Travelog for: Sooky

Hi!
Im Sooky and I want to see the world, but first I will show you a bit of my world!

This is my little house



Take a look out of my windows



Here we was go for a walk

Before a few days we was go for a walk again. I will show yousome pictures about the nice landscape here!

That was a quick journey.
I'm so happy to be in Heidelberg now.
When my parcel was opened, I was greeted by a friendly husky.
His name is Nook and he has already been staying
with my host Daniela for a couple of days. I shared the
the candies I had brought with me with him. 

Dear Mum

Wow, I've already made my first excursion. Daniela was a bit worried whether I might be too exhausted after the journey. Not at all, I'm anxious to see new things so when she offered me to take me and Nook to Schwetzingen, I immediately agreed. We went by bike, it's a small town about 10 km away from Heidelberg and we mainly cycled along fields.





When we arrived in Schwetzingen we passed a shop where a wooden horse stood outside as decoration. I really loved it and so Daniela let me sit on it and took a photo.



Here you can see the street which leads to the castle:



Nook and I are taking a rest in the sun:



This is part of the castle. We didn't go inside but just took a walk in the castle's park which is very big and very nice.



Aren't these flowers beautiful?





That's the main building of the castle behind me, we're now halfway through the park.



Interesting sculpture, isn't it?



I'm taking a rest at the lake.



Another sculpture:



The mosque which was built in the 18th century without any religious purpose.





Taking a rest again



I just loved these red leaves







Nook and me at the big fountain in the middle of the park.







It was a wonderful afternoon and we were lucky to have fantastic weather, too.

Bye for now.

Dear Mum

I helped Daniela to write some postcards. There were quite a few, including a couple of animal cards, but no pig card was among them, can you imagine that? Well, it was nevertheless fun to write the cards and look at the pictures. They went to people in Germany, Estonia, Belarus, Russia, Italy, Ireland and Japan - those are the ones I can remember.



Have a nice weekend.

Bye, Sooky

Dear Mum

Today we went to a shopping centre a bit outside of Heidelberg. We passed along some fields which were partly harvested.



Nook and I rested on a stack of wook, it was so nice and sunny, not at all like autumn.



I found a tree trunk which was great for playing on it.



This field is completely harvested. The mountains which surround Heidelberg are behind me.



This is the shopping centre we went to.



On the way back we passed a paddock and saw some horses. This white one came very close.





There were more horses but they wouldn't come nearer.





When we returned home, there was a pile of postcards and letters waiting, it took us quite a while to read them.



And guess what? Another TV has arrived. His name is Rendolph and he's a reindeer. He had brought some candies with him and shared them with us ... yummie.



Bye until next time.

Sooky

Hi Mum

I'm doing fine. Nuriayasmin is working night shifts so I'm staying at home. The weather has been quite ugly recently, too. Today a new TV arrived. It's a ladybird called HelgaHH who's originally from Germany, too but has now travelled all the way from Canada. We were all very excited when we saw the envelope and gathered around it.



Then nuriayasmin opened it and HelgaHH came out and showed us the postcard and fridge magnet she had brought with her.



I will soon write to you again. Bye for now.

Sooky

Dear Mum

Today we went hiking in the nature reserve Neckartal-Odenwald. First we took a bus to the mountain of Königsstuhl. There's also a cable car going to its top but currently it runs only part of the track, due to maintenance works. However, we had a short look at the funicular railway station.





Then we started our tour and used the Via Naturae, a hiking trail which covers about 8 km of the nature reserve.





The first few hundred meters covered part of the nature education trail for children.





After one hour of walking we came to a forest lodge where we rested and ate a little.







We passed a lot of logs, here you can see me sitting on one:



There were also quite a few stones with directions:



I like the forest, it's very beautiful.







That's all for today.

Sooky

Dear Mum

Today I accompanied nuriayasmin to the city centre where she first went to her Tai Chi lesson and then had to buy a couple of things. Unfortunately the weather was quite cold and rainy but I was anxious to see a bit of Heidelberg.

This is the Hotel Zum Ritter. It was built in 1592 and was the only house which survived the great fire from 1635.



Opposite of it is Heidelberg's biggest church, the Church of the Holy Spirit which is also the centre of the Old City and surrounded by souvenir stands.





Next to the church there's the Market Square and the Town Hall.



Here you can see Heidelberg's famous castle in the background.



We walked through some of the narrow alleys.



This is the Old Bridge. It was built in 1788, crosses the river Neckar and was the 9th bridge built there.



The gate which leads to the Old Bridge:



The original bridge monkey was sitting in front of the bridge from the early 17th century on but got lost when parts of Heidelberg were destroyed in 1689. This new money is from 1977 and tourists love to take their pictures with it. Well, and I am a tourist after all, ain't I?



We tried to take another photo of the castle from the bridge but that's easier said than done when I'm supposed to be part of the photo, so nuriayasmin finally decided to zoom the castle nearer and take one picture without me.





That's all for today.

Bye, Sooky.

Dear Mum

Yesterday we said good-bye to Priscilla, the dolphin. She's travelling to her first host fam-united. Even my host's cat Sammy was curious.





Sooky

Dear Mum

How are you? I'm doing fine and would like to tell you that I visited the zoo here in Heidelberg. It's just a small one but we nevertheless saw some interesting animals.

Here you can see me in front of the zoos entrance:



First we saw some Shetland Ponies:



Then I read some interesting information about huge turtles who live who various islands worldwide, for example the Galapagos Islands.



I relaxed in front of a small waterfall.



And I played on this funny crocodile.



I made friends with some goats





There were also birds at the zoo.



The merkats were very cute but also very fast, they were always running from one corner to the next.



I liked this penguin sculpture.



There's a group of 4 young male Asian elephants living at the zoo and I read the information about them.



Then we passed the African animals like zebras and antilopes.



And this is a North Sea scenery.

Dear Mum

I had a very busy day and would like to show you how I spent it.

Nook and I got up quite early and had breakfast. There was some cake left from yesterday and we also shared a cup of hot chocolate. That's a good way to start the day, isn't it?



As all TV's here want to see as much of the world as possible, we thought it would be a good idea to learn an additional language. Fortunately our host is quite a language nerd. She showed us all her text books and grammars for Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Czech, Slovak, Russian and Japanese.



I decided to give it a try with Japanese but goodness that's really a challenge. Japanese grammar is actually quite easy, just the sentence structure is a bit unusual, the verb always stands at the end of each sentence. However, Japanese has various forms of politeness and those distinctions are quite difficult to learn for a foreigner. And writing Japanese is probably the biggest challenge. The Chinese Kanji are most difficult to learn while the Hiragana alphabet is quite easy. Kanji are mainly complemented by Hiragana characters to express grammatical issues. It would be possible to write everything using Hiragana, though and books for small children are actually written completely in Hiragana. Last not least there are the Katakana which are very similar to the Hiragana and used to write foreign names and words. I've learnt to write my name in Japanese using Katakana: スキ.



After my Japanese studies, I had a look outside and it was so cold and foggy that I stuck to my decision to stay at home today.



There were still some household tasks to do, anyway. We all helped to get the clean clothes out of the washing-machine.



Afterwards I was hungry and ate some Chinese noodles. I tried to eat with sticks but it didn't work very well, I still need some practise.



Have I told you that there's a new cat here? Her name is Shelley and she's from the animal shelter. She's 14 years old like the big cat Sammy but she moves much slower than him and looks old. But she's very nice.



In the afternoon it was time for some cookies and a big hot cup of tea. All TV's loved the Swedish cookies nuriayasmin had bought this morning. We chatted and told each other about our language studies.





Afterwards I helped nuriayasmin to do some ironing. I'm glad I don't wear clothes because ironing really isn't funny, it's hard and boring.



When I had finished it was already dark and the only remaining task was to update my travelog and send greetings to you. I also enjoyed looking at the old pictures.



Bye,
Sooky

Dear Mum

Today a bunch of ToyVoyagers invaded Heidelberg Castle. There are stairs which lead to the castle which is situated in the mountains over the city and we climbed them - about 400 I guess. Afterwards we needed to take a rest and took the chance for a group photo.



I had a look down to the city. It's a bit foggy up here as always during the last two or three weeks.



The castle of Heidelberg was built in the 13th century. For a while there were two castles, one situated a bit higher than the remains of the current one.  During the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648) the castle was attacked and partly destroyed for the first time. In 1692 the castle was destroyed by the French and although basic repairs were made, the castle has basically remained a ruin since then. In the early 19th century a French count became interested in the castle and served as a voluntary castle warden. Between 1897 and 1900 the castle was partly reconstructed and became one of Germany's main tourist attractions.









Another look to the city centre, the Old Bridge and the river Neckar.



Bye, Sooky

Hi Mum

I'm so excited. Yesterday nuriayasmin told me that you have arranged another host for me and today I'm already leaving. So I packed my things in a hurry and said good-bye to the other TV's. I had a great time here in Heidelberg and am looking forward to more adventures now.









Talk to you soon, Sooky

heeeey mum! 

i arrived at my new host family today the trip took only one day but that was definitely enough! a monkey, lui and a sheep with supercool dreadlocks, ziggy, who also live here opened my box!



Lui was so nice to warm me up a little bit!



i had to drink something, i was sooo thirsty!



now i'll take a rest and then we're having lunch! yummiii!

love you!

your sooky