Travelog for: Orkku Orava

In Hamburg we visited the Panoptikum - a museum with wax figures of famous people.
See who I met!









They also show how the figures are made.



And this little fellow lives there, too!




After the museum we went down to the harbour area of Hamburg.





These are the old store houses, that are now used for museums and companies with their offices.

Another town we visited was Kiel.

We went to the harbour area.







Then we visited a bunker from World War II.





And we watched ships passing by on the canal between Baltic and North Sea.





We also went to  the beach in Schilksee, the part of Kiel where in 1972 the Olympic Games for sailing took place.





The day we visited it was very rainy and we did not jump into the water 

We also took some time to poke around in an anitiques shop.

We saw the musical 'Sister Act' !! A great experience.

Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures during the performance so this is during the break.

On our way back home we took a rest in Bispingen and visited the Snow Dome. There you can go skiing all year round and it was freezing inside while outside we had about 25 degrees and others took their time waterboarding!






There is also a crazy house nearby - it is built upside down!












Right turn of the picture:





Wrong turn of the picture:



That was sooo funny!

Hello mommy!
I am on my way to the next host!
Will get in touch when I have arrived!

Last week we took a stroll through the village where I am staying right now.

Here is the welcome sign:



The house where I live:



And the street in front:





The village hall:



The little village shop:



The church:



There is also a small river:

Hi mom and everyone,

I've arrived okay in California. My new host, Jeanne, is getting mellow and calm with the nice enclosures that ILoveLetters sent.  . She says thanks! . Thanks for the good times in Germany and for sending me in a comfie compartment, ILoveLetters.  Will post some photos soon,

Orkku

Hi there,

When I came out of my flying envelope, the resident squirrel said hello to me.  Isn't he handsome!  Then the little resident TV host, Jeremy, greeted me with his squeaky little kitten voice, ha ha, he is so funny.  I met visiting ToyVoyagers:  Robby, Airi, and Quentin Ducky, and we shared a bowl of pecans, yum.

Jeanne said that if I really absorb the atmosphere here, I could feel the aura or essence of UrselHH, my dear ToyVoyager friend.   She visited San Francisco last Spring just after our camping trip in Finland.  I hope to meet up with her again.  I have a good sniffer, ah, there it is, Ursel's spirit.  Nice.  We will follow her travelog.

Halloween is observed here so my host put me to bed under a special blanket; hope I don't have nightmares.  Don't worry, I'm too jet-lagged and sleepy for that.  Um, UrselHH found a boyfriend here, maybe I will too.   Good night from \"The cool, grey city of love.\"

Your Orkku Orava

Hi, I’m having so much fun touring the sites and getting to know the other TVs. UrselHH’s mentor has a contest for a cruise and guess what, we saw a cruise ship (see first and second photos)!  That ship is so big we got only half of it in the photos.  Someone told us it is actually small as cruise ships go, designed so it can go through the Panama Canal.  We walked along the piers and followed Salty to see the sea lions.  That’s Alcatraz and Angel Island in the last photo. 

Jeanne promised that soon we will take a walk to see some typical trees so I can go climbing. 

See ya,

Orkku Orava

I went out tree climbing and site seeing with Airi.  She is a lot of fun even though she climbed only one tree.  I’m showing you one of several kinds of bus shelters because buses (and other moving vehicles) are on my life mission list.  Next time we will try to remember to include the buses.   The city transit system is called MUNI, short for Municipal Railway.  We saw lots of trees both on the way to the art museum and inside. 

When we got home we said goodbye to Jeremy.  We will miss him a lot and are glad he is so happy to be going to a Halloween event at Disneyland!    He is a true ToyVoyager now!

Bye, Mom, I’m okay,

Your Orkku Orava

We got out of the city on a MUNI bus which goes from my host’s neighborhood, over the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County, to Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands which is within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  This time we remembered to take photos of and on the bus!  When San Francisco bus drivers get out of city traffic, they like to drive fast and the roads in that area wind around a lot so there I am in the last photo, tipping over.  It was a nice scenic place and there was time for bonding with the other TVs.  Very economical, too, as the bus driver gave us transfers that had enough time on them for the return trip, as well.  $2.00 total.  It is also a good line to take if you want to stop at either end of the Golden Gate Bridge and walk (or bike) across the bridge or walk into Sausalito.

Yes, mom that was the Golden Gate Bridge in my last update.  One of the trees shown is eucalyptus (ninth photo in the last update) which is not native here; it is invasive and therefore controversial but I love the smell of it!

Lots of hugs from,

Your Orkku Orava

Today I took Robby and Airi into the ToyVoyager classroom for "Show and Tell".  
A postcard arrived from my Mom.  Wahoo!!  Look, it has a pretty round dahlia stamp.  
Airi was very interested and jumped up on Robby's back to get a closer look.
Her Mom's name is Dahlia, small world, huh. .  
Then we looked at the picture side of the card. Those are birches,
Finland's, that is Suomi's, national tree.  Trees are my passion!

It is a beautiful postcard visit, Mom, we all love it and I miss you!

Bye now,

Orkku Orava

Airi and I joined in Robby’s passion for snail mail by attending a Postcrossing Meetup.  Robby showed us how to prepare postcards for the meetup.  It was a lunch at an Italian restaurant where everyone signed all the cards; it took a long time, two of the Postcrossers had more than forty cards each!  There was a lady at our table who likes squirrel images, she could tell I’m Finnish by my furry ears!  (Tufty?)  I was so proud. 

We were very happy that Miss Kate drove in from Sacramento with three TVs:  Aslan, Dottie Mouse and Tuli.  They were so much fun.  It was the first time I met Tuli, she wasn’t even a tadpole last time I was home; we reminisced and laughed a lot. So we say we also went to a ToyVoyager Meetup. 
I hope to meet these TVs again at home around the campfire, wouldn’t that be fun, Mom.

Today, I’m out climbing trees again.

Bye for Now,

Orkku Orava

Hi mom, have a nice trip, we are following your adventures. 

Jeanne took Airi, Robby, and me for a walk through Fort Mason.  Aquatic Pier is behind us where we saw people swimming today.  There is a polar bear club nearby; their challenge is to go swimming on New Year’s Day every year when the water is very cold.  Burr.  The park has many many trees, yipee; and a community garden, museums, theaters, cafes, a great veggie restaurant with a view of the water, the Friends of the Library book resale shop where we donated some CDs and had a veggie lunch, festival spaces where they have jewelry, orchid and other special events, etc.  We might go to a play there in November and explore the outdoors some more.

Fort Mason is one of many San Francisco parks built on sand dunes.  The gardeners have placed woven ropes to help control erosion and hold the plants in place.  These last two photos were taken in the upper section of Fort Mason near the Philip Burton statue shown in Airi’s travelog today.

http://museumca.org/creeks/1690-RescDunes.html    Fort Mason is on the right edge of the Marina section on the water.  This map is very useful because if you want to visit San Francisco, you might consider staying on bedrock rather than sand or, worse, landfill which is found on the Marina shoreline and did very poorly in the 1989 earthquake.  I was very relieved to see that my host lives on bedrock.

http://www.parksconservancy.org/visit/park-sites/fort-mason.html

Having a wonderful time, hugs from

Orkku Orava