Travelog for: TobiHH

Hello,

now I am a ToyVoyager - and I want to see the world.

Rike told me, that we will go to Hamburg soon, so this will be my first trip, up to now, I relax on my blue heart. 

If you want to host me, just send a PM, please.

my plan so far :
Delenna in Finland.
Spadge in England.
Rennire in Canada.
jkrcvt in the USA.
Apperveilchen in Germany.
Iloveletters in Germany.
LittleBlogFrog in the UK.
Sammy in Germany.
Jess Roqs in the USA.
owedder in Russia.
ScillyHH in Germany/England.
fam-united in Germany.
mmm105 in Finland.
strunki in Germany.
HoBi in Germany.  <- here I am now!

Today we went to Hamburg, because the port has birthday.



We saw a lot of nice ships.







This big cruise-ship is called Voyagers of the Seas – it should be ToyVoyagers of the Seas…



The other one is called Amadea –
now I have already two pictures with me and cruise-ships !



These are old storehouses…



And this is me in front of the townhall.


We were tired and drove back home.



It is great to be a ToyVoyager !

We made a trip with the bike today.
The nice yellow fields are typical for Northern Germany at this time of the year. The plant is called rape we think, in German it is Raps, a funny word.





Then we saw this nice maypole…



…and made a rest next to a lovely lake. We all had fun together.





In the evening I said good-bye to the rest, because I will start my trip to Finland now. I am so excited, and hope, that I will be there soon !

Here I am! In Finland! My first tv-destination! I was lucky as my host was on her way to do some sightseeing when she picked me up from the post office. So, here I am on Castle Hill (Linnamäki) in Porvoo. As the name reveals here has been a castle hundreds of years ago. That's also where the settlement in this area began: from the castle spreading everywhere. Now there's only the hill and castle moats left. The view to the town is really nice! You can see the Old Porvoo and the bridges crossing the river.

This also the place Porvoo got its name from. Porvoo is Borgå in Swedish: Borg (castle) + å (river). The finnish way of saying it is then Porvoo.

After Castle Hill we drove down to see the Old Porvoo riverside. That bridge is the very first built in Porvoo. Those red shorehouses the the most wellknown sight in this city. They got their colour only in the late 18th century. Red ochre paint was used to paint the shore houses in honour of King Gustav III's arrival from Sweden. All of the houses along his route were painted, in order to make them more beautiful. The red ochre also helped protect the logs from wind and sun damage. They are used as storage and living quarters nowadays.

The cannon is naturally not in use - it's from the World War II.
The "peek-a-boo" couple is part of the celebration of 200 years since the Porvoo Diet. On the Diet Porvoo was promoted as a nation among nations by the Russian emperor. That event helped Finland become independent.

When we arrived 'home' we had a small party to celebrate Alfie Langer's 2nd birthday. He had a bigger party earlier with his Anniversary of Arrival so thoday we had 'only' nacho cheese balls and watched KungFu Panda. But it was fun! And I got to meet all the tvs in the house: Savannah (leopard), Gary Boldie (bear with green clothes), Alfie Langer (in the middle), me and Leonard (the little birdie).

My host lives by the Baltic Sea - which is shown here. They have so much archipelago around that you don't get an open sea view. But this is it  The creator of Moomin spent her summers on one of the islands nearby!

There were many boats but no cruisers. More boats will show up sooner or later, maybe there'll be a cruiser too...

Today my host took me to a Handicrafts & Heritage Event held in the Art Factory. It was right next to Porvoo river and the newest bridge. The Art Factory itself is an ugly brick building - there is an ongoing debate whether it should be protected or bulldozed down...

There (at the event) were many skillfull people showing their work which included jewelry, clothes, kitchenware, toys, food, ornaments... You can see also Marimekko items there. Marimekko is a famous Finnish brand - even Hillary Clinton has been shopping Marimekko! My host got that cross necklace for her goddaughter who will throw a confirmation party later this summer.

After the event we crossed the bridge and walked up and down the riverbank to another Handicrafts event.  That event was all about selling cool stuff - outdoors and without entrance fee. My host wished she had had more money with her...

That sailboat is just across the river where we continued our walk. It's galley m/aux Marita which was built in 1947 as cargo ship. Nowadays you can rent it for cruises (a 6h cruise costs 2250euros altogether) or accommodation.

I saw a lot of boats! Some of them were local river-cruiseships, like the two in the 3rd photo (and the sailboat)  The red one is called Fredrika, after the wife of a famous poet (JL Runeberg). Mrs Runeberg was sophisticated and wrote too but it was harder for a woman in those days - she had to use a male alias to publish her work! Mr Runeberg has his own name-sake boat.

After the event we took some pics on the pedestrian bridge, a small look over the riverbank. In the very last picture you can see the Art Factory from further away.

After the events we went to the local "sightseeing tower". I got a relly good view over the city of Porvoo! Porvoo is the 2nd oldest city in Finland. It has almost 50 000 inhabitants of which 33% is native Swedish speakers (finnishswedish). Porvoo is only 50km east from Helsinki, the capitol of Finland. It takes less than an hour to drive there.

In the 5th photo you can see the roof of Art Factory (on the right)...  We also walked further away on the hill to see Old Porvoo from "above". You can see the church and the old bridge and Castle Hill - all that I visited a few days ago 

My showed me the tallest bridge in town! It hasn't been here always, years ago you had to take the ferry boat to get over the water. The ferry could hold about 8 cars at once and it drove back and forth the whole day.  We went to see the views from both sides  In the first photo is evidence that I saw the previously mentioned \"cruiser\" JL Runeberg! In the second photo are the firedepartment boats that I saw. In the last photo you can see the oil industry area, it's really huge and employs about half of the city 

I also saw spooky old boats that aren't in use anymore. They were creepy somehow!

Soon we'll celebrate the birthday of my host's daughter. Naturally we wanted to help preparing everything! We baked "moccabites" which basically are chocolate pastries. First we made the dough and baked it and then we cut it into different shapes - with cookie cutters. I made Moominpappa. Then we got to decorate them  We got to eat the leftovers 

We also helped fill the pinjata - or actually a puljata as you had to pull it open instead of hitting it. We filled balloons too - see how helpfull we were!

Last but not least we made a "snowball"-cake. We had tons of icecream and made tons of "snowballs" of it  We decorated the snowballs with marzipan figures made by my host's sister - they look awesome!

Ahem... My host said she doesn't want to upload a picture of the party when it was over. Just imagine: house full of kids (all under the age of 8). Add streamer and soap bubbles. Add gift wrappings. Add food.

Know what that adds up to? I can give you a hint. M. E. S. S. Y. 

But we had a great time!

This weekend is held a World Village Festival in Helsinki - and my host is going to stand behind a table there, and she took me with her! We arrived in the capitol of Finland, Helsinki, early enough to take some photos in the very center. First you see the busstation/mall called Kamppi. It has 6 levels of which 1,5 are for long route busses and the rest are shops and restaurants etc.  It's relatively new as it was build only a few years ago.

Then there is the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma with weird statue/art on front - and the statue of Mannerheim (a former president and war marshal) with his horse. He was the president of Finland in 1944-46. Some people, including Renny Harlin (a Finnish movie director, producer etc. living in the USA), are planning on a film on Mannerheim. They have been for a few years and have to my knowledge filmed some of it too. They have had some financial issues concerning the Mannerheim movie. 

I also saw the parliament and metallic strawberries And the Central Railway Station which was built in 1860.

This is the World Village Festival held annually in Helsinki! This year, which is the 10th time this festival is held,  it starts from the side of the Central Railway Station and continues as usual to a park further away (Kaisaniemi Park). There was many performers (music, dance, art) from Finland and abroad, food from Africa and Asia etc, charity/volunteer work organizations, craftsmen selling their stuff, UN, politics, world books... etc etc! This years main theme was the climate.

We took pics when we first arrived, before there was public - as you can see the pics that were taken after the public arrived it's very crowded. The weather was horrible! It rained so much we had a pond on our feet  most of the time (the roof didn't hold). I helped my host at "her stand" (a small organization that does charity for children). I sold some lottery tickets with Alfie, Gary and Leonard. My host had made some of the prizes!

We were there the whole day. Fortunately we didn't have to stand at one place the whole time, The stand was in one huge tent called the "market of possibilities tent" and there were exhibitors from child sponsorship, volunteer work, development cooperation plus a "general section". We also saw Signmark perform! He's a deaf (yes deaf!) rapper (hip hop is their official "genre" but my host thinks "hiphopper" sounds kinda funny - she doesn't know much about music...)! He raps with a few other guys who do the same rap in Finnish and/or English and then there's the dj. Signmark himself raps in Finnish sign language. It was cool! They had so much fun on stage! If you check their/his website you find some of the lyrics in German too 

When we left by buss my host took a quick shot of me and the Opera House. Then I fell assleep...