Travelog for: Peculiar

Hello there!

I just heard there's a rest of the world and now I want to see it. Right now I really wonder when and where I go first.

Yay!

I'm on my way! So excited!

Hello Mum!

Yesterday I arrived Finland! My host is Nonnariina. We went out and now I have some photos for you. It has snowed, (at least, Nonnariina said) and whole scenery was beautiful and white.
And we made a snowman! And I wrote message to snow for you.

Yesterday was also Finland´s Independence day and at in the evening we watched tv and saw how the president of Finland Tarja Halonen shaked hands with nearly 2000 guests at the castle of president (in the capital of Finland, Helsinki). The event is called Linnan juhlat (Party of castle) and it´s shown every year at tv.

Today I have relaxed at Nonnariina´s home (Nonnariina was at school). I have read some Donald Duck comics and just relaxed.

I hope that you have had a nice day!

Many hugs from Finland!
-Peculiar

Hello!

Here we are again. Nonnariina hadn´t time to upload this because she is very busy at school. Christmas is coming and she have many tests.

Talking about school I visited school last week! I saw clasroom, Finland`s map and some children´s decorations.
Pupils were 9-10 years old and very nice! They were very excited about me and said that I´m cute!  They taked me out at break and I swinged and slided with them. I had great fun!


The sad thing is that snow has smelted allmost everywhere. It´s dark and rainy. But they said at tv that there will be snow before christmas. I and Nonnariina hope so. Expecially Nonnariina loves snow and she will be sad if there is no snow at christmas.

I have also been with Nonnariina in her amteur theatre trainings. There was about 70 children and youth practising play for summer.

So, Christmas is coming and I have some pictures of decorations at Nonnariina´s home.

I hope that you are fine!
Hugs<3
-Peculiar

Hello!

It´s long time since Nonnariina write here and christmas is over, but here we are and I have a lot of things to tell you!

So, Christmas was wonderfull!
I ate well
In the morning we ate rice borrige with cinnamon, it´s trational Finnish christmas food. Porrige was served from a large kettle and there was one almond hidden in porrige. Person who got almond gets a little present or gets chance to wish! Funny, isn´t it?

In the afternoon we had real Finnish Christmas table
In Finnish Christmas table there is
-big Christmas ham with mustard,
-Karelian Stew (trational Finnish food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karjalanpaisti),
-carrot and potato casseroles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casserole)
-potaoes and salad called rosolli, wich inculeds boiled beetroots, carrots, potatoes, apples and pickled cucumber.
As dessert we had cinder breads, choclad and Christmas pies which are filled with plum.

Then we went to Christmas sauna! There people stroked themselves with some freshly-smelling birch twigs!! They called those twigs "vasta" or "vihta". And they really hit themselves with it!! Weird I think, but I tried and it was quite nice! I have picture of me and “vihta” and sauna. And one picture of me and Finnish children book (in the book´s picture there is also sauna and fiction characters stroke with “vihta”).

Oh, I almost forgot! In the morning we also went to Christmas church.
In the evening there was the most exciting and happy thing: Santa Claus came!! Wow! I was so excited And guess what?? I get change to sit in Santa`s knee ! He was really kind! I was little bit scared… Then he shared presents and leaved.

I have also photo of me and other toyvoyagers sitting at present bag!

Hugs to you!
-Peculiar-

Hello!

At 28 th December I travelled to Kauhajoki to meet Nonnariina´s grandparents! Kauhajoki is  a little town in westside of Finland.
We travelled by car and it taked about 3 hours to arrive.

We visited a huge shop called villageshop Keskinen. It lies in place called Tuuri (in English it means Luck). It´s a village with 500 inhabitants.

There are many things that are "the biggest in the world" in the area of villageshop. There is for example a huge horseshoe monument - for good luck, of course.
I have also picture of shop...
In the dark photo there is the yard and house of shop´s owner.

If you want you can read more here:
http://www.tuuri.fi/en/villageshop/today


And guess what we found from the shop´s yard?! A giant red kicksled! Nonnariina lifted me to sit on it and taked a photo

I also saw a nice forest. There was many fallen trees, because there had been many storms in Finlabd during Xmas time.

Yesterday I arrived home.

This is the last upload of year 2011! Next would be at year 2012

Hug!
-Peculiar

Hello again!

Did you have great strat for year 2012? I hope so! I had, I saw many great fireworks and I ate well. And I shared jokes with other toyvoyagers and laughted so much!

Good news! At least we have snow at Finland! So, I have been outside very much. I played at snow with Mr. Carrot and Squabby. We made snowcastle!

Have a great day and hug!
-Peculiar-

I had a very nice birthday!  Mine and Columbus' are just a day apart- isn't that interesting?  crashtestrider made us each a card and a hat for the celebration.  The real treat was a cupcake from The Sweet Tooth Fairy bakery.  Their cupcakes won an award on a television show called Cupcake Wars.  It was soooooo rich and yummy, I could hardly finish it!

Hello!!

Nonnariina hadn´t write there for long time, but here we are And I have something exciting to share with you!

First of all now we have snow, a lot of.. And people are getiing bored! I just like snow and I cant understant how people first wonder of having snow so hard and when they have they get bored of it! But I still have to say that this is more! When I was walking with Nonnariina (I travelled at Nonnariina´s hand, because I didn`t want to get wet) Nonnariina had sometimes to walk at snow wich was at her knees high!

Last week I visited ski jumping hill at Jyväskylä. Hill is called Hill of Matti Nykänen (Matti Nykänen is famous skiijumper). Anorether toyvoyager was also with us; Squabby. Squabby wanted to see hill and I was also excited so Nonnariina took me also And it was good thing that she did so because scene was amazing. Everywhere was snow, a lot of it, and forest. We also saw a frisbeegolf basket- but in the winter there were no players.

I also have photos from near the Nonnariina`s house; we went to little walking and I saw nice beach and jetty Na I saw a post box, where Nonnariina put´s her letters

I hope you are well!!
-Peculiar

Hello!

How are you? I hope you are fine! I´m really fine, expect now here is very cold... Last night we had -30 decrees cold outside! Wow

Nonnariina had been skiing. Once time I was with her and after skiing we went to have some warm juice at centrum and I saw long bridge. Nonnariina told that it´s called Kuokkala bridge and it´s has been built at 1989. Nonnariina told that at summer she will bicyle over that bridge to her amateur theatre rehearsal.

I have also been little bit ill, because I get cold... But now I am better

Have a great day and take care!
Peculiar

Hello Mom!

Greetings from Finland! How are you? I`m really fine and I have had great time.

Just yesterday arrived new toyvoyager to Nonnariina! He is a fox called Charly6. He is very nice, I think.

Today I get change to do some winter things that people in Finland do. I and Charly made a snowman!  It At afternoon Nonnariina made skis to me and Charly and we went to ski. It was little bit difficult but funny. Nonnariina had made ski track to yard. It was hard to get up hill… And then lose my ski! Charly helped me. And I falled several times. We also slided downhill with skis.

We were tired after skiing so we slept little and then we drank warm chocolate.

So now I have a lot of pictures to you!

Have a great day!

-Peculiar-

I made it!  I have arrived in the USA!  Boy, that was a long trip.  crashtestrider was so glad to see me- she said it really made her day.  We posed for a few photos this evening after she welcomed me, and I got to meet fellow TV Huli, who has been living here, preparing for his adventures out in the world.  I told him a little about my fun travels and the great people and places I saw in Finland.  I hope my time in Utah will be just as wonderful!  crashtestrider made sure I was comfy in her purse and told me that it was the best place to be if I want to be sure to go everywhere.  Well, it's late, so I'd better get back there and settle down for the night!

Yay!  I finally get to see Utah!  Today we visited Brigham Young University, or BYU.  It is one of the largest private universities in the United States, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or "Mormons".  There are alot of Mormons in Utah!  crashtestrider found out on Facebook that the school was giving away bricks from the old dormitories where she used to live as a student, and she wanted to keep one to remember it, since it was recently torn down.  It was the perfect reason to take me to visit, she said! 

Our first stop was the Hinckley Alumni Building. 



Can you see those beautiful mountains?  crashtestrider said that the snow will stay on the tops until at least August.  As the snow melts, it provides much-needed water in this desert area.  Inside the building was a visitor's center that was pretty interesting to see. 



Here I had my photo taken with an actual Olympic torch from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which is just 45 mins to the north. 



I also had my photo taken in front of this gigantic photo of the BYU campus at nighttime.  Do you see the two structures that are lit up?  One is a Mormon temple, but the other is the carillon, otherwise known as the bell tower.  That is where we went next! 



On the way back to the car, I posed for a photo in front of the Tanner Building.  This building is so square that the students joke that it is "the box that the temple came in". 



Here we are, at the bell tower.  We arrived right before 3pm, when the bells rung, and they were SO loud!! 



While we were up there, I also had my photo taken in front of "Y Mountain".  Can you see the "Y" that stands for BYU?  It is tradition for students to hike up the side of the mountain to visit this giant concrete marking.  crashtestrider says that it is common for towns or high schools in Utah and Idaho to make letters like this to mark where they are.  She says you can even see them from an airplane! 

It was a busy morning.  There were many visitors on this day, and parking was crowded, so crashtestrider said we would come back to look at the football stadium another day.

Today crashtestrider's husband had to work, so we and her children decided to leave the house and find something to do in this beautiful weather.  The tulips were in bloom at Nielsen's Grove Park, and so we went there for a photo shoot! 



Here I am in front of some of them.  Aren't they beautiful? I pointed out (politely) that while I was in focus, the background wasn't, and crashtestrider admitted that she needed to work on that.  We weren't the only ones who were there to have our photos taken.  There was a couple who were about to have a baby, a couple who were wearing a fancy dress and a tuxedo, and a girl who looked like a princess!  We thought maybe she was celebrating her quinceanera- her 15th birthday.  I hear that in Latin American cultures, this is a big milestone.  I hope this good weather keeps up so we can have more fun springtime adventures!

Today we went geocaching!  Well, almost.  We went on the search for a geocache (a hidden treasure found by using GPS coordinates) called "The Pirates of Utah Lake".  Sounds exciting, doesn't it? We found the area where the first clue was hidden, but crashtestrider discovered that she would need boots to reach it because it was way back in the trees and brush!  She says that's the way it goes with geocaching: sometimes you've got to come back and try again.  But the great part about it was the trip!  Even crashtestrider had not been to this area before. 




Look at the nice mountain lake.  It has a running/biking trail beside it. 



We also saw a farm that grows only grass!  It is called a sod farm, and when the grass is grown, it is scraped off the ground and taken to people's houses and put on their lawns.  Can you see the piles of sod behind me?



I also made sure to get my photo taken with these strange pipes and wheels.  Can you guess what they are for?  Since Utah does not get much rain, all their fields must be irrigated.  The pipes that carry the water are suspended off the ground on the wheels and pushed by a huge motor across the field each day to water the crops.  Pretty neat, huh?