Travelog for: TravelingTuffy

I am TravelingTuffy and I am a brand new Toy Voyager.  I have a lot of TV friends that live in my house and they tell me all about their travels, now I want to join in and see the world and meet everyone in different places.  I am a good Dog and easy to take care of.  I am very interested in your countries culture and cooking!! I want to learn how to cook any special dishes or famous dishes that your country is known for   I want to know what the *locals* like to eat, drink ect.  I look forward to meeting you!!

Hi mom. I finally arrived to Costa Rica! Today, I got to Noelia's home. She and her parents where very happy to see me. Here's the time of my landing:



There's a pleasant weather here. It's sunny but also a little windy. Short after my arrival we went for a visit to Noelia's grandparents. It's a short walk across a garden. On the way there, I wanted some pictures with the flowers:







They had a lunch there. Not yet very tipical food, but soon they will teach me some local cooking. And I had my first Ice Cream:



Then I met other toy that looked like me:




It's Christmas time still here. People usually build a crib, or Nativity scene, inside most of the homes. They call it "el portal", and they put "El Niño" (Baby Jesus) in the Christmas eve. I did a closer look to it in Noelia's grandpa's crib:





I'm really happy I'm now on my adventure. I will stay in touch with more news. Bye, mom

Tuffy

Just updating Tuffys Google map

Hello Mom,

The weather is still good here. A little hot for me, especially compared to what I left back home, but really pleasant: sunshine and blue sky all day. It makes me happy.

This week my hosts received some friends from Cincinnati and Kentucky, and today they prepared Costa Rican tipical breakfast, so it was my time to learn to cook typical foods!

The dish is the Gallo Pinto. It's rather a simple dish but it taste good!. It's done with pre-cooked rice mixed with beans and spices such as cilantro, onion and green or red peppers. At first, I just wanted to look at it, and to feel the smell:



Later on, I had more involvement:



It's common to use a Costa Rican condiment named Lizano Sauce, developed in the 1920's. I had a look to it's ingredients, but they were too many



When the Gallo Pinto is ready, it's usually served with other foods like bacon, sausage, meat or scrambled eggs. They used scrambled eggs, and I as know them, I took charge



The final result was delicious. Everybody liked it and they gave me credit for my scrambled eggs.

I have to tell you about the coffe plantations and the mountains around my current home, but that will be for the next ones. I hope everything is doing well for you, we'll stay in touch. Have a friendly barking,

TravelingTuffy

Hi Mom!

Last sunday was a funny day! My girl host, his parents, a cousin of her, her uncle and another cousin (family trip) took me to the Costa Rican most popular amusement park: "Parque Nacional de Diversiones". It's located near the capital city of Costa Rica: San José. The earnings of this park go to the Costa Rican Children's Hospital, so it was also a trip for a good cause.





Our girls are 3 and 5 years old, so we spent most of the time in the areas dedicated to little kids. Here I am waiting for my shift at the bumper cars.



Much of the park's theme is bases on characters from Carmen Lyra's stories. Carmen Lyra was a famous female writer in Costa Rica. Here I am with "Tío Chanchito" (uncle Piggy), trying not to fall from his plant



The day was fun, in the evening the girls and I were a little tired, so we went back home. But it was great!



Bye mom,

Tuffy

Hi Mom,

Last sunday was a very important day in Costa Rica, and even an historic one, I'll tell you why.

It was election day!! Costa Rican people had to vote and choose their president for the next 4 years, starting next may 8th, and by doing so, to strengthen their democracy and their tradition as a peaceful country.

Since the last election, there aren't anymore only 2 important parties involved, now there are many more. My little host's parents are very enthusiastic  about the election, not so much about any specific party, but about the all process. So they collected flags of the main parties involved, sometimes even pretending to be very active with some party just to get the flag.



At the end, the winner was the party that currently is in the government, the one with the flag green and white and their candidate was a female!: Laura Chinchilla. So, Costa Rica is going to have its first female president ever, that's why it was an historic day.

Noelia, my little girl host, chose Laura Chinchilla as her favorite, even though she couldn't vote (she's almost 4 years old). So in order to keep her (and me) happy and enthusiastic, her parents took us in the night to Alajuela downtown, where the followers of the winner  where having a parade , using the horns of their cars to celebrate





In a few days, we are going to a trip to the  beach, I'm excited, and hoping to have  some more fun. I hope everything is good with you, bye

Tuffy

Hi Mom,

last weekend we went on a trip to the beach, to the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica. My little host parents and two couples of friends rented a minivan cause there were 9 people in total ... and a ToyVoyager.

We went to the beaches in the Puerto Viejo area. The beaches here are really nice, but sometimes the weather could be rainy. We didn't have sun all of the time, but the trip was still very enjoyable and it rained only a little.

We stayed at a nice hotel full of trees. You could hear howler monkeys at night!



Then, we went to the beaches in Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo. The water is really calm and nice. It wasn't blue sky, but we all could get into the water. Well,actually I didn't, I was busy playing with the children and their toys





Next day, we took a boat trip into the canals and got into the jungle. I could see some animals: I saw  many howler monkeys on a tree. They're rather little, compared to the loud sound they do. I also saw hanging bats (they were in the background of the last image below, but they were too far for the picture), sloths and some herons playing on the river.







I really had and enjoyable time. I feel happy! I hope you're feeling happy too,

Big hugs!

Tuffy

Hi mom!,

this is going to be my last post from Costa Rica, 'cause I will be in my way back home this week. 

It's been a pleasant time here. I want to share with you some views around the place I've lived this weeks. There's a coffee plantation around the house, this are some views from the balcony and across the street:







Finally, I want to introduce you to Kiba, the real dog of the house. We became friends, altough I was a little small for her



Great! I'll see you very soon,

Tuffy

I am back home from Costa Rica!! I had a great time and now I am ready to continue my adventure!!! Does anyone want to host me?? If so let my owner know!!!

I'm on the road again!!!
Together with 5 other TVs I travelled to another host who will now take care of us and who will reorganise my journey.
3 TVs, Muumipeikko, Miegalyteand Lupus-Tigger gave us a nice welcome.

When Katrin came home today she was really happy. She has finished her Bachelor'S Thesis and now she has finally at lot of free time again. That's got for me and the other TVs because we hope that she will spend a lot of time with us now.

My host Katrin took me with her to Hamburg to her job in the state and university library. Today she has to fill database with a lot of new information which was not very exciting.


This is the book she is working on right now. It is a French book, the drawing on the left page shows dresses in the 18th century.


In the room I also discovered these old books. They are more than 300 years old!

We are visiting Katrin's boyfriend this weekend. He lives in a small town in the state Niedersachsen. While he is at work, we had a walk through the town.

The first thing that cought my eye was the different landscape. In every direction you can see hills.


Nature is everywhere. Here we are sitting in a stone wall. Maybe it was part of the wall of the castle, but Katrin doesn't know anything about it.


Aren't these roses wonderful?


Some of the buildings in the city center are really old. This one is from the 17th century.


The mascot of the city: a donkey! There is a story behind it, but we couldn't find any information about it.


Then we came closer to the castle which is the center of the town. This is the watchtower...


... and  this is the view at the castle. It is not easy to take a good photo of it because everything is really narrow.

The group of TVs is getting smaller and smaller. Jelle left already last week and today they said goodbye to Bruno and me.

My journey was uneventful and I arrived in time to go and play with two little kitten called Mia and Tiffany, and Huki the budgie.

Huki didn't pay attention to us most of the time but he can make a perfect imitation of several different bells.