Travelog for: Roo

...and here we are at the playground. We toyvoyagers did our share cheering the little one - we played too!  That's me with Chokito and Alfie Langer, also known as The Awesome Three 

A lucky Friday 13th Our host took us with her to her "job" (training period) in the local activity center for the mentally disabled. My host is an instructor-trainee. She works at the handicrafts room with the people there. See how skilled they are!  They've been doing felt-making mostly recently. Here is some of the stuff they've created. That sunset with dolphins is made by my host, she still has to work on it so we helped her a bit with the needle. She's also quite talented don't you think?

My host says she'd like to buy half of the stuff they make there. Lucky for her basically everything they make is supposed to get sold. Unlucky for her many of the items are pre-ordered.

I tried to chat with that horse but he wasn't very talkative. Maybe he didn't  understand English.

Anyway, it was an interesting day at work!

"It's raining men, hallelujah, it's raining men..." Well, not exactly. It's water. Lots and lots of water. And it's Midsummer Eve. The day you're supposed to go out and barbeque, watch a bonfire, have fun. Not very likely in this weather I say! There's something good in the rain too though; less people will drink their arses off and get killed (traditionally several people drown or get killed in a car accident during there days off). But we nice little tv's and our well-behaving host family are bored to tears! The only bonfire we could see was on the calendar!

Wohoo! Sunshine! We drove to our host's parents and stopped by this river on the way. The boys (Alfie & Chokito)  would've wanted to go white water rafting  I would've rather stayed on the shore - and I was relieved when our host yelled "Noooooooo!". Instead we tried the winch with which people lift their boats up from the river. Chokito might look exhausted but really I'm quite slim  Oyh, it was fun 

The weather was so nice today, after all the heavy rain, that my host decided to go on a bicycle ride with the girls. The eldest one had just got a new bike with a basket so we toyvoyagers got to join the ride in it  We drove a longer way to the playground and had goodies and juice there.  I tried to teach hopscotch to the boys (Alfie and Chokito)  but they just didn't get it right... But we had fun  The boys climbed trees so my host helped me up to a tree too - I loved the views! My host has completed her training so she's going to be more active in hosting again now  Not that we had a bad time while she was training 

Hello family & friends! My hostmom loves to help children in need and The Teddy Bear Clinic (see Threadbear) hit her heart hard - in a  good way! Now she organized the teddies she will send to South Africa. Here you see the 7 teddies to be sent. We hope they all fit to the Moomin-box that you see behind them...

Here we are, at Korkeasaari Zoo! This special family outing was arranged by my host due to the following reasons: her training period is over, Stuart the Lion was the Voyager of the Week last week 1/3 thanks to my host and Alfie is in top10! Plenty of reasons to celebrate  And there we are, on the roof of the car we drove: Ninni, Chokito, Alfie and me

We had to walk over a bridge to get to the island which is the zoo. You can see the Cathedral and the Orthodox Church in the distance, I saw them closer in May. The first animal I saw was the swan, Finland's national bird. The the national animal: brown bear. They did  look like Alfie! Then I saw the european Bison which was quite big comapred to me.

On the way to the Valley of The Cats I saw Helsinki from yet another point of view  The Cat Valley showed me a snow leopard and a lion for example. The lion was just posing and looking after his ladies. He was quite handsome and my host wanted to go and cuddle him 

Then it was time to play Noah's Arc and ride a camel 

Zoo trip, part 2 

After we finished playing we took a look at the red panda, which was super cute! I also met my reletives, the red wallabies! I greeted them of course but it wasn't easy to chat as there was this distance and gap between us.

Soon it was lunchtime! Chokito, Ninni, Alfie and me shared this bowl which was just the right size for us. Unfortunately we had to wait for it like 45min before we got it after ordering. But it was nice to sit, rest and chat 

After the well-earned rest and our stomachs full we continued the tour. We saw the baboons (one human said that "the Eu should make a directive about this and make them wear pants" - lol! Then there was the mongolian wild horse, vapiti and tropical waterfall (there were tropical snakes, lizards etc but the light wasn't good for photos). When my host saw the flamingos she yelled "Miami Vice" without second thought 

On the way back to the car there were wooden animals, I posed with bambi here. It was a lovely day out, but tiring because we walked/hopped so much and we all fell assleep in the car.

The girls in the house got a Moomin Memory/Pairs game from their grandma. They were eager to play it with us. Here's the round with only us tv's and one dog called Lurppa (he lives here). I was pretty good but Lurppa won! I'm sure it's because he had "home field advantage"  It was a fun game though and as Moomin are something very Finnish it was a cultural experience too 

It was so hot we just had to go to a beach! We drove to a beach about 15km away from the city center, in the middle of nowhere - but it was totally worth it! The water gets deep quite far away so it was great for the kids too. We spent half the day there, swimming, playing in the sand, eating... I loved the view 

I have now visited the Porvoo Doll and Toy museum. It's a small place with thousands of old toys. The eldest date back to the early 1800! All toys have been played with and some look like it too... The toys are a private collection and their owner started the museum with her own money. It's a very popular tourist attraction.

We held Chokito's goodbye-party already although he won't be leaving to South Africa untill mid-August. Batman-theme was a natural choise  There was Batman candies, Batman cola - and a Batman Movie from 1966!
After the movie we talked about our past and future adventures. I wish Chokito all the best in the future!

It was raining, but we ain't made of sugar so we went to take a look at the steam train! We had plenty of time so we checked the station area which is a well kept historical entity comprising of two lokomotive stables built in 1875 and in 1905, the station house from 1899, and an old warehouse with a long loading dock and a small railway yard. We also saw this miniature railroad which looked like fun but we weren't allowed to touch it. There were also other things to see, like the old add.

The main reason arrived finally: the steamtrain. It was black and it was huge! These type locomotives built during years 1928-1953. The blue one in the last pic is called Lättähattu  and it operated in the 50's/60's.

The Porvoo railway is an original part of what used to be the next oldest private wide gauge railway, completed in 1874, linking Porvoo town with the first railway of Finland, the Helsinki-Hämeenlinna line build in 1862. There hasn't been any "real" trains on the rail for years. The only trains that operate are these old tourist attractions and they run only a few times per summer. Not only foreign tourists enjoy them, also Finns like to take a "walk on the memory lane" with the trains. My host has done so too, although she wasn't even born when these trains were new 

My host had some errands to run in Helsinki and I got to go with her - again  This time I thought we had landed (as much as you can land with a bus) in Paris instead!  Sadly they were "only" wall paintings... But I could imagine myself in France, buying "fleur" (flowers) and "fromage et vin" (Cheese and wine) 

While waiting for the tram I saw these lovely old buildings. And a little later this gorgeous red church! It's The Church of St. John which is designed in Neogothic style by the Swedish architect A. E. Molander and built in 1893. It is the biggest church in Helsinki and has excellent acoustics, making it a popular place for concerts of large choral works in particular.

Our main goal (excluding the errands) was this cafe that had vintage travel posters on display! The old Finnish travel adds look funny  And there's a book full of them! We bough a few postcards of them. Some of the photos we took were made look old too