Travelog for: KalliHH

Hello mummy!
We had a bicycle walk in the park.
You can hardly see me and my friend Orpheus at the first photo, but I wanted to make picture with that bridge.
We were very good at bicycling!

Hi Mom!

I have arrived here in Austria. I was welcomed by Clyde, a fellow toy on the European trail. He told me a bit about my new home, but soon it was time for him to travel on. We shared the chocolate I had brought with me and then dropped him off at the postoffice.

Soon more from me!
Love, Kalli

Hi Mom!

Today I had a look around my host mom's flat. I met a super cute sheep, welcoming me here in Vienna!
There were so many postcards everywhere in the room so I had a closer look. Host-Mom told me that she is a postcrosser and she showed me some of her favorites. She has many cards on display, some of them in a kind of shower curtain that has slots for cards. Clever, eh?
Many interesting things to see on the cards!

Bye!

Hi Mom!

My hostmom is taking me on vacation to the US soon! But first, she had to keep up with her work in the office. I went along and had a look around, but then decided that it was more fun to eat my host mom's breakfast and drink her coffee 

Hi Mom,

as we are now getting ready for the vacation, we went to Graz to pick up some things Mom needed for the US! Here are some pictures from my train journey. Luckily there were only few people in the train and I had my own seat!
My hostmom was also happy that I went with her as she usually traels alone and that is always so boring 

Hi Mom,

we did some more preparation for the vacation! I helped my hostmom by scanning some of her documents and then I uploaded them to her google docs! My hostmom said that I was a huge help 

Hi Mom,

after a very long flight we have finally arrived in the United States. I am in Los Angeles now, the movie capital.
The first thing we did after having freshened up in the hotel was visiting the walk of Fame. Lots of very important and famous people have a star there.
Then we went to Venice beach. We saw the bodybuilders at Muscle beach and walked around a bit. We even tried out the water, but for me, it was far too cold  We went on a bustour of LA and drove by the houses of the rich and famous. And then we went up to a hill to have a look at the world famous Hollywood sign!

CU soon!

Hi Mom!

We picked up our car yesterday and started our round trip. We drove along the coastline of California and visited many scenic overlooks.
But we also drove along boring highways, where we only saw boring rows of bushes and trees and other agriculture...

Bye!

Hi Mom,

we went on along the California coastline and stopped at Hearst Castle. The castle is situated on top of a hill and all the land you can see from the top, once belonged to Mister Hearst and is today part of the Hearst trust. Mr Hearst was the first media tycoon.
The castle is really beautiful, especially the beautifully landscaped garden surrounding it.
Later we drove on to Monterey, a small town with a world-renowned aquarium. We saw a lot of fish, octopus, sea horses, penguins... That was really fun. Though I have to confess that I would not love living in the water - some of the fish were really scary... Better to fly around and visit the many blooms 

Bye, Mom!

Hi Mom!

We have arrived in San Francisco. Wow, that was a drive...up and down and up again!
Our hotel was located near Fisherman's wharf, so that was the first place we visited. We walked along the pier there and came upon a historical landmark: It was an old submarine. I can't imagine living there...I would very much miss all the blooms 

Thenw e went to a really cool restaurant: It was with Forrest Gump decor. They had kind of license plates on the table with"Run, Forrest, run" and Stop, Forrest. With these you could signal the waitress. What a lovely idea The restaurant was called Bubba Shrimp by the way...does it ring a bell? Im sure you remember the name from the movie!

Later we took a tour with a hop on, hop off bus. Oh, that was fun! I love riding the bus. I received my own earphones, so I could listen to the tourguide.

So far, I really love San Francisco!
Bye!

Hi Mom,

what would a visit to San Francisco be without a visit to Chinatown? This is a really different world, with all the shop, the different music and smells...
So of course we had lunch in a Chinese restaurant. We tried dumpling and had sweet and sour chicken. Later we had dessert, a wonderful grean tea ice cream and of course we also received a fortune cookie 

After lunch we took a walk through the neighbourhood and decided to drive with the famous cable cars. Of course, that is what all the tourists do,, so we had to wait a bit. But that was in fact quite interesting, as we could see how the cars drive by. They arrive at the end station, that is where we waited to board, and they stop on a platform. Then the driver and some helpers get out and they turn the platform around, so that the cable car faces the other direction! The car turns like a record on a record player.

Tomorrow we will leave San Francisco... I am a bit sad as I would have loved to visit some more...
Bye!

Hi Mom!

Today we arrived here in the Napa Valley, the famous area for wineries. On our way there we stopped in a National Forest to have a look at the Giant Redwoods. Look at those trees, they are really old and huuuuuuuge! 

But back to the vineyards: You can see me looking out of the window while we drove through the small cities and passed many wineries. I am not sure if I will be allowed to visit a winery, as you have to be 21...but maybe my host-mom can smuggle me in?

Later we had lunch in a small park - some salad and a baguette. That was nice!

Bye!

Hi Mom!

My host mom managed to smuggle me in the Beringer winery...here are two more pictures from there. Later I wrote some postcards!

Today, we went to the Yosemite Valley, a huge National Park. You can see us driving around there. I travelled in the front, sometimes also on my host mom's knee. I even got a cookie to keep me entertained during the long drive.

Hi Mom!

Today we went into the National Park again! We looked at the map to see where we wanted to go today.
We stopped at a river and had a rest there. Then we drove on, through different forrests. We saw many beautiful trees and the view of the mountains surrounding the Valley was just breathtaking!
I really loved when we stopped for the waterfall. So much water coming down so fast, that was impressive!

So Mom,
we are still in the Yosemite National park, but today we went to a different part of the park.
There even was a fire! Did you know that fires are quite common there? They have special firefighters that control the fires, so you are not in danger as a tourist there.
But the smoke was a bit scary. I have never been this near to a fire before...
You even see burnt trees and I read in my information sheets that fires are really important for this area, as some trees need the fire to grow!