Travelog for: Chocolate Moose

Hello! I'm Chocolate Moose, a kind moose with a sweet tooth!

MY ITINERARY
fam-united – Bruchsal, Germany – Thank you for a GREAT visit!
The Sparkle – Germany - Thank you for a FUN visit!
BlackCat – Essen, Germany - Thank you for an AMAZING time!
Oksana – Russia - HERE CURRENTLY
Fleurdunord – France
kittyfluff - Ireland
Träumerin - Germany
Then looking for more fun places to go!

I am so excited to begin my adventures tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about traveling, so my first trip will be with my owner. She is heading on a trip to Milwaukee, so my friend Waddlesworth and I will be going along! Even though the plane scares me, I'm excited to see snow....do you think that there are real moose in Wisconsin?

Here we are, getting ready to get on the plane. You can see our plane in the background (and I think the reflection of my owner, Mara, as well!). Waddlesworth is much more calm than I am.

So, the flight wasn't too bad, though I did need a nap afterwards. Thankfully, the humans needed a nap too. The hotel is nice, even though the temperature is set for humans. It's cold and snowy outside - perfect weather for a moose. Waddlesworth and I spent the morning watching the birds outside the window. Waddlewsorth thinks a few might have been his distant relatives. I was hoping for a moose to walk by. No such luck.

After looking at the birds, we decided we needed a little culture. So we headed to the Milwaukee Museum of Art. The building is really cool. Waddlesworth says it looks like it has wings. I think it looks like it has antlers.

The inside of the museum was neat too. This spot was perfect for us to take a break at.

There wasn't a whole lot of moose art, but I did like this funky picture that put you in the middle of the art. Can you see me over the girl's shoulder?

We really liked the drive home, too, since we got to see the park and Lake Michigan all covered with snow. Waddlesworth said that he wanted to stop and take a swim on one of the chunks of ice floating in the lake, but the humans were already shivering, so seeing it from the car had to do!

So, THIS is why they were traveling - to celebrate Christmas! I don't know much about Christmas, but we really enjoyed sitting on the presents under the tree!

And neither of us could resist a spin on the train.

Turns out that the candy cane car is a perfect way for a moose and penguin to travel!
After the humans opened their presents, I found a great surprise - a wooden moose for Mara to take home with her!

Opening presents was fun, but wearing the decorations was silly (ok, it was fun too!)

So, my first trip wasn't as bad as I thought! Even though it was fun, though, I'm glad to be home!

Happy New Year! I celebrated the New Year with the humans, who apparently have a tradition of playing board games with their friends. I was hoping to play CandyLand, but the humans wanted to play trivia games - movie trivia (which they weren't too good at) and Trivial Pursuit. At least they let me play Movie Trivia with them.

I'm pretty good at rolling the dice...

...but I don't know the answer to ANY of these questions!

Oh my - I am so excited! I am going to be going on my first trip by myself soon! I'm going somewhere called Germany. I did some research...

Did you know they have gummi bears there? Speaking of gummi bears, I tried to convince Mara that I needed some snacks for the trip. I don't think I'll be flying first class on this trip, so I really wanted to pick out something to keep me happy.
Of course, Mara pointed out that I probably don't want to get my new luggage sticky. Speaking of new luggage, Fenway and I picked out some nice luggage for our trips at Target. They're not fancy, but I like it.

Hi mom! I just crawled out of my envie and saw Petra's smiling face. I'm a little dizzy from my travel and so I will take a little rest now. In the afternoon I hope to see some places in Bruchsal. It is such a beautiful weather today.

Greetings from sunny Germany
Chocolate

It's carnival time, they call it the fifth season. Today was the carnival procession through the streets of Bruchsal. My host family met friends and then they stood in front of their house to watch the procession. We toyvoyagers didn't dress up today, but we will try to do it this coming week.
Here are a view impressions of the procession. Petra said, that it was just too much time between the groups, that came along the way.

After Petra came home from school, she asked us, whether we would like to go and see the nice view from top of the small hill called Michaelsberg, which belongs to Untergrombach, a suburb of Bruchsal.

The weather was foggy, so of course I couldn't see the Palatine mountains and very far into the Rhine valley. But at least I saw a part of Bruchsal in the far.


The quarry pond belongs to Untergrombach. Petra liked to swim there, when she was younger.


It was getting dark rather quickly.


This is the nice chapel called "Michaelskapelle".


It was rather cold there and windy. So we hurried to go back to the car. We took the last photo, while sitting in the car. It is a view to another suburb of Bruchsal, Obergrombach. And you see the Kraichgau hill country. I saw it much better than you do on this photo. It was just too dark already.

Yesterday something scaring happened to me. I didn't think anything bad, just sat together with my toyvoyager friends and talked about our stay here and where we will go next and so.
Suddenly a hand grapped Tenderheart Bear and me. I looked at the face and I saw a really young captain Jack Sparrow. Shock!!!!



I needed a while until I was able to open my eyes and to look in that face again. Phew, was I happy to see, that it only was my hosts son, who was dressed up as Jack Sparrow for his school carnival.

The kids took us with them to the carnival procession in Karlsdorf, which is a small town near to Bruchsal. We asked them to take some photos with us, but it didn't work so well. Ok, maybe it was also our fault, because we always tried to jump into the photos.
Nevertheless we can see them here and some other photos with witches, which are very important for carnival in Germany and a music group, which plays Guggenmusik - a music, that you only can listen to but not explain and some more.

Today we had to say GOODBYE to Tenderheart Bear and Sylphide. They will travel to Pandamao in Munich now. We all are a little sad of course, but I think, that some others will go on with their travel soon, too.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot to tell you, that Sylphide was so nervous, that she crawled into the wrong envie!!! Petra had to hold her and put her into the right box. Although we all had been sad, we had to laugh out loud.

Today evening we will go to a family carnival celebration. First we helped to prepare a carrot salad. It was a bit difficult to cut the carrots, because Hoppity suddenly seemed to be very hungry. We needed the help of that little snowman. Hoppity jumped down, because she was so excited to get closer to this toy.

In the evening we danced a little and once I jumped into the photo, so you can see, that I had been with them. It was too dark to find me on the other photos. And yes, you see me with some "Berliner", that they like to eat on carnival.