Weasley, travelling home, to Melissa

MissMelissa Posted Jan 25, 2008, 5:06 pm	I woke up this morning and was shocked to find yet another little alien hanging out at my house. Don't look now, Davey, but there's one right behind you! This little alien introduced himselfAuggie'scousin, Weasley. Apparently, Harry Potter fever has struck his home planet as Netflix has finally started shipping there. This struck me as a little odd, but believable. After reading the entire dictionary in 22 minutes, he told me he was ready to set out on his journey in excellent English. He is to live with Zachary, 13,  after gaining all the worldly knowledge that he could. Then he said he was sleepy and was going to nap in the Regeneration Pod. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a colander. ON MY WAY TO MICHIGAN! Here is my travel itinerary so far: masucci- Michigan (ARRIVED, LEFT, HAD A GREAT TIME!) Yumi-Japan(WILL BE VISITING LATER) Moshua-India (ARRIVED!) Annbear-Switzerland
masucci Posted Feb 5, 2008, 9:07 pm	Hi Mom! I made it to the USA today - my new host Melissa was very excited to greet me. It's very cold here, Melissa says the temperatures have been in the single digits or below zero degrees Fahrenheit for over a week now.  It sure looks pretty outside, but boy is it deceiving: This is the church in the parking lot next to her apartment building. I was greeted by a lot of furry friends at Melissa's apartment.  I got to meet Stitch!  He's Melissa's buddy, and guards the TV and DVD player in the living room: It was so cool to meet another alien! And I met Little Teddy, and Sully Monster, who both arrived last week.  They were scared of me at first, since I'm alien.  But now we're fine.  We're going get along great! Look!  They have a Weasley-size Christmas tree!
masucci Posted Feb 5, 2008, 9:11 pm	There is this small little tea room in Houghton (Hancock's "sister town") that Melissa goes to at least once a week and writes postcards and letters.  Everyone there knows her, knows what she orders, and they're all very nice. You can order an endless pot of tea, soup and sandwiches, cookies, and cake.  There are also lots of older/silly hats to wear while you're there.  Look at us! Peekaboo! We had a lot of fun and it was nice to have something warm to drink to get rid of the chills.  The weather has been -way- below zero for several days now.  Brr!
masucci Posted Feb 5, 2008, 9:12 pm	Just a small update to show you the town Melissa lives in. It's a small, homey little town, and there's lots of snow.  There has been snowfall of over 170 inches since the beginning of the winter. This is the Portage Lake Lift Bridge.  It's pretty famous - there aren't too many bridges that open the way this one does.  It gets featured on a lot of videos about bridge designing.  Melissa says we'll get a better photo of it later this week.
masucci Posted Feb 11, 2008, 6:18 pm	We got another new visitor today!  Just in time to go see the snow statues this afternoon. That's Little Teddy, me, Sully Monster, and our new friend Winnie the Pooh! We're all getting ready to go look at the big ice and snow statues.  The deadline to be done was this morning at 8am, so we're all excited!
masucci Posted Feb 11, 2008, 7:44 pm	Wow! The snow statues we went to go see are part of the larger celebration at Michigan Technological University called "Winter Carnival".  This is the history about it, from the Winter Carnival website: Michigan Tech often registers more than 200 inches of snow in a season. Not content to let this abundant natural resource go to waste, students band together in an annual celebration of our beautiful, tough, exhilarating, and character-building climate. Winter Carnival began in 1922, with a one-day Ice Carnival. It was so popular that students made it an annual event, and Winter Carnival as we know it began to take shape. It was suspended in 1930, in the aftermath of the stock market crash, but in 1934, Blue Key Honor Fraternity resurrected the event. Then, 1936 brought the biggest change, one that would become Carnival's best known tradition: snow statues. Since then, the statues have become famous for their size, detail, and design as building methods (and secrets) have been passed from year to year. During World War II, Winter Carnival was again suspended. It took off again in 1946, when the Stage Revue was added, with fraternities, sororities, and other campus organizations presenting skits for the enjoyment of the crowd and the performers alike. Winter Carnival events start at the beginning of the Spring term, with the construction of the month-long statues (the bigger ones I'll show you in a minute!).  Then two or three weeks before the actual event, there are a lot of competitions, like broomball, skiing, human dogsled races, snowboarding, etc.  Then there's a big ta-da at the end on a Wednesday night.  On that night a lot of other groups get together and while the people making month-long statues are finishing theirs, they make one-nighter statues that are a lot smaller.  There is activity on campus all night until the wee hours of the morning, and the deadline to be finished is 8am on Thursday.  Then Thursday morning everyone walks around the area taking photos of them all before they melt/fall apart.  All the minute details usually don't last more than a couple days (it warms up and melts, or it'll snow more on top of them, etc.) but the big structures will be up most of the rest of the winter until they melt. There are so many people around that it was too hard to get a photo with me in it, but I hope you like them anyway!  They look  so awesome in person, the detail on some of them is amazing. First the big month-long ones: King Kong fighting a monster! Oh yeah, the theme was Frightful Creatures with Chilling Features... The Abominable Snowman! The Ghostbusters fighting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! More coming in the next post!
masucci Posted Feb 11, 2008, 8:04 pm	Melissa really liked this one.  It's a bunch of different monsters wreaking havoc on models of all the campus buildings.  Like there's Godzilla in something called the "Chem Sci". One of the Sororities made a monster out of a can of Monster energy drink!  The gay pride group paid homage to Sully Monster! This is the monster from "Tremors".  The description says something about not eating Kevin Bacon - lol! This is of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster.  This was the winner in the "Women's Groups/Sororities" category. More coming soon!
masucci Posted Feb 11, 2008, 8:31 pm	This is the Kracken destroying a ship like in Pirates of the Caribbean! T-Rex from Jurassic Park This is one of Melissa's favorites.  It's of demons haunting a child's bedroom.  Look in the last photo at the ice rocking horse!  Wow! Godzilla! From the children's book "Where the Wild Things Are" This one was the winner in the "Men's Groups/Fraternities" category.  It's of Van Helsing killing vampires.  It's so amazingly detailed that even all the photos Melissa took can't even begin to show it all. That's all of the month-long ones.  We'll post later about the one-nighters.  It's dinner time now!
masucci Posted Feb 11, 2008, 11:11 pm	Come to find out, Melissa just realized she didn't take many photos of the one-night statues.  They're not as nice as the month-long ones, as a whole, as you can imagine.  But here are a few of the ones we liked: Trogdor from Homestarrunner.com Melissa squealed when she saw this and her mom, who was with us, looked at her like she was nuts.  She doesn't get the reference. They won first place in their group (on-campus residents). The Grim Reaper, made by a group of Lutheran students.  Ironic? A smaller version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Beowulf This is a monster rock band, made by a music fraternity that Melissa is a member of.  They won first place in their group (campus organizations). This is a couple teams playing broomball, so you can see what that's like.  It's a BIG deal here, almost a third of the student body participates. That's all for now!  We're going to go see some of the town tonight and tomorrow.  More history lessons before I leave the area!
masucci Posted Feb 16, 2008, 1:40 am	Happy Valentine's Day, mommy! I hope you had a wonderful day back home! Miss you, Weasley PS.  We're going camping!  Photos coming soon!
masucci Posted Feb 21, 2008, 2:08 pm	The town of Hancock, MI has a very strong Finnish Heritage.  We found a little information about it on Hancock's website, if you would like to see it, here: http://www.cityofhancock.com/cityinfo.html Hancock has an official "sister city" relationship with a town in Finland, called Porvoo.  Melissa doesn't know much about it, and had a hard time finding much information (beyond the fact that the relationship exists). There's a small park on the waterfront called "Porvoo Park" in honor of this sister city relationship.  It overlooks the city of Houghton, across the Portage Canal, and gives a good place to take a photo of the Portage Lake Lift Bridge. You can't see much due to the snow, but in the summer there's a boardwalk along the water, lots of picnic tables, and there's a set of condos to the right. To the left is the bridge: This is a pretty unique bridge.  It opens to let water traffic through by lifting up the middle part.  There are lots of videos about bridges that talk about this unique design.  Melissa said she watched one while she was in high school and the people pronounced the name "Houghton" wrong, for Houghton, MI.  There's a little information about it, if you're interested, here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_Lake_Lift_Bridge Melissa loves giving us these "history lessons" about the area.  More coming soon.  Hope you like it!
masucci Posted Feb 26, 2008, 11:56 am	This is a kind of funny place that we went to. In a nearby town (Mohawk, MI) there is a giant 'snow thermometer' on the side of the highway!  It's huge! It 'measures' the current and previous year's snowfalls against the record snowfall for this area.  I'll show you... Here I am being held up against it, because the snow banks on the side of the road were too deep to get much closer.  Melissa hoped she could put me next to it so you could see how big it is.  Let's just say when it says "390.4 inches", it means it! Here are a few close-ups of the wording on it: Last year's snowfall for the whole season - something like October to April - was "barely above average" according to Melissa. This year so far they've already had more snow than they did all of last year.  There has been about 11" more snowfall so far (and a big storm a-brewing, says Melissa).  It's been a very cold and snowy year.  Makes for  a long and depressing winter - but we're sure enjoying it while we're here! There is currently about 3 feet of snow on the ground at any given point.  The snow banks are HUGE in comparison to us little ToyVoyagers.  Melissa keeps us safe from any avalanches, though!
masucci Posted Feb 28, 2008, 1:04 pm	We went camping! Well, since it's so cold outside (it's still be pretty consistently below 0 degrees F everyday) we went camping indoors.  But we still had a lot of fun. Peekaboo!  Look at our tent, perfect size for us TVs! Here are all of us posing outside.  There was also another tent that we could put a picnic table under to have lunch.  Unfortunately, Melissa couldn't find a TV-sized picnic table.  That's okay though, we sat underneath the tent and ate lunch and enjoyed ourselves anyway. I call this shot "Happy Campers"! Yay!  It was so fun.  We (me, Little Teddy, Sully Monster and Winnie the Pooh) sat in the little tent and told ghost stories after Melissa turned out the lights, and none of us got much sleep.  We had some good bonding time, though, and I wish you'd been here! Miss you!
masucci Posted Feb 29, 2008, 7:55 pm	Today is Sully Monster's last day with Melissa.  He is going to another part of Michigan to visit a new host. We visited Melissa's mom today, who has a new St. Bernard Puppy, named "Moose". Don't worry, he snuffed us a little bit to make sure we weren't dangerous and then Melissa made sure we were safe.  He sure is big, and he's just a puppy! We all had a little pow-wow and said our goodbyes.  I'm going to miss my friend, but I'm excited that he gets to see more of the world. A couple final group shots.  *tear* And off he goes.  He's going to have a blast.  Melissa was his very first host.
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 5:21 pm	Yesterday Sully Monster left us and today we got a new visitor, [url]= h t t p : / / w w w . t o y v o y a g e r s . c o m / i n d e x . p h p ? a = t o p i c & t = 1 0 1 6 0 0 & s u b m i t = G o ] A r c h i b a l d[/url]. Today we made Broccoli-Cheese soup with Melissa.  Usually she makes everything from scratch but today we just made it from a "kit" because she's been so busy she doesn't have a lot of time. But we tweaked the kit to make it taste really awesome so it's okay. Melissa says not to worry, that none of us got close enough to the heat to get burned or anything.  It was yummy, and a great way to meet our new friend!
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 5:26 pm	Today we were in Marquette for the day with Melissa.  This is about a 2-hour drive from Hancock. She says we will probably be here again sometime before we all leave her. Today we saw the Children's Museum.  Melissa wasn't sure if she could take pictures while inside, so all we have is me outside.  It was a lot of fun, though!  All the kids loved us!
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 5:35 pm	Today is Melissa's 25th birthday.  She has to work tonight, so there's no big party or anything going on. Melissa works midnight shift at the local Wal*Mart retail store, so a lot of the time we are awake at night with her and sleep during the day. We thought we would make a few photo posts showing you some landmarks of her town the way we normally see them - at night. This restaurant is called the Library and they make their own variety of beers.  The college students love the place.  The joke is that you could tell your parents you're going to the "library" and they think you're going to study... This is the Dee Statium.  This was built on the site of the Amphidrome, which burned down in 1927.  The hockey team at Melissa's university used to play here before they got their new stadium closer to campus.  The lower level is an ice rink, and the upper level is a skate park (for skateboarders, trick bike riders, etc.).
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 5:51 pm	More sites continuing from last night's "night tour"... today is a tour around the campus. This is the administration building.  There are offices in here for the Dean, Admissions, Financial Aide, the President and Board of Control and other important people. Here we are on the west end of campus looking east.  To the left is the Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics building.  It's the tallest building on campus.  Not just on campus, but the tallest building in the county!  On the right, the lights that you can see in the windows are from the Library, which is open 24 hours a day for people who need to get away to study or something. The white and brown building in the background is the ROTC building, which houses the Army and Air Force ROTC programs.  In front of it, the monument-looking thing and the lit-up American flag, is a memorial that the University built after the events of September 11, 2001.  Every year they do speeches and things from that site. Here we are on the east end of campus looking west.  The only other part of campus that is more east than this is the Fine Arts building, which is quite a way behind Melissa at this point and hard to get a photo of in the dark (the building is black).  On the right, with the lights on, is the Civil Engineering building.  On the left (hard to see) is the Math/Computer Sciences building.  Way behind in the background is our friend the Mechanical Engineering building (the biggest one). This little house is the home of MTU's Counseling Services, where the mental health people are.  Like if a student wants to talk to a counselor.  The funny thing about this building is that it is surrounded by two parking lots.  The other buildings on campus have sidewalks and such all around them, except for this one.  It's like the university expanded around it.  The VIPs keep threatening to tear it down (for more parking space) and moving the counselors to s different building and everyone protests. Finally, this is one of the dormitories, called "Wadsworth Hall".  This is actually a photo of about HALF of the building.  The whole thing is about a quarter of a mile long from one end to the other.  It houses more than half of the on-campus students.  The hallways inside are "riot-proof", which means instead of just going straight, there are lots of zig-zags and turns.  Melissa explained that the building was built around the 1960's and 70's, when hippie "protestors" were pretty popular and this discouraged protestors from "sit-ins". Hope you liked our little night tour!
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 6:03 pm	Today we went to a small historic town called Calumet.  Melissa explained that a long time ago, when this whole area used to be largely populated because of the copper mining industry, Calumet was once the capitol city of Michigan. Since then the copper mines have closed, the population has dropped, and most of what remains are abandoned ruins, mine tours and a lot of beautiful old buildings.  Melissa says Calumet also maintains a beautiful cobblestone road that is older than most of the buildings in town but because of the snow you can't see it. What we drove to Calumet to see, however, was the theatre... This is the Calumet Theatre.  Here's a little information about it that Melissa found/taught us: Quote: The Calumet Theatre is a theater and opera house which was constructed in 1900. In 1898, the copper mining industry was booming, and the town had an enormous surplus in its treasury. The town council decided to spend some of the surplus on a theater. The theater hosted a large number of famous actors, musicians, and opera singers. [7] With the close of the mines, the theater became a movie theater and fell into general disrepair for many years. In 1975, the town began a large project to repair and restore the theater, which is now used for many local and touring productions. The theatre is a National Historic Landmark. Melissa says her co-ed fraternity hosts an international dinner-and-a-movie night at this theatre once a month for the local community, and a lot of older people go to it.
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 6:30 pm	We are spending the weekend in Marquette again before me, Teddy, and Winnie all leave for our next hosts.  We did a lot of sight-seeing and got a few pictures. This is a shot of the ore dock from a park on one end of town... And here it is from the park/marina in the other side of town.  The ore dock is no longer used but railroads used to bring iron ore to these docks where it would get put on ships and sent to other parts of the country.  Like copper mining in Melissa's town, iiron ore mining was a big contributor to the former wealth of the Marquette area. Here's images from another park.  Melissa forgot the name of it.  She talked to someone while we were there and they said that in the summer time high school kids swim out to that big rock on the right and spraypaint it, usually with something like "Class of..." or "Yay Seniors!" And lastly... This is the Superior Dome.  This is the indoor football field/etc. at Marquette's local university, Northern Michigan Univ.  Here's some information about it: Quote: The Superior Dome opened as the world’s largest wooden dome on September 14, 1991, is a domed stadium on the campus of Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. It is home to the Northern Michigan Wildcats football team, as well as a variety of campus and community events. The Dome stands 14 stories high and encompasses 5.1 acres (21,000 m²) under its roof. Constructed as a geodesic dome with 781 Douglas Fir Beams and 108.5 miles (175 km) of fir decking, the Dome has a permanent seating capacity of 8,000, though the building can hold as many as 16,000 people. The facility features a diameter of 163.4 m (536 feet), and has the ability to withstand 60 pounds force per square foot (2.87 kPa) of snow and 80 mile per hour (130 km/h) winds. The Dome’s features include a retractable artificial turf carpet, the largest of its kind in the world. When extended, the turf has the ability to accommodate football, soccer, and field hockey. Underneath the carpet is a synthetic playing surface that features three basketball/volleyball courts, two tennis courts and a 200 meter track. Twelve computerized winches extend the carpet over a cushion of air. It takes 30 minutes to retract the artificial turf carpet and approximately two hours for full setup to be completed. We also saw a Maritime Museum, a really cute coffee shop called the "Coffee Cup" where Melissa saw (and then forgot to buy) postcards she wanted to send you - oops!  We also had lunch at an Eastern/vegan-inspired restaurant called "Sweet Water Cafe", and then met up with Melissa's friend Amanda, who we spent the weekend visiting.
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 6:51 pm	Happy Easter! Today we visited Melissa's mom and we got to play with the puppy Moose again.  Boy is he getting big! On the way home we got to see a few more local attractions before I leave tomorrow morning. This is the Quincy Mine (No 2 Shaft House)... Quote: The Quincy Mine is an extensive set of copper mines located near Hancock, Michigan. The mine was owned by the Quincy Mining Company and operated between 1846 and 1945, although some activities continued through the 1970s. The Quincy Mine was founded in 1846 with significant investment from Massachusetts (the town of Quincy, Massachusetts lent the mine its name). While many other copper mines were founded at the same time, the Quincy Mine quickly became the most successful, and was the country's leading copper producing mine from 1862-1882. The Quincy Mine is now a popular Keweenaw tourist attraction. The Quincy Mine Hoist Association maintains the buildings and grounds, and provides guided tours of the Number 2 Shaft House and several of the mine tunnels during the summer. There are museum-style exhibits within many buildings. The mine and surrounding areas are part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park. Due to it being winter, this is about a close to it as we could get (the parking lot isn't plowed or anything).  Melissa says she's always wanted to go on the underground tour and never has - maybe now that she has ToyVoyagers to host she'll go this summer after they reopen! Behind and to the left of the No 2 Shaft House you can see other buildings (some used, some abandoned, some lost to disrepair) from the same time period. This is Mont Ripley, the ski hill owned by the university.  It's been warm enough (and when it does snow, there's not much of it anymore) that the hill is closed for Spring now.  But it's a pretty busy place when it's open! Here are a few photos of what Melissa's pretty sure is an abandoned refinery (where you take mined copper and "refine" all the other things out of it so that you have pure copper without rock/etc.).  You can see Mont Ripley behind it in the background.
masucci Posted Mar 27, 2008, 6:52 pm	Today I'm leaving for home! I can't wait to see you again - it's been fun but it'll be nice to get away from the snow and warm up a bit! See you soon, mom!
MissMelissa Posted Apr 5, 2008, 2:26 pm	Well, I made it home after a lovely stay in Michigan. And as soon as I get home, I get stuck back in an envelope. Apparently, I'm going to visit Moshua in India! I'm such a lucky alien. Farewell, America. I'm out! -Weasley
Mosuha Posted Apr 15, 2008, 5:04 pm	Wanakkam Zachary! This is tamil and means "Hello Zachary"... what a surprise, isn't it?! "Appuram paarkkalaam" is also tamil and simply means "see you!"... on Xmas I guess.... Today I arrived my new hosts home at Chennai, former known as Madras, a 7 million inhabitans city in the south of India. Wow, I tell you, that was a really long way to get here and it became soooo sticky in that narrow envelope... pfueee... Some days ago, I played in the snow and now I am sweating under india's hot sun with 35 degree and 65 % humidity! Your planet is really a strange one!!! But my new hosts promised me, we will have a lot of fun anyway... There are some more TVs in the house, I will meet them tomorrow.... And all together we are looking forward to the end of may, when we will be at a nice vacation in the very north of india, visiting the Taj Mahal, Jaipur (the pink city), Delhi and the himalaya moutains.... So, stay tuned, appuram paarkkalaam!
Mosuha Posted Apr 17, 2008, 5:39 pm	Hey Zachary, you can't imagine, what I have to force just for you! Yesterday, for example, I had to look "American Idol" with the other TVs.... I thought, it was a little boring (but I think Brooke White is a really cute girl...) And today I went with my host outside.... what a horror.... 38 degrees, I could hardly breath!!! We went together to the postoffice, because she had to sent some letters for her friends at home in Germany.... I was a little wired, this postoffice doesn't look very official, don't you think?! In the pictures you also can see the house, and the street where my host lives. Together with another tv called "Pien" I climb up to the roof of the building, there is a small terasse and you have a nice view.... mmmmh.... Actually the only think you can see, are green Palms and other trees, I recognize now..... Chennai seems to be a real "green City" if you look over the roofs.... It's because of the high humidity, I guess.... I saw, next to my host house they build a new one, but the workers took a break, I think, it was really hot there.... My host told me, that these workers do not earn a lot of money... Per one day of hard work they get 150 Rupee, which is about 2,40 EUR or 1,50 US Dollar... In Mumbai the goverment now decided a new minimum salery people should get and it's 150 Rupee PER WEEK.... That's why a lot of poor people live here in india on the streets and they own nothing but their lifes. Pien and I were very surprised to see some suitcases at the end of the stairs and our host explaned, that the man who is working as a watchman for the building is living and sleeping on the stairs. And he is kind of happy, that he at least has got a roof over his head...
Mosuha Posted Apr 26, 2008, 5:24 pm	Hey Zachary.... I thought, you might be interested in these things, indian people use to come from a to b. My absolut favorit: the motorbike! That was fun, man! And I really look very cool, don't you think. But the 3 Wheeler are also great. Normally they are yellow, this beautifull blue one, was a private car. There are also a lot of bikes on the roads and sometimes people tranport really heavy goods with bikes, you cannot imagine that. I'll try to get one photo next time.... The traffic in india is really horrorable and very, very loud, because everybody is using the horn as much as he can.... I'll be probably dull, when we'll meet on Xmas. So you'll have to speak a little louder to me.... ;-)
Mosuha Posted May 9, 2008, 11:23 pm	We also visited an interesting place that day, it's called "Valluvar Kottam", which is build by the goverment and used for special events like expos.... It's looks pretty nice, don't you think? Later we went to the church of the holy Mother Mary... But dude, it was sooooooo hot, I got a bad sunburn that day.... pfueee....
Mosuha Posted May 9, 2008, 11:30 pm	Today again and since few days it was around 40 degrees hot outside, but anyway I joined in to visit another, very famous church here in Chennai... It's name is "St. Thomas Church" and it is the oldest one in the south of india and the legend says, that the body of St. Thomas is laying to it's feed. And lucky us, as we went in, a very friendly couple were just got married and we all wished them good luck and all the best. I was even allowed to make a picture o them, to show you a traditional indian wedding dress....
Mosuha Posted May 23, 2008, 8:21 pm	Finally, we all were waiting so long for it..... Tomorrow we will start our trip into the north of India..... jiiiipppiiihheee.... Jaipur - Agra (Taj Mahal) - Delhi - Manali - Keylong- Sarchu - Leh .......... We will be back at the 9th of June..... Today we all helped packing the suitcase, everyone is now in charge of something..... I am in charge of Mona's new head, so that she will not forgett it anywhere..... Don't I look cool? Thanks to god, we don't have to travel in the suitcase, we have our very own, very comfortable backpack..... (as comfortable as if can be, with such a travelbunch!) We'll surely have a lot of fun..... I will tell you everything later..... BYE BYE..... ...we are off.....
Mosuha Posted Jun 9, 2008, 6:11 pm	Hey Zachary, yeah, we are back from the big holidays.... that was really amazing and I saw a lot, what I now would like to show you, step by step.... First we had to fly from Chennai to Mumbai (Bombay) and from there to Jaipur. I was allowed to sit in the plane next to my hosts and I had a great view from the window, when we flew over Mumbai. In fact, in this city there life about 19 Million people and all you can see, when you go down to the airport are these slum- houses, where all the very poor people life. Than we had to wait 5 hours, because our flight to Jaipur was canceled.... how boring that was!!! We arrived Jaipur very late. We enjoyed the warm welcome at the beautifull Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, ate something and went straight to bed. The next day we explored the region of Jaipur. Near by there is the big fort-palace of Amber, a beautiful, ethereal example of Rajput architecture, rises from a rocky mountainside. Amber was the ancient capitel of Jaipur state. Construction of the fort was begun in 1592 by Maharaja Man Singh and it was later extended by other rulers, so you can see a lot of very different buildings there. I also saw in the city of Jaipur the famous windpalace  and the citypalace. After this exhausting day, I relaxed a little at the hotel's pool.
Mosuha Posted Jun 10, 2008, 12:57 pm	Monday we spent on the road.... Because there were some people called Gujjar, who demonstrated in a town near Agra and killed several others, the normal road from Jaipur to Agra was closed, so we had to take the long way over Delhi.... It took us 10 hours, so we arrived in our hotel in Agra again very late. But it was not as boring as it sounds. We saw a lot of funny vehicles at the so called HIGHWAY.... And we took a rest next to a friendly group of cows...
Mosuha Posted Jun 10, 2008, 5:16 pm	Oh, this should be the great day! We woke up very early on tuesday, because we were all so excited to see the Taj Mahal. Imagine, we could even see it from the hotel's room, far far away.... We made as much noise as we could to wake up our hosts, we just couldn't wait! But than the big disapointment! At the entry to the place of the Taj Mahal, the guys said, we tvs are all not allowed to go inside. In fact, humans are only permitted to take their camera with them. These guys were very rude and sticked to their silly rules, Mona and Uli couldn't do anything. That was soooo sad! But our hosts went in and took some pictures for us. And they told us a little bit about the history of the Taj. Did you know these facts: The Taj was built by Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child. in 1631. The death of Mumtaz left the emperor so heartbroken that his hair is said to have turned grey overnight. Construction of the Taj began in the same year and was not completed until 1653. In total 20.000 people worked on the building. The construction bill is believed to have run to 3 Million Rupee equivalent to about 70 million US dollar today. As the Taj was ready, Shah Jahan let cut off the right hand of every worker, who built it, because he wanted to make sure, that they were not able to built another copy of Taj for any other man. And soon after the finishing, Shah Jahan's son became the Emperor and put his father into jail. He said, it is a big crime to built such an expansive building, while the folks have nothing to eat and die because of hunger. He put Shah Jahan into the Agra Fort from where he could see the Taj from his window every day, untill he died. We went to this place, and Shah must had the same view, we had as we took this picture of me and the Taj in the far. Still today it is a shame, that the goverment earns so much money every year from the visitors of the Taj Mahal, but Agra is still such a poor city. It is very dirty and many people have got nothing to eat. Around the place of the Taj a lot of beggars are, and you have totally to watch out, not to be cheated by shopowner and other people on the streets. So this was a not so nice expierience allover.... On our way to Delhi we than found another nice building. It is not as old as the Taj, but looks a little bit like it.... It's a hindu Temple near Agra.
Mosuha Posted Jun 10, 2008, 7:33 pm	Wednesday morning my hosts spent at the cityhotel's pool, because it was very hot in Delhi during these days.... But later we visit all together "The national gallery of modern art". As we found out, they showed an exibition called "FLUX" with the artist Joseph Beuys. I think, that was really weird!!!!! We were not allowed to take some pictures inside, but outside in the scultures park. Later we saw some tombs, which again remind me of the Taj Mahal. What do you think?
Mosuha Posted Jun 11, 2008, 7:06 am	Today we saw the Red Fort in Delhi, but because of the security check at the entry, just Roderich and Carl, could slip in. The Red Fort was built by the guy, who built the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan. The sandstone walls of the Red Fort extend for 2 km and vary in height from 18m to 33m. Shah Jahan began construction of the massive fort in 1638 and it was completed in 1648. Shah Jahan never completly moved his capitel from Agra to his new city of Shahjahanabad in Delhi, because he was deposed and imprisoned in Agra Fort by his son, as I told you before. Later we walked thrue the market streets of Old Delhi...and.... mmmmh.... were a little surprised by some disgusting smell, till we saw the reason for it..... To be honest, I felt a little sick after that....
Mosuha Posted Jun 11, 2008, 9:00 am	It was time to leave the capitel of india with it's 35 degrees to fly into the himalaya mountains. We got up very early and took a very small plane to get to Manali, which is north of Delhi and on an elavation of 2700m above sea level. I was soo excited! And yeeeaaaah, the weather in Manali was just great.  We took alittle walk around the town and enjoyed the beautiful view from the hotel's balcony
Mosuha Posted Jun 13, 2008, 7:58 am	Today was great. We first went to a place, where Mona, Uli and Repa gone for a white-water-rafting.... That was nothing for me, but we watched them. Later we visited some other places in Manali and, near by, the village of Vashisht. In this area lives a lot of tibetan refugees, so you also find typicall tibetan houses and buddism temples.
Mosuha Posted Jun 13, 2008, 10:09 am	Hey Zachary, today I did something, which was one of my Life missions! Near Manali in a town called Naggar I found a cute, small castle. I know, it do not look like normal castles looks like, but I was so amazed by the beautifull view from there, that I decided to storm that castle and make it my own!  Naggar castle was capital of the Kullu Valley for nearly 1500 years and the castle was built by Raja Sidh Singh about 500 years ago in the classic Himachal wood ans stone blockwork style. The castle's courtyard contains a tiny Jagtipath Temple, which houses a slab of stone said to have been carried here by wild bees.... After that be also visited the near by Art Gallery of the russian painter Nikolai Roerich.
Mosuha Posted Jun 13, 2008, 5:27 pm	Today we just relaxed, the weather was bad anyway. The Area of Manali is famous for it's apple trees, so I tried some for dessert. Really delicious! And we saw some traditional dance and enjoyed the indian live band at the dinner....
Mosuha Posted Jun 13, 2008, 5:32 pm	We are on the road again and the first part of the route goes from Manali over the Rothang Pass, which is in an Altitude of about 4000 meters or 13050 ft, to Keylong. Keylong is 115 km north of Manali and in about an elevation of 3500m. Imagine, it took us 7 1/2 HOURS to drive 115km, just because the Leh-Manali-Road is partly so bad, and sometimes there are some streetworking in progress and you have to wait, till the way is free again. Anyway, the landscape is breathtaking and I really enjoyed travelling, although we all were totally shaked and had a little head pain, because of the altitude.
Mosuha Posted Jun 13, 2008, 9:42 pm	Again, one day in the car. Today we drove the 140km from Keylong to Sarchu in about 7 hours. Look at this landscape, it was just so amazing!!! We had a little break at an indian Dhaba, like the little road restaurants are called. Near Sarchu we slept at a small tent camp ( 5 tents), which was build in the middle of nothing..... just an elevated plattform between some mountains. You had to walk real slow, because you run out of breath so extremely fast.... I think, this place lied in an elevation of about 4000m, and your heart beats like hell.... I felt a little sick... As long as the sun was shining, it was quiet warm and the sky had the brightest color I've ever seen! But as the sun went down, it started to freeze. This night was sooooooooooooooooooooooo cold, you can't even imagine! brrrrrrrrr....... But this incredible view was all worth it!
Mosuha Posted Jun 16, 2008, 9:16 am	Today we took the last part of the roadtour, 245km from Sarchu to Leh in the region of Ladakh. That took us 10 hours this time. We came along some of the highest motorable passes of the world. Nakeela Pass at 15547 ft, which is 4738 meters, Lachulunga at 16616 ft, which is 5065 meters, and Taglamgla at 17592 ft, the second highest motorable pass in the world, which is 5362 meters. In this high there is growing nothing anymore, no trees, no plants, no grass..... So the sourrounding look some kind of surealistic to me.... a lot of stones and rocks and of course snow.... We all felt sooooo sick, especially at Taglamgla Pass, because of the high elevation. Our hearts beated like crazy and you breathed very fast..... Although the landscape again was so beautiful, we didn't want to crawl out the car to take some pictures.... We just wanted to go down as fast as possible again and we were so happy as we arrived in Leh..... pfew....
Mosuha Posted Jun 16, 2008, 10:57 am	Yesterday we were really lazy, We haven't done anything but lying in bed, reading a little bit and eating some soup.... We were just so exhausted from the journey and our bodies were stressed out by the high altitudes we passed, that we decided NOT to go to the world's highest motorable road, which lies in an elevation of 5700 meters near by Leh..... That would have been just to much for us, I guess.... And today we took a little walk around the villiage of Leh. In the first picture you see our Hotel, "The grand Dragon". In the second it is a little mosque and in the backround at the hill you see the Leh Palace, that was built in the 17th century and it is sometimes called "the mini Potala", for the palace in Tibet that is resembles. Leh itself nestles in a side valley north of the Indus river. Until 1947 it had close trading realtions with Central Asia and yak trains would set off over Karakoram La to Yarkand ans Kashgar. Today Leh has massive millitary presence and is a reminder of India's sensitive borders with Pakistan and China, because it is in the state of Kashmire. The old town, at the base of Namgyal Hill, is a labytinth of alleyways and houses stacked with dry wood and dung, collected to use as fuel to withstand the long winter months. In fact, the tourist saison just lasts 3 month a year, from June to August, because it is just too cold in the other months and many roads are closed than.
Mosuha Posted Jun 16, 2008, 1:50 pm	The last day of our vacations in the north of india passed by today....... And it stood completly under the sign of Buddha! We visited several gompas, monastarys, temples and stupas, as like the Klu-kkhyil Gompa ("klu-kkhyil" means "water spirits")in Likir, which was founded in the 11th century and was the first in Ladakh known to have been built by Tibetan monks. Unusual for Ladakhi gompas, is the external 25m- high Maitreya statue, that dominates its setting. This trip was very interessting, we saw a lot of the old tibetan culture... and we learnt about praying wheels and this prayer flags, you saw a lot in my pictures before. On these colorfull flags there are prayers written and the colors symbolizes the elements. The wind shall carry the prayers around the world, that's why you often find these flags in high elevations, like the gompas and monastarys. We had some very nice views about the valleys of the Ladakh area and the Indus River. It was a loooong day, but we didn't want to miss the first game of Germany in the European Football Championship (okeeee, Uli and Mona didn't want to miss it!) so we went to bed very late.
Mosuha Posted Jun 17, 2008, 12:27 am	I guess, every journey has to end one day..... So on monday we flew back home to Chennai, our minds loaded with lots and lots of good memories and amazing impressions! It was a great time and we all had a lot of fun together!
Mosuha Posted Jul 2, 2008, 9:26 pm	Weasley is on his way to Switzerland right now and should arrive there in the beginning of next week lately. We will miss the little guy, for sure, because we had a lot of fun with our guests. So Farewell, Weasley!!!
annbear Posted Jul 10, 2008, 1:12 pm	Here I am in Switzeland!! Photos and adventures to follow
annbear Posted Aug 2, 2008, 4:05 pm	So here are my surroundings - this planet is nice. It`s hard work sightseeing so I decided to have a little sunbathe with a new friend of mine!
annbear Posted Aug 5, 2008, 10:31 pm	So here I am on a nice walk in Engleberg. The Swiss scenery is very nice I must say
annbear Posted Aug 30, 2008, 9:14 am	So here we are, all on holiday in France. It`s so exciting, I`m going to stand on my head, climb a tree, read a book and play with some other TVs. We really are the fortunate ones seeing the world and making friends
annbear Posted Aug 30, 2008, 9:16 am	Aaaaaahhhhh crocs!!!
olgamaus Posted Oct 14, 2008, 9:15 pm	Hello Mummy, I arrived in Remscheid today. Photos will follow soon. My new host Katja has a lot to do today, so I will watch TV with four ToyVoyagers: Margarida, Moley, Hurley and Theodore. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 15, 2008, 5:45 pm	Hello Mummy, on my first evening here I enjoyed the silence when the other TVs went to bed. This little bunny Margarida talked her head off about falling into a soup pot and about the weekend. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 15, 2008, 9:18 pm	Hello Mummy, it's raining outside. Instead of going out we made something in the kitchen. Katja asked us to help her. What is that? Maybe the speedo of a starship? Margarida was laughing about me. It's only the kitchen scale. HELP! Someone attacks me! But no, Margarida and Theodore were playing tricks on me. Now Katja became a little bit angry. She told them that I am new here and maybe I did not bake a cake until today. They should stop kidding me immediately. So we finally were able to start baking a delicious apple cake. First we had to weigh all the ingredients we needed, as there were 125 g butter 125 g sugar 1 vanilla sugar 3 eggs 200 g flour 3 tsp baking powder 3 soup spoons cream 50 ml light rum 4 apples, peeled and cut into quarters 200 g sour cream 75 g sugar 2 eggs 1 p. vanilla sauce powder salt Of course we had to weigh the ingredients, not the ToyVoyagers! I found a cool helmet. Unfortunately it was not a helmet but a flour sifter. What a pity, it made me look like a  cool alien. Now Katja was able to prepare the dough. She hat to use a baking tray and a cake setting ring because she confered her spring form to a friend last week. I used it as a mirror. WOW! A galactic snowstorm! No, it's only the flour. Katja is using my cool helmet. Now the dough is ready for the oven. The apples have to be spread with lemon juice. It has to stay in the oven for 12 minutes. In the meantime we prepared the pie topping. Katja was looking for the beaters of her hand mixer. They were here just a few minutes ago. Some funster must have taken them. Of course she found them .... (making jokes is contagious  ) We poured the pie topping on the pre-baked cake. It had to stay in the oven for another 50 minutes then. It smelled delicious when it was ready. It also tasted great ... Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 19, 2008, 1:35 pm	Hi Mummy, we visited Venlo in the Netherlands today! We met BlackCat with six more ToyVoyagers and went to Venlo by train. Venlo is situated close to the German border. Many peple from Germany like going shopping in Venlo because you can buy some food much cheaper there than in Germany, due to lower taxes. Venlo's history goes back to Roman times. It developed into an important trade post on the river Meuse. Look, here we are with BlackCat's guests. There were also Odette and Titch, they did not want to come out of BlackCats bag - they were a little bit shy. They did not know that they would have to come out later. This is the local post office, decorated with the national coat of arms of the Netherlands. We walked through the old town then. Here you can see typical dutch houses. They are often made of bricks with the galbes showing to the street side. This is the town hall of Venlo. We had a closer look at those steely cylinders. They looked really futuristically in front of the renaissance town hall. They are housing spot lights to illuminate the town hall in the evenings. We went to the market then. In a toy store we found this funny flabby ball. We took a walk to the river Meuse then. We wrote a postcard to another ToyVoyagers host. We hope she will like the card. Back in the old town ... A fountain in the old town ... This is a store for home decoration. They seem to be specialised on  halloween articles. The whole shop is looking like a great halloween party. At least something that looks familiar to me. We saw a store which had a soap  bubbles machine installed at the front door. Soap bubbles without an end! I tried to call one of my space cousins, especially Sputnik, who is also in the Netherlands at the moment,  but no one was at home. Then it was already time to go back to the station. In Wuppertal we left the train and went home by bus. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 22, 2008, 2:47 pm	Hi Mummy, today the weather was still great and we took a walk in the forrest. We started our trip in Remscheid-Hasten, one of the oldest districts of Remscheid. Soon we reached the border of the muncipal area. We planned to walk to Wuppertal-Cronenberg. Wuppertal is the neighbour town of Remscheid. To get there we had to cross a valley and walk up steep uphill through the forrest. We rested on a bench and enjoyed the sun. The next rest took place on a barrier. We came along some small old houses and old factory buildings. This little house is even situated alone in the middle of the forrest, like a whitchhouse in a fairy tale. Later we had to cross a creek, there was no bridge, we had to climb and jump over stones.
olgamaus Posted Oct 22, 2008, 2:57 pm	When we reached Cronenberg we saw a lot of old houses and an old church in 1767 A.D. My God, that's really old. My calculation of times begins with the first manned moon landing in 1969. Was there life on earth before? Well, I'd better show it to you. When we came home it was nearly dark. We were all  tired then and fell into bed. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 28, 2008, 1:23 pm	Hello, after some rainy days we took a walk through the muncipal park to an old district of Remscheid, Hasten. First I had a look at some nice old houses in the vicinity of my current home. The next photo is showing the central police station. They have a lot of interesting antennas on their roof, certainly enough to get into contact with one of my cousins. Here you can see the observatory, located at the entrance of the muncipal park. This band-stand is also located in the muncipal park. In summer they have concerts and theatre here, Katja told me. We followed the paths through the park to Hasten. In Hasten Katja showed us a cemetary. It belongs to an evangelic church.  The first photo is showing the cemetary chapel. Here you can see a memorial for soldiers killed in World War I. We then walked a little bit through the outskirts and returned to Hasten, where I saw a beautiful patrician house. This house contains a museum, maybe we will visit it next week. On our way back home we bought some bread rolls for our belated breakfast.
olgamaus Posted Oct 28, 2008, 1:40 pm	Guten Morgen, Zachary! (Good morning, Zachary) We had breakfast with bread rolls, strawberry jam and ananas jam, honey, boiled eggs and some sorts of cheese. Later I had a look out of the living room window. It looks great outside with a lot of forrests. If the sun were shining it would look even better. In the evening we watched TV. We watched "Tatort", a very famous TV crime series. The first episode was broadcast in 1970. There are episodes from different towns, for example Munich, Cologne, Leipzig, Saarbruecken or Hamburg. I really enjoyed it. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 28, 2008, 1:51 pm	Hi, Katja showed me the town hall of Remscheid in her lunch break. It was built in 1906 A.D., partly destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in a more modern style afterwards. The tower is 48 m high. In front of the town hall you can find a large place where the farmers market is held twice a week. Here you can also find a large pillar with the heraldic animal of Remscheid, the lion. This friendly guy was waiting on the floor to be installed. It is the symbol of a large German electronics retailer, Saturn. Close to the town hall, on top of the hill where the town centre is located, we also have a water tower here. From here the town centre is supplied with drinking water. The next photo is showing one of the streets in the vicinity of my current home. Here a lot of old houses remained. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Oct 30, 2008, 1:12 pm	Hello, today we took a walk along the "Route of Tools", a lane for pedestrians and cyclers which was built on a closed railway track. Close to my current home you can find this large intersection. Here you can see today's gasoline prices. Quite expensive. 1 EURO = 1,295 USD. We reached the route of tools then. Here some metal signs are installed, showing the crest of Remscheid and the company logos of some tool prducing companies. This lane was sponsered by local tool fabricants. You can find distance data on the ground. We rested on a bank which was made of a giant screw clamp. Later we took a short walk through the forrest, it was already getting dark so we did not make many photos then. Here you can see the sign for a landscape conservation area. I met this curious pony. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Nov 3, 2008, 12:43 pm	Hello, today we planned to visit Wuppertal, the neighbour town of Remscheid. On our way to the bus station Katja showed me a little bit more of the town centre. This is the public library, this is the corporate building of the local newspaper, Remscheider Generalanzeiger. Here you can see the central bus station.
olgamaus Posted Nov 3, 2008, 1:07 pm	We went to Wuppertal by bus. Of course Katja and her friend wanted to walk through the forrest. Beyenburg is a very old district, located at the river Wupper. In former times they had many dye works and weaving mills in Wuppertal along the river Wupper. These red leafes are looking exactly like my red stripes. These yellow spots in the background are larches. Their leafes are falling in autumn. Here you can see a papermill, also located at the river Wupper. They are producing wall papers here. Can you see the weir? Later we saw this fly agaric in the forrest. I also want to show you the "Schwebebahn" of Wuppertal. Schwebebahn is a suspended monorail, travelling about 12 metres above the surface of the river Wupper, about 8 metres above the streets. At one point the railway crosses a motorway. It's getting dark now before 6:00 p.m.! Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Nov 4, 2008, 1:15 pm	Hi Mummy, we took a walk through the  town centre in Katja's lunch break. When we leave our apartment in the morning to go to work is still dark, when we return home in the evening is already dark. We have very good weather today. This is one of the churches in the town centre. A small farmers market is taking place here on Tuesday and Friday. In this beautiful house a music school is located. This coal lorry is a present of Remscheid's twin town Wansbeck in Northumberland, England. From a bridge you can see another district of Remscheid which is located on the highest hill. From there you have a fantastic view. This little park belongs to the music school I showed you before. From the bridge you can also look across the central bus station to the tower of the town hall. Here we are back close to the town hall where Katja is working. We bought something delicious for lunch. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Nov 4, 2008, 1:17 pm	Hello, Katja is knitting socks. At least she told me so. It looks as if it was a pullover for me. Maybe tomorrow it will look like socks. Weasley
olgamaus Posted Nov 10, 2008, 1:43 pm	Hello, I met the pet rats today. This is Carla, she was born in May 2008. The rats are really cute. Bye Weasley
olgamaus Posted Nov 10, 2008, 1:46 pm	Hi Melissa, I'm travelling home now. Weasley

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