tourism thronging towards it from every direction.  We hopped into a small museum, in which we saw miniature versions of the traditional fishingboats. They were just the right size for us, but the auntie in the museum didn´t want to loan them to us. The evening started to settle in, and so we finished by eating a bowl of Caldo verde soup in a small café. It was a good first day under the sun.  Sunny kisses from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Dec 21, 2015, 8:12 pm	Hellurei, rakas äiti!  Greetings from Portugal again! We slipped fastly again into the Portuguese style and rhythm of life. The sun, warmth and colours or summer (in our eyes) lulled us to believe into everlasting summer indeed. Sometimes a longing for snow and ice tried to invide our brains, though. Well, no snow this year even in Finland, it seems. Just mud. Good riddance. Anyway, I´m going to share with you some pictures from a trip we made into a small town called Castelo Branco. We took a train from Lisbon to Entroncamento, where we had to take another train to Castelo Branco. We had half an hour time to spend in Entroncamento, and we marched to the other side of the railyards where we could see a row of old steam engines. Oo I love steam engines!  The tracks were following the river Tejo, and the lanscapes became less tamed. In Castelo Branco, we saw the Sé, the main cathedral Igreja de São Miguel. And Cruzeiro de São João stone cross, which was erected in the early 16th century. Then we went to see the Jardim do Paço Episcopal garden.  It is a barock style garden, originally the private garden of bishop  D. Joăo de Mendonça, turned a public space in the 19th century. The garden in best known because of its statues. These stairs are occupied by the Portuguese kings, but there are also statues representing the virtues, the seasons, the zodiacal signs, the continents and what not elsewhere in the garden.  I think this king wasn´t very popular, because he was nicknamed "o gordo" = the fatty, while the other kings are named "victorious" or "magnificent" etc.  Here you can see the area of the geometrical garden. Looks rather unnatural, but I guess that´s what people wanted at those times. There were also various pools and fountains, in which I could see some beautiful, big swimming in. It was a nice little garden. I could have one like that myself in the backyard.  Here I´m sitting on the lap of bishop of Milan, santo Ambrosio.  After the garden we climbed the hill to see the ruins of the castle after which the whole town has got its name. There wasn´t much left, though, just some walls. But the view was worth of seeing!  We walked forwards and backwards on the piece of wall standing, and then we climbed down to the city and went into a small local bar to have a bowlful of soup.  That´s what we saw of Castelo Branco. We don´t know what Henna saw - she shut herself into some museums for the whole day!  Or that´s what she said! I have my doubts! Later in the night we saw a beautiful, lighted fountain. It looked a bit like fireworks. See you soon again! Hugs from Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jan 5, 2016, 6:50 pm	Hello hello hello! It is your favorite ruminant Momo  online again! How´re you all thriving? Today it is a short day trip into a small town called Leiria in turn to be unravelled here, so let´s begin, oh ye fellow voyagers.  Leiria is a small town about 150 kilometers from Lisbon. We travelled there by a bus. (Autocarro in Portuguese.) The trip took over two hours, and everyone in the bus looked rather sleepy and bored. So we thought it a good idea to cheer them up a bit with some vigorous singing.  I don´t know if they were cheered up, but certainly they weren´t looking half so sleepy after some energetic Finnish songs, especially the hundred verses of song called Sillivati seilaa (Herring bowl is sailing.)A very interesting song! If you ever want to learn it, be free to contact me! "The name "Leiria" in Portuguese derives from 'leira' (from the medieval Galician-Portuguese form 'laria', from proto-Celtic *ɸlār-yo-, akin to Old Irish 'làr' 'ground, floor', Breton 'leur' 'ground', Welsh 'llawr' 'floor') meaning an area with small farming plots." I have nothing to do with this information!  Mr Casanova told me to write it here (to boast abut his university education, undoubtedly.) To say all of this in a simple language = Leiria was originally a small farming community.  It started to grow in size and importance in the medieval times. We climbed to see the Castle of Leiria (in ruins) which is the most interesting thing to see in Leiria. The castle ruins were quite entertaining. I was amazed to read that during the early mediaeval times all the town population was living inside its walls.  We climbed about 500 stairs up onto the castle´s watch tower, and spent there a good time watching the landscapes around us.  We left the castle and went to have lunch in a local café with auntie Maria.  It was really njammy!  After eating we took a bus into an even smaller town near by,  called Batalha. There we had only 45 minutes time and the only thing we saw was the famous Monastery of Batalha. Here it is. It was really an overwhelmingly magnificent building! The monastery was built to thank the Virgin Mary for the Portuguese victory over the Castilians in the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. We peeked inside too, and were very impressed with all the gigantic pillars and what not. Such a huge space brought into our minds the idea to try out its acoustics..    ..so we tuned our song Sillivati seilaa again, and soon we were kicked out from the monastery, which was good, because otherwise we could have been so lured by the music as to miss our bus back to Lisbon. So,we got in time to our bus and safely back home.  Many tender kisses from Momo! Toodleoo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jan 11, 2016, 6:40 pm	Terve taas!/Olá de novo!/Hello again! dear fellow voyagerists! I wish all of you are feeling well and exuberant! Or at least well enough to suffer through a new update with your favorite cow.  We made again a day trip, this time to a small town called Pias, towards south from Lisbon. Henna and auntie Maria had to meet some people in the town, and meanwhile we had free hands (or paws, hooves or whatever) to amuse ourselves in the house of auntie Maria´s parents.  It is an old house and whitewashed, like all houses here, and standing wall to wall with the neighbouring houses, like is the custom here. The houses form long, white rows on both sides of the roads. It can be a bit claustrophobic experience to walk in between,  without escape right nor left.  Anyway, we stayed mainly in the yard, instead of lingering on the roads, because there were so many things to see there! December or not, many plants were in bloom and some others were heavy with ripe fruit, while some were just otherwise interesting.  Behind me and the wonderful rose you can see part of the yard, an old well and some sheds. This has originally been a self sufficient farm with enough land and fields to produce livelihood for an extended family with servants, but now there is just the yard with some fruit trees and room for a kitchen garden. We went to explore everything.  Some of the trees drop their leaves for the winter here too. The dry leaves made delicious, raspy sound under our paws. The lemons were ripe! Wonderful, plump yellow balls bursting with juice and smelling wonderfully! There were already many lemons dropped on the ground too. We were pushing them into piles and carried them into the house and into Henna´s bag to take with us back to Lisbon.  The oranges were also ripe and wonderful! Did you know that it were Portugueses who brought them to Europe in 15th century? What smart people!  There were many oranges on the ground too. We started to roll them into piles too, and then I got an idea!  We made and orange man, to feel more like winter, since there wasn´t much hope of snow.  But it didn´t feel quite the same. We climbed the trees to pull down those oranges which were still hanging on the branches. "Ahoy! Orange coming!" Some of them were stubborn and demande lots of swinging before they surrendered! What a great excuse!  Nay. Heaven forbid the day when I need an excuse to have fun!  The olive trees also needed our attention and care, and we gave it to them gladly! I had soon my basket full of glossy blue-black azeitonas.  After hard harvest collecting we were just resting under the blooming trees and enjoying the mild afternoon sun, buzzing insects and other blessings.  Like wine..  There was a pile of old roof tiles in one corner of the yard, and in some way or other that gave us an idea to celebrate the approaching christmas time by arranging a living nativity scene. Here is our impromptu crib!  Well, yeah, I don´t know how christlike that brat of Zoe´s is, but he was the only baby available! Besides, he is quite cute!  When the sun got low, we went inside the house, and amused ourselves by climbing the beautiful old furniture.  We built a fire into the kitchen´s fire place. In olde times this was the only place to make food. Usually a cheramic vessel was put onto the hearth near the fire with the food ingredients.We were just enjoying the warmth and beauty of the fire.  In the morning we had to say goodbye for the old house, and took our load of fruit back to Lisbon. Goodbye! And see you soon again! Your Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Feb 10, 2016, 3:59 pm	Hello again, dear toyvoyagers and hosts!  Our Christmas and New Year here in Portugal went past so fast we didn´t have time to hop in.  It was raining all the time, and everything looked like a very rainy April in Finland, and Henna had a flue, so we were mainly staying in our nice and warm and cosy tv -nest, reading and eating gingerbread cookies. We went to see the big christmas tree in Rossio, though, but otherwise the whole yule tide just slipped somewhere..  And then it was January an year 2016, the sun roamed slowly out from the clouds, and we forced Henna to roam out too from her bed and to take us out again.  We went for a hiking trip onto an protected area called Arriba Fóssil da Costa de Caparica. We started our hike from a village called Fonte da Telha, which you can see in this photo. Inhabitants of the village are mainly either fishermen (or women) or keep a little bar for surfers and others who like to have their lunch on the sea shore. The aloes on the edge of the village were just opening their first flowers when we marched by.  The coastal cliffs of Costa de Caparica are called fossil cliffs, because they are fossil-bearing layers of Miocene age,and because they´re not in direct contact with the ocean, not suffering from sea erosion. The fossil sea bed formed many interesting and fantastical formations, and we spotted many seashell and conch fossils in them.  We were mainly walking over soft sand, which made the walking a bit heavy. I could feel my leg muscles growing! We saw more beautiful flowers.  In this photo you can see the town of Lisbon far away in the horizon. A perspective to the town most Lisboners have never seen.  We were walking along the ancient coast line towards a lake called Lagoa de Albufeira about eight kilometers away. Eight kilometers there and eight back would be just suitable length for a hiking trip.  I don´t know what these flowers are but they were huge!  Henna said they might be globeflowers (Trollius europaeus) but she is not sure. What do you think? The last kilometers we walked under pines and blooming mimosas.  At last we reached the Albufeira lake. On it´s other shore was a new ugly living area and it didn´t look very interesting. The other shore is a protected area for water birds´s nesting, which is great.  On the third shore we had a foam party.  After enough partying we returned to the sea shore, and walked a while along the nowaday´s beach before returning to the ancient cliffs. Here you can see both.  Then we walked our eight kilometers back to Fonte da Telha. See you soon! Kisses!! I hope you have been walking a bit too! Your Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted May 24, 2016, 8:25 pm	Hello again, dear folks!  It has been some months since I last made an update, and I´m sorry about that, but believe me, folks, it wasn´t my fault! I would have been making updates every single day, but my host Henna went kukkuu or lost her rocker or maybe lost some Moomins from the Valley, because how else would it be explained that she told me she needed a holiday from toyvoyaging, I just ask!?  Unless it is a case rather for an exorcist than for a psychiatrist, like our friend Zoe was suggesting.  Just in case we drew some pentagrams onto the floor, and clearly they worked because as soon as Henna saw them she suddenly became very energetic indeed and run after us some kilometers shouting horrible curses, and we run like there had been some demons after us!  So, we got her on the move again, and she is ready to take us to see things again, hooray!  After some more months in Portugal we came back to Finland, where the little old cottage was waiting for us, messy and chaotic as ever!  Outside the nature was waking up after the long winter, and the crocuses were the first plants which hustled themselves from the black earth towards the sun. Soon on the heels of the crocuses came the white anemones and covered the yard with with a white, cloudy -looking bedspread.  After the anemones it was like the nature´s big bag had broken, and all the spring plants had fallen down - everything was suddenly growing with such a hurry we hardly had time to greet everyone!  The rhubarbs we were greeting with a double joy, because we know that they can be turned into a wonderful soup, which is specially delicious when it is served over vanilla ice cream!  Yep! They certainly look ripe enough! I´ll coax Henna to make us soup! She is actually pretty easy to coax, and if it doesn´t work there always is the blackmailing.  When we had settled properly down again and had started to feel like home, we were ready to go a bit farther away from the yard and its wonders. We have been following Henna on some interesting geocaching trips!  I don´t know how many of you are geocachers - I know some are - but anyway, I´m sure you understand the excitement of searching for the caches according to hints, and solving riddles! But even more exciting is that we never know beforehand in what kind of place we will get into in search for the cache!  They can be hidden for example on the premises of an old manor house, like in this case. It is the Munkkiniemen kartano manorhouse behind my back. It is also nice to see how creative people can be when making the caches! This one was camouflaged like a log!  Running after the caches we often see very beautiful or interesting places. Here we are in a park called Härkähaka, which means "bull pasture". It has been a grazing area for the bulls of the Munkkiniemen kartano manor house some hundred years ago. We found there a cache and a geobug, a little budgie! Geobugs are a bit similar than us toyvoyagers - they travel from cache to cache round the world while we travel from host to host!  We passed a glorious field with glowing dandelions! Ooh, such little suns on a field!  We just had to pet them! Here we are searching for a cache in the forest, in trenches which are part of an old defense system. This is a bunker in the defence constructions, quite a creepy place - dark and humid and full of mosquitoes! It is quite horrible to think anyone staying here, specially during the winter, brrrrr!  But we found the cache! We are much better in finding caches than our host Henna is! She is such a sissy she doesn´t want to put her hands into dark holes in case there are hairy spiders or centipedes, hah!  These are marsh marigolds (rentukka in Finnish) and every ditch and brook and pond is full of them at the moment! Aren´t they wonderful!? I finish this first update now, but I promise I´ll soon be here again!  Many kisses and hugs to you all! And hairy spiders if you like them!  Your Momo!
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jun 8, 2016, 1:17 pm	Hello again, dear fellow toyvoyagers, siblings, lunatic family members and patient hosts!  Today it rains "kuin Esterin perseestä" like the Finnish saying goes, and it is a good day to write updates! What? You want to know what the Finnish saying means? Are you quite sure?  Just asking, because sometimes it is better not to know..  All right, all right, but remember, it was you who demanded me to tell!  Litterally it means: "It rains like from Esther´s arse." Yep. Simple and logical, isn´t it? And yes, it is a genuine and wide spread Finnish saying.  If you want to hear the historical explanation too, you better ask our friend Mr Casanova, I´m sure he knows everything about it! (He usually knows everything that has to do with ars.. Hi, don´t hit me with that pillow! Ok, ok, I don´t write it! But now to the update. Do you think I talk too much?  Some folks say I talk too much, which, I think, is an absurd idea, cannot understand where it comes from! I can tell that compared with some other toyvoyagers around here (no names mentioned) I talk very little indeed! Ach, the update, where was I?  Here you can observe our valiant gang, and if you are very observant, you can maybe realize we´re sitting on a boat! Yes! It was a boat named Viking Express, and we were on our way to Tallinn, Estonia!  I bet you cannot guess why we were travelling to Tallinn!  We were going there because our host Henna wanted to buy a book, an Estonian book, which she was not able to buy in Finland.  Quite an interesting reason to travel to the neighbouring country, but like I´ve said before, there are probably some Moomins lost from her Valley.  Anyway, it was a very fast trip - the going over the Finnish Gulf took about 2 hours, and then we had about four hours time to spend in Tallinn, before our ship left back to Helsinki again.  We enjoyed the trip! We went to promenade on the deck, and it was fun, because it was so windy there we were able to lean against the wind! The seagulls were using the wind to float over our ship, and one of them was in a nasty mood, and tried to hrm.. bombard us. It maybe had something to do with the fact that Zoe theKiwi shouted "Hi, mate, bring us some herring, since you don´t seem to have anything better to do!" to it.    We watched small islands to slide by Yes, thank you, dear Mr Casanova, I know quite well the islands were not sliding, it were us who were sliding, or the boat, to be exact. It was just a figure of speech! (What an smart ass..) In the stern there was a deck bar, which looked quite nice, but when we tried to enter, there was a  guy who told us to show our papers. Well, we all rummaged through our pockets and bags, and presented all our papers to the guy - Racko had a bus ticket, I had some caramel wrappings, Mr Casanova had about 800 love letters, Zoe had some toilet paper (unused) and Crawfish had a paper which had been round a kilo of herrings some days before, but even so the guy didn´t let us in, although he showed some interest towards Mr Casanova´s letter collection.  So we went back in and had our own party on a window sill! Usually our own parties are the best parties, anyway!  Pretty soon we arrived to Tallinn! Tallinn´s name comes from the Estonian words "Taani linn", which means "The Danish town". Denmark controlled the town after they had beaten the Estonians in the Lindanise battle 1219. The town existed though long before, and its original name was Revala, a name which had to do with the dense population of foxes (rebane in Estonian) which lived on the caves and holes  and burrows on the hills over which the town had been built.  After running with Henna to her precious bookshop and dragging her out again screaming and kicking "So many interesting books! Just half an hour more!" we still had some time to walk in the old part of the town. We saw narrow medieval alleys paved with cobble stones, and lots of churches and very inviting bakeries and sweetshops..  The old town consisted in the medieval style of upper town and downtown.  The elite lived in the upper town, and there was also its administrative center, department of justice etc. The common people, craftsmen and labourers lived in the downtown, and the two parts of the town were rather hostile towards each other, and no wonder too - the elite consisted of invaders - first Danes and then Germans, and the common people didn´t trust them and wise versa. There was a big, guarded gate between the two parts of town..  We climbed on the upper town hill slope to see the walls and towers the elite built around it to guard themselves against the people. There were many bloody rebellions and uprisings throughout the medieval period - so there was a good reason.  But now it was a peaceful place. The sun shone upon us, and the hillside grew many wild flowers, the butterflies were flying around us, and a bunch of local drunkards were singing in a very entertaining way some distance away. A beautiful summer day!  In middle of all this peace and beauty, we talked about weird things - why is the history of people so full of  fighting and invading?  Well, of course we toyvoyagers fight all the time with each other, and invade the beds and swings and sandwiches and whatnot of each other - but to be serious with it and really hurt each other?  That would never do! Our fights always end in five minutes and we settle it all and be best friends again - after all - we are all toyvoagers! maybe humans will learn this some day too! The sympatethic red bridge runs over what once was a moat. I don´t think they ever had crocodiles in it! They would not thrive in Estonian climate.  Nowadays the area is a popular park. The moats have been turned into pools in which ducks swim around and people are feeding them. Sadly we had to start to walk back towards the harbour and our ship which was waiting for us. But on the way there we saw still many beautiful old buildings. The yellow building on the left is an old school.  I liked Tallinn, or the little part we had time to see, at least!  Maybe we come here still another time, never know, if Henna wants to buy another book!  We returned onto the Viking Express and climbed onto the deck to wave our goodbyes to Tallinn. So long, Tallinn! Maybe we meet again!  And we, my dear readers, will meet again pretty soon! Your Momo
Eohippus pikkuaasi@gmail.com Posted Jul 11, 2016, 12:24 pm	Hello again, dear and ardent followers, mom and siblings! It is your favorite bovine here again!  We have arrived to the wonderful midsummer, although it seems the Finnish nature imagines it is autumn already. Everything is oddly ahead of time.  Look the glorious lupines on the old pasture next to our cottage! But what comes to the nature having lost its marbles.. well, usually for example the blueberries ripen here in Southern Finland in the end on July, but this year that happened in the end of June. The leaves on the trees start normally to turn yellow in August, and it´s happening already!  Some species of birds, who normally start to get ready for their annual migration in August, are behaving like that now over the fields, and even the spiders, who on normal years start to tuck into our little cottage in September to hibernate there, have started to roam in!  (If you have very good eyesight you can see the spiders roaming towards the cottage here. )  We all wonder if it does mean something. An old man in the neighbour said it means that the coming winter  is going to be very cold and harsh, but on the other hand he has also told us that if there is lots of berries in the rowans and if the frogs jump high in July the next winter is going to be cold and harsh.  So we don´t know what to think. Of course it has its bright side too - we have already started feasting with forest berries - blueberries and the small, wild forest strawberries!  Here we are heading into the forest (I mean, deeper into the forest - we live on the brink of it!) to pick and eat berries. We don´t eat much anything else these days- and it is a bit so and so with the picking too - but we eat a lot!  Nam nam nom nom mums mums slurp!  Aren´t you starting to drool just watching this photo? Our host Henna is picking berries into a big bucket and putting them into freezer in small plastic bags, to be eaten throughout the winter, and that is of course very smart, since she´ll have hungry toyvoyagers round her throughout the year, but we toyvoyagers pick a small bucketful each per day, and on the next morning there is nothing left - we got hungry during the night too!  Here we are ready to head back home with our full buckets and full stomachs!  In the long, luminous summer evenings we´ve gone for long walks onto the beautiful forests or meadows near by.  Try to guess what is the time in this photo! Huh?  It was taken at 23. 51! The sun  doesn´t set very low on these latitudes. This time we were walking on a seashore meadow, where there are young bulls eating fresh hey!  "Moo!" I shouted, and they stopped chewing, their jaws dropped and they stared at me. "Ammoo!" they answered, "come here, sweet maiden, and we give the best hey to youuuu!"  I just sent them a blow kiss, which made them to go go crazy and run around mooooooooing. These boardwalks continue some kilometers on the wetlands, and our host Henna told us that when she went to high school, this was her route to school.  Now we must hurry to pick more berries! I wish you were here with us! Kiss from Momo!

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