Travelog for: Smokey

Mom wanted me to visit her work before I went to my first host. Today I helped her do taxes at H&R Block! She had alot of clients today, and we were really busy.  This is me with the piggy bank mom has on her desk.

Mom let me sit in her client's chair while when we weren't busy.

Mom let me help her on the computer, I used the mouse to input information.

Mom let me take a break from the taxes and I sat on the computer and just watched her work.

Muuuuum,
I finally made it!! After ten days of travelling I reached my first destination, Fürstenau in Germany! I'm so happy that I'm out of the envelope now! It almost broke, have a look.





I can't understand this! I mean I was well-packed in a padded envelope... What else should you do to save me??
And this kind of transportation is even called "First Class". Haha.




The red craftsman you can see is Willy W.. He is a TV as well and has already seen sooo much of the world! Willy promised to tell me more later on. First he unpacked me and then we had a look at all the things I brought with me. I think Aileen liked it .







This is the entrance to my room! ÄÄÄHM Aileen's room.....



Then we went outside, grocery shopping!
There are a few shops close by.







And there's also a pack station of my current travel-agency!



I hope everything is fine back home! You'll hear again from me soon!

PS.: I actually completed a mission because I traveled by plane! There was a sticker from the costums duty on the envelope, stuck on it at the airport in Frankfurt! It just said that nobody needed to pay anything. Anyway, it's a kind of prove that I traveled here by plane! But nevertheless I'd like to sit in a real passenger plane and look out of a window... so I don't mark it as completed.

Hi Mum!
I'm sooo excited!! When I travelled here I was scared that I'd always stay as lonely as in the envelope on the whole journey. But it's so cool here! I already found friends and today we visited Fürstenau, the town where I'm currently staying.

Today we had really good wheather. The sky was blue but Aileen said it was cold outside. Due to my great, shiny fur I didn't feel it.





I climbed on a metal chimney-sweeper and on a tree.





At first we went to the next postbox because Aileen had two postcrossing-postcards ready to send.





As it was so nice outside we walked to the castle with its surrounding pond.











Then we went inside because Aileen though that she could find a brochure for you there (we did!). But the brochure was really boring compared to the CANON! Yes, a real, old canon!
They have a new kind of munitions called "bear" or "Smokey" (well, smoke fits actually quite well).



They also have a building that's originally built to protect the castle. They could also shoot out of it. Aileen said it's called "bastion". They have more bastions in Fürstenau but this is the only one thats completed re-built.



Then we had a look at some old half-timbered buildings.



Finally we went back home. I wasn't used to walk so much so I was allowed to sit in Aileen's hand-bag and look out of it.
Now it's time to go to bed.
Good night, mum!

Hi Mum!

It's going to be spring soon! We found the first colourful flowers outside!




There were also some white flowers around but I definately prefer those yellow ones because the white one remind me too much of snow (I've had enough of it for now). Aileen said it snowed in the morning some days ago whilst I was asleep. Unbelievable. But the gooses are coming home! Aileen said that would mean that the spring will be there soon!


And we drove to the next big town called Osnabrück. Willy W. has already been there before and told me quite a lot of it. But Aileen needed to buy clothes for a special reason and so we didn't take any pictures in town.











We passed the university of applied science where Aileen could study (but she's not going to do so because she said she had another favourite).









But finally we drove to IKEA.







In the entrance door we found a lot of stuffed toys behind glass! We wanted to release them, but there was no chance. And the toys told us that they got enough food and could play inside the IKEA all night, so the probably don't even want to be released.



Maybe they just lied because they didn't want to be released but to sleep. I'd also love to sleep all day long (I'm a bear and the winter is not over yet!!). But every morning Aileen wakes me up again... aaaah. But finally I'm glad to be awake and to have fun around the house. Now I really need to go to bed - as you know Aileen will wake me up again tomorrow!

Hi Mum!
I'm sorry that I didn't update my travellog for a few days, I've just been to busy while playing with Willy W. and Gustav! YES, Gustav is here! They told me not to tell you before now .
I heard that Ellie Muh arrived safely and I saw your pictures! So now it's your turn to have a look at mine!

We did a lot of funny things together.
While Aileen wasn't looking we made funny copies of ourselves. 



Then we drove into town with Aileen.



And we decorated the package Aileen prepared for a friend's birthday.



It looks quite funny now, doesn't it? We just used all colour we found...



Then we went into town and had an ice-cream! Yummie!! And we were allowed to choose by ourselves.





We chose one that's called "Spaghetti-Eis", the one that looks like pasta with tomato-sauce!



In the evening we're always playing together.
Sometimes we just hang out on Aileens bed and build funny pyramides or play hide and seek.









Guess what?! I'm the only one who can carry them all! The other TV's are just not strong enough...



In the evening we watched a family TV-show (television, not ToyVoyagers ) called "Die perfekte Minute" ("the perfect minute"). But instead of just sitting and watching we tried some of the games they played on out own. It wasn't as easy as it seemed to be (although Aileen managed some of them).

In this game you had to throw the glass with the ruler and catch it again, BUT you needed to catch it the other way round, that it to say the top needed to be in the bottom.





Here you needed to blow all cards down except for the one in the bottom. It was really difficult because the card just didn't want to stay on the bottle! OR all cards stayed on the bottle...



I got to go now!
Bye!

Hi Mum,

I think I want to become a baker when I'm grown up. Okay?
At least I know how to bake olive-bread now.

We cut the olives into smaller pieces...



cut an onion and braised it... (although we finally didn't need all of it)



and then mixed it with flour and some other ingredients.



Finally it needed to be in the oven for a while.


(...quite a long while...)

And then it was ready to eat!

Hi Mum,
today I have been in school! Aileen's mother works there and took me with her! Isn't that nice?
But I have to say that the children looked really strange! They all lookes like pricesses, police-men, pirates, animals, comic figures... I couldn't understand it at first! Later they explained to me that the children here would look very normal and they were just dressed up that way because of carnival!
I've never heard about that... So they organised a party for us TV's!







Here are some pictures of the party! We all had different costumes. I had the biggest; you could see almost no fur after they were finished!



Can you guess what I am?
Yes?
No?
Right! A mummy!





Gustav and Willy W also had costumes. Gustav was a flower and Willy was a lion... you could really get scared of him!!!



throwing confetti!!

Hi Mum!
Today the wheather was quite bad outside. It's all grey, rainy and windy...





We said that we didn't want to go outside. Gustav is the only one who has a real pullover. Okay, and I have fur. But still it's blowing quite a lot around my neck...

But then Gustav said that he had a surprise for us!



He had two presents, one for me and one for Willy W.. First he gave me mine! I was soo excited to look inside!



Then it was Willy's turn and now we were both excited! So we started to have a look inside.









A scarf!! Now I don't need to be afraid of getting a cold!



Thank you, Gustav!



Willy got a pullover and he really needs that! Although winter's almost over he freezes a lot...

Hi Mum!

I experienced quite a lot recently. And I know that life's not always as shiny as it looks like at first...



We followed the news about Japan all the time, especially on the first day Aileen couldn't get us away from the TV.
But she actually also sat a lot in front of the TV that day...















We found out that there are also problems with the nuclear power stations, especially Fukushima.
We didn't know that something like that even exists. So Aileen showed us that there is one close to us as well.
We could only see the smoke because its about 20-30km away. But that's not far for atomatic catastophes.
You can see the smoke right next to the shadow of the tree.



We also had a look at the destroyed building I showed you in one of the last updates. It's away now! Aileen said the building beside of it is away as well now. I think I need to have a look .







Then we baked a cake. Okay two cakes. But one for the three of us!

On this picture I look like I'd wanted to eat it before baking! But NOOOO, I didn't (I just wanted to try...).



Isn't the bear-shape great?



It's actually a cake with chocolate-pieces



Then we needed to wait...



...and wait...



...and wait...



It gets bigger!!! Yeah!



And finally it was finished! Gustav was sooo hunry that he couldn't wait for chocolate-icing.



So we cut it into pieces.





Yummie, it tasted so well!

Hope you're doing well!

Hi there!

It's spring! The sun is shining, the flowers come out of earth and we're just having fun!
We found a great small programm to reduce images today so it's much easier now to write updates... Before we needed to reduce every single image and to type in the number of pixels for each picture. That was actually most work of the whole update!

Here we spend some time outside in front of the house.



Because it was boring just to sit there we started playing hide and seek. I was the first one to hide.









Then it was Willy W.s turn.





At first we couldn't find him. But finally we did!







So it was Gustav's turn.



We tried hard to find him...



HA! There he is!

Hi,

we've been outside again!
And here's the prove for spring :













Then we had some postcards to send again.





News from the buildings that people are tearing down currently.

Hi Mum!

Here I am with some new pictures!

The wheather is great here!



We saw a butterfly (sitting next to me):



And the plants are starting to flower!






Here you can see wood that's going to be a roof soon.






That's the way it looks like on a truck.



We took another walk around Fürstenau and this time we saw the old prison. But it's not used anymore.
It's the building behind the trees on the right hand side.



Only a very few days left here! Then we'll travel to Borkum!