Teddy Bears Around the World

Hello!

My name is Peppa and I am very excited to be joining all the Teddy Bears around the world! I belong to a little girl named Mozart who is traveling around the world, so I am seeing lots of fun places.

She turned 7 this past fall when she was in Austria. Guess where she found me? In Vienna, Austria at the oldest zoo in the world! Mozart loves Panda bears and there was a new baby panda at the zoo which she really liked. You can see pictures here. She could not take that baby home with her, but when she saw me in the gift shop, it was love at first sight!

I will share more about our travels to many countries later, but right now we are in Spain, so let me tell you about our life here. Do you see the RV in my picture? That is our home in the spring, summer and fall! When it starts getting to cold and rainy in Europe late in the fall, we head to the deep southern part of Spain called Andalusia because it is one of the sunniest, warmest, happiest places on earth.

We live in a village house in a tiny white village located between Malaga and Granada. This is Mozart’s second winter here, so she knows all the kids. She is bilingual in Spanish and English. She homeschools in English all year long, but when she is in Spain she goes to the local school where the teachers do not speak any English. Most of the other kids only speak Spanish, but a few are from other countries, so speak other languages, including a few from the UK who speak English.

Other wise the children learn most of the same things that you do. They like to play and jump rope at recess. They like to take field trips. They like to learn about everything and have fun. Here is a picture of Mozart’s class.

Mozart plays the violin and the piano after school. She practices the violin before school and walks to the other side of the village with her mom or dad on Thursdays for her lesson. On Tuesdays she takes a piano lesson from her teacher who lives far away in Chicago. He teaches her over the computer with skype. Mozart also uses her laptop to see and talk to her Grandma and friends in California via webcam free calls. Here is a video of Mozart playing her violin in many of the countries she has visited:
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Andalusia is famous for a very ancient dance called flamenco. Mozart loves flamenco and she gets to wear high heels and a fancy dress. She does flamenco lessons on Monday and Wednesday and also walks to her lessons for that with one of her parents. This is a video of her doing flamenco at a performance last year.

Andalusia is also famous for it’s festivals. There are many exciting festivals and Mozart and I love them. Here are two videos showing the two different festivals. The first one is

Eddy from England I would like some help please. My class are using all of my Teddy Bear friends around the world to help them with their geography this term. They are investigating the different climates in the places you all live and the activities that your children do to compare the leisure activities that are available depending on the climate and location. If any of you are able to help we would be most grateful. If my class can help you in any way for any of your studies you only have to ask and we will help all that we can. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you all so much

From Eddy in Bideford Devon England

Lance has been busy at his school, the American School of Madrid. He’s been working with the Digital Media Kids after school to show and tell you about our school. We would like to share 3 of his favorite places and things to do at ASM: the Art Room, the soccer field and the playground. Next to each image are audio files to tell about each place. Enjoy!

About the Art Room

About our playground

About our soccer field

Hola from Spain. I’ve been a busy bear lately! The kids have been taking me on field trips with them and I marched in a costume parade last week! I’ve been ice-skating, to a botanical garden and to lunch at a Chinese restaurant! Read on to hear more about my recent adventures!

There is no outdoor ice-skating in Madrid because it rarely gets very cold, but I went ice-skating with the kindergarten kids indoors! The best part was that a bunch of us couldn’t skate when we went there but we kept trying and skated without holding on to the side after awhile. I had a really good time and we want to go again.

In pre-school and kindergarten, we celebrated Carnaval, which is the name for Mardi Gras in Spain! We dressed up in costumes and made stunning masks to disguise ourselves. Lance loved seeing all the costumes and participating in the parade! To learn more about Carnaval as celebrated all over the world, click here.

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Lunch at the Chinese restaurant was delicious! I had a difficult time using the chopsticks but the kids helped me. I liked sitting up on this statue so I could see everyone.

  Hi my name is Eddy. I am the new Travelling Bear for class 2& 3 at Edgehill College, Bideford. I am very lucky to live in the beautiful countryside of North Devon, England, within a few short miles of a wonderful beach. I am looking forward to having many adventures and being able to share them all with you. My class are very lucky and they do lots of exciting things and I am looking forward to accompanying them to many events. I have already been on my first outing to a gymnastics competition and Jamie our Form Captain will be helping me to write about my first big adventure, watch this space.

Hi everyone,

I had the wonderful chance to go with Mrs. Freyer to Sweden over the Christmas holiday. I was lucky because it was snowing when I walked out of Arlanda airport in Stockholm! It felt funny actually having snow flakes fall on my fur. I was very thankful that I had fur, because I do not own a winter coat. Mrs. Freyer took pictures of me right after we got off the plane. The Swedish children, who were also on my plane, noticed me right away and kept tugging on their parent’s sleeves saying, “Titta pa bjornen!” Look at the bear! On the way from the airport, Mrs. Freyer’s cousin Charlotta took us on a tour of Djursholm, a suburb of Stockholm. We stopped at Mrs. Freyer’s uncle’s house and took pictures, because it looked so pretty in the snow. There was 4 inches of snow on the ground, and it was still snowing.

Mrs. Freyer’s cousin lives in an apartment right next to a national park. In Sweden, many people live in apartments that they own, sort of like our condominiums. Charlotta lives with her two daughters, Caroline and Jessica. Their apartment has 3 bedrooms, 1 and ½ bathrooms, a family room, and a kitchen. Did you know that mail trucks are yellow in Sweden? You can see one behind me in one of the pictures.

Through the front window of the apartment, I saw children sledding the in the snow. I was very excited to try sledding, but all I had was my furry bottom to slide on. Mrs. Freyer thought I should try it anyway, so I did. Boy, my bottom was icy afterwards, but it was a lot of fun. I also had fun exploring the playground and seeing if it was any different than our playground at San Jose Episcopal. There was a swing set, playhouse, and even a grill for outdoor picnics. With all the snow around I knew I had to build a snowman. The first one I built was my size, and I was very proud of it. I later found a large one that the children of the neighborhood had made. Can you see what the mouth is made of?

The second day in Sweden we went to a Swedish shopping mall called Taby Centrum. It is just like an American mall and has many shops. Mrs. Freyer had to buy snow boots since they are hard to find in Florida, so we went into many stores. We soon learned the Swedish word for sale is rea. All the stores had great after Christmas sales and soon Mrs. Freyer was able to find a good pair of snow boots.

The next day, I took a long walk in the national forest. The trees were beautiful, because they were covered with snow. I even found another snowman. The forest was very quiet, and the snow crunched under my feet as I walked. Do you know what they do with golf courses during the winter in Sweden? They cross country ski on them! Can you believe it?

One day, I went into downtown Stockholm. It was the day that the Swedish Junior National hockey team was playing Canada’s team for the world championships. (Canada won) I saw a big group of Canadian teenagers at the ice rink in the center of Stockholm. They were all wearing red hockey jerseys. During the winter in Sweden, it starts to get dark around 3:00. By 4:00 it is completely dark, but the Swedes keep their Christmas decorations up until January 13th so the landscape is not so dark. Next, I walked down the main shopping street which was lit by the many shops and the Christmas wreaths hanging above the walkway. By that time, the temperature had dropped to 28 degrees, and I was cold so we decided to go home. On the way to the car we passed an Audi car dealership. It fun to see that the car dealerships in down town Stockholm were inside an office building! The car in the front window was decorated for Christmas. Can you tell what they used to decorate the car?

On Sunday, we visited a Lutheran church near Charlotta’s house. It was 900 years old! That is older than our country. It was made of stone, and the inside was beautiful. The pews had doors on them, and the organ pipes were high up in the back of the church. The alter area was incredibly beautiful. The story goes that, at one time, all the walls were painted with pictures of biblical figures. About 400 years ago, these walls were all painted over with white paint when some church leaders felt that the paintings were too distracting. A few years ago, the walls needed to be repaired and the workman found the original paintings. Experts were brought in to restore some of the paintings. Can you see the original wall paintings?

Mrs. Freyer had a great time seeing all of her relatives on this visit and eating the wonderful food. The best meal we had was at a restaurant in downtown Stockholm. I had potatoes with salmon and a small green salad. It was yummy. I ate a lot of fresh salmon while I was there, as well as, Swedish meatballs and boiled red potatoes. At one family meal, we had an open faced sandwich with cheese, salmon, shrimp, and boiled eggs. At another, we had a potato casserole, cold sliced roast beef and ham, and fresh tomato and cucumber salad.

Finally, it was time for me to go home. We said goodbye to all of Mrs. Freyer’s relatives and flew to Chicago. Here is a picture of me waiting for my plane in the Chicago airport. It was very cold, but there was no snow. I think I will remember this special trip to Sweden for a very long time.

Hi! I’m a brother of José the Bear, the San Jose Episcopal Day School Travel Bear mascot.

In October of 2007, I traveled to Europe with my school buddy, Spencer. After hibernating during the overnight flight, I was elated to have arrived at my initial destination, Paris, France. I declared in my most proper growl, “Bonjour!” to the famous Eiffel Tower and gnoshed on crêpes and croissants. Riding on the bateaux down the River Seine, visiting the Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, and the Louvre were spectacular. The Opera House and Sacré Coeur on Montmartre were both fantastique.

Spencer tucked me back into my knapsack to travel on to Düsseldorf, Germany along the beautiful River Rhine, then Maaseik, Belgium with their chocolates (yummy, yum!) and workhorses, and The Netherlands to see the windmills.

I returned to the States via a stop in London, all along snoozing in the large, speedy metal-winged bird, dreaming of my busy adventures. Au revoir! Auf wiedersehen! Tot ziens!