Gummy Bear sails out of busy Auckland Harbor. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy Bear zoomed half-way around the world this fall to discover New Zealand during the annual conference of the Society of American Travel Writers. Gummy travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio.

Gummy learns about coffee roasting from Master Roaster Joseph Stoddart at Havanna Coffee Works, Wellington. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy found herself in–or at least near– some hot water at Havana Coffee Works in Wellington, which roasts 14 types of coffee. Master roaster Joseph Stoddart took the time to show Gummy the giant coffee roaster, which heats up to 204 degrees Celsius/400 degrees Fahrenheit. Wow! Gummy sipped a flat white coffee to recover.

And what goes better with coffee than chocolate? Gummy went to the little town of Greytown to jump right into Schoc Chocolates, the Global Home of Chocolate Therapy, Ltd. Gummy is a firm believer in “the spiritual benefits of chocolate,” as Schoc puts it.

She was ready to try lemon-and-black pepper chocolate, sea salt bittersweet, lemon white and tropical heat with curry powder, coconut and pineapple in white chocolate.

Gummy even tried a blind taste test, and realized she needs to work on her chocolate palate. She didn’t pick out many of the flavors, such as apricot and rosemary, dried basil, lavender, or lime and chili, which is Schoc’s bestseller.

Gummy Bear with truffles at Schoc Chocolates. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy dives into chocolate nibs during her visit to Schoc Chocolates in Greytown. Betsa Marsh photo

After eating her way through Wellington, Gummy hopped onto a catamaran out of Auckland Harbor and set sail for the Hauraki Gulf. It’s pretty smooth sailing through these protected waters, and she loved her berth on the luxurious Island Passage.

Gummy Bear whispers nautical advice to Capt. Vincent Maurice of the Island Passage. Betsa Marsh photo

Soon, the Island Passage sailed over to Waiheke Island, where many Aucklanders live and commute by ferry into the city each work day. Gummy met Paora, a sculptor who began as a jewelry designer, then moved to jade carving and is now sculpting. He showed Gummy a pukaea, a trumpet he carved of granite. Among the native Maori people of New Zealand, it was used to tell a tribe that a battle was about to begin.

Gummy Bear meets sculptor Paora on Waiheke Island. Betsa Marsh photo

Sculptor Paora demonstrates the native Maori pukaea trumpet. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy also learned to fish, with the help of the Island Passage fishing guide James Brown.

Fishing guide James Brown takes Gummy out on a fishing excursion. Betsa Marsh photo

One shore trip was especially exciting, as Gummy met 4-year-old Pippa at Glenfern Sanctuary on Great Barrier Island. Her parents, Dr. Emma Cronin and Scott Sambell, are busy trying to save some of New Zealand’s rarest birds from predators such as ship rats, cats and pigs.

Gummy meets Pippa at the Glenfern Sanctuary on Great Barrier Island. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy climbs up to enjoy a view of Port Fitzroy on Great Barrier Island, above Glenfern Sanctuary. Betsa Marsh photo

Also on Great Barrier Island, Gummy takes the tender over to Sven and Trish Stellin’s place, where they make Barrier Gold lotions from the manuka and kanuka plants. And Gummy couldn’t resist one more flavor of New Zealand–sampling the strong flavor of manuka honey.

Gummy gets ready to dip into strong manuka honey, distinctive to New Zealand. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy Bear is ready for the road and National Passport Day, armed with her Pawsport from Build-a-Bear. Betsa Marsh photo

Gummy Bear, the new SATW Traveling Teddy for St. Joseph Consolidated School, is gearing up for National Passport Day Sept. 17. “Have pawsport, will roam” is the Traveling Teddy motto!

Gummy travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph in Hamilton, Ohio.  The class named her in their first Traveling Teddy meet-and-greet.  The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers, a group  of travel professionals from the U.S. and Canada.

Gummy’s first adventure was close to home, visiting the Ohio Statehouse in the capital of Columbus. She got to check out the beautifully restored rotunda and count the memorials to President Abraham Lincoln. The 16th president once spoke on the lawn of the Statehouse.

Gummy Bear at the Ohio Statehouse. Betsa Marsh photos

Gummy with a Civil War cannon. Union troops once camped on the Ohio Statehouse lawn. Betsa Marsh photo

Johnny X gears up for his shark dive at The Bistro off Beqa Island. Betsa Marsh photo

By Betsa Marsh

Johnny X the SATW Traveling Teddy crossed the International Dateline to explore Fiji–the two-day odyssey felt a bit like a mini-hibernation.

Johnny flew across the US and the Pacific Ocean, took a bus and then hopped two boats to get to Beqa Island, pronounced “Mbenga”–that word took some practice! Johnny X travels for the third-grade class of St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio.

Johnny was coming to scuba dive in the warm water, where giant soft corals sway in the current and divemaster Joeli Delana led a shark dive! At 86 feet below the surface, we watched nurse, lemon and bull sharks swim by and snap severed skipjack fish heads out of Joeli’s hand in a fluid buffet line. Yikes!

Back on land, Johnny X went to the Methodist Church in the village of Raviravi, and later that day met a young chorister performing with the full church choir back at the Beqa Lagoon Resort.

Johnny X meets a young chorister of Raviravi Methodist Church on Beqa Island. Betsa Marsh photo

After catching two return boats and heading to Fiji’s largest island, Viti Levu, Johnny X traveled inland a bit, meeting young friends in the pottery village of Lawai. And he even jumped into the arms of the village’s  young warrior, Inosi Navoto of the warrior clan. That warclub he was carrying looked serious!

Johnny with children at Lawai pottery village. Betsa Marsh photo

Johnny with warrior Inosi Navoto in Lawai pottery village. Betsa Marsh photo

During a Waitui breakfast at the Warwick Fiji Hotel, Johnny X did a double-take–was that really a mermaid? Sure enough, and she wanted to cuddle with the furry little bear.

Johnny with a mermaid at Warwick Fiji Resort. Betsa Marsh photo

Even closer with a mermaid! Betsa Marsh photo

To wrap up an unforgettable Fijian trip, Johnny X jetboated up the Sigatoka River and met the village elders of  Naveyado Village. Afterwards, he joined a giant communal feast,

Yum! The village feast in Naveyado Village. Betsa Marsh photo

sitting on the floor, then dancing with his new village friends. Soon it really was time to hibernate on the two-day trip across the International Dateline to his den back home.

Johnny X prepares for his pretzel class at Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn. Betsa Marsh photo

Traveling Teddy Johnny X ran hot and cold on travel early in the New Year—heading north to frozen Michigan and out west to sunny San Diego.

Johnny X is the SATW Traveling Teddy who globetrots for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. Right after he tossed confetti and twirled his noisemaker on New Year’s Eve, Johnny X headed to Traverse City and Petoskey, to ski at Boyne Mountain and taste some fabulous Michigan cherries.

Johnny X prefecting the pretzel. Betsa Marsh photo

He visited the enclave of Bay View, which has been setting a good, sober example in Petoskey since 1875. The Methodist Church created a Chautauqua-style summer village, and today this little Victorian chunk of town still has 440 private cottages. Johnny X is drawn to the gingerbread houses at the Terrace Inn—he had to be restrained from nibbling on the carousel, church and museum.

Johnny X with Bay View carousel. Betsa Marsh photo

Johnny X with Bay View Museum. Betsa Marsh photo

Wrapping up his Michigan trip , Johnny X flashed back to his Germany trip last as soon as he entered the little Bavarian village of Frankenmuth. He learned to roll pretzels the old-fashioned way at the Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn, then munched through his own handmade delicacy fresh from the oven.

Shedding his boots and ski gear, Johnny packed his T-shirts for San Diego, where it was a glorious 80 degrees. He wandered the seaport and met the locals, blissfully forgetting the 20-degree temperatures back home. He toured the USS Midway, admired the iconic World War II statue of a sailor kissing a nurse, and got to practice his surfing.

Johnny X looking for a wave in San Diego. Diana Lambdin Meyer photo

Johnny X admiring the victory statue in San Diego harbor. Diana Lambdin Meyer photo

Johnny X with the USS Midway in San Diego harbor. Diana Lambdin Meyer photo

Johnny X and his cappuccino at the Grand Cafe Orient in Prague. Betsa Marsh photo

Johnny X, the SATW Traveling Teddy who globetrots for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio, recently toured Prague. He enjoyed walking the narrow, twisting paths of Old Town and The Jewish Quarter, exploring Prague’s unbroken millennium of architecture, but after a few hours, he needed to rest his paws.

Johnny X followed the hiss of the cappuccino machine and its restorative fumes to the Grand Café Orient, a re-opened jewel box within the world’s first Cubist House.

Guide Milos Curick instructed Johnny X in the correct Czech way to drink coffee: water first, then coffee, then cleanse your palate with water again. Work in the café’s tasty little coconut cookie as you like.

Architect Josef Gočár built the House at the Black Madonna more than a century ago in the new Cubist style–the Czechs took Picasso’s Cubist ideas and ran with them. But Gocar respected the Baroque buildings around the new style, topping off his creation with a traditional mansard roof and retaining the Black Madonna sculpture on the corner, following the medieval system of house signs for an illiterate populace.

The house holds the Cubism museum and the Kubista store, with authorized, handmade reproductions. The shop is full of china, furniture and jewelry in the Cubist mode.

Upstairs, the Grand Café Orient recreates the café of nearly a century ago, with Gocar’s Cubist chandeliers, coat hooks—even the tortes have Cubist decorations.

The Grand Café Orient is Cubist from chandelier to coffee cup. Betsa Marsh photo

Even the tortes have Cubist themes at the Grand Café Orient. Betsa Marsh photo

Ragtime plays on the PA, and a young waiter shimmies back to his station, dancing in syncopation to the music of his great-great-grandparents. It’s nothing he’d download to his iPod, for sure, but he’s happy to enjoy a bit of bygone rhythm as one sliver of Prague’s 1,000-year continuum.

Johnny X with Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora at the ruins of the Marienthron Convent. Betsa Marsh photo

Johnny X’s head is still spinning—globespinning—from all the famous spirits he met recently in Germany. 

Johnny X, the SATW Traveling Teddy who globetrots for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio, started by meeting Martin Luther and his wife, Katharina von Bora in Nimbschen. Katharina was a nun for 10 years in the Marienthron Convent, now a moody ruin, when she heard of Luther’s teachings in the Reformation. He said nuns could marry and have children and be good Christians. Von Bora rebelled against, as she said, the “uselessness of being imprisoned” in a convent, and in 1523, escaped with eight other nuns—inside old herring barrels. 

She fled to Wittenberg, and married Martin Luther two years later. Today, the couple is portrayed by Dr. Fred Urban and his wife Grit. They own the nearby Hotel Kloster, much of it built with stones from the monastery. 

North in the beautiful village of Grimma, Johnny X got in the military mode with a member of the Hussars, who fought on horseback. They lived in Grimma for 100 years, from 1791-1891. 

“The Hussars were famous,” said Grimma Mayor Matthias Berger. “They lost every fight.” 

Johnny X with a Hussar at the 1442 Grimma Rathaus. Betsa Marsh photo

Moving east, Johnny X stepped into the heady world of the Saxony court, meeting the legendary Augustus the Strong and his favorite mistress, Countess Constantia Cosel. They presided over an elegant court dance in front of Augustus’ Zwinger Palace.

Heading west to Leipzig,  Johnny X picked up the new musical trail that will connect 300 years of music in the city in 2011. He stopped by the Bach Museum and Archive to pay his respects and see treasures from the composer’s life, such as fragments from his oak coffin, his wife’s thimble and original music pages. 

Bach’s music was revived by Felix Mendelssohn, whose final home has been restored in the city. “Mendelssohn was the first to put up a memorial stone for Bach,” event manager Katharina Lengert said. Johnny X was privileged to hear a short concert by Judith Hering, playing a bit of Mendelssohn’s music from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” 

Johnny X with Augustus the Strong and Countess Constantia Cosel. Betsa Marsh photo

Johnny X with Bach.

Johnny X with Mendelssohn.

I just had to have it..... Mary Bergin photo

Ashley the Traveling Teddy also had a big day at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, and loves to flip back through her scrapbook–

Ashley with the elephants.

Ashley making friends in a hill village.

At a temple.

With Chef Pitak Srichan at Four Seasons in Chiang Mai.

With the Buddha head woven into the roots of the bodhi tree.

With Siam Magic dancers.

Ashley meets a friendly camel at the Bastakya heritage district in Dubai. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley the Traveling Teddy learned about the United Arab Emirates during her quick trip to Dubai, where she came very close to a camel and met some students from an international school.

Ashley travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

She toured the Bastakya heritage district in Dubai, and then sailed out into the Gulf of Arabia, past the Atlantis resort. She got a bit sunburned, but is was worth it!

Ashley meets Tess, Tara and Jack of the Wellington International School in Dubai. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley sails past Atlantis in the Gulf of Arabia. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley gears up for her gold mine tour. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley the Traveling Teddy became a deep thinker on a recent tour of Wales–very deep, down 70 steps into a dark  shaft once worked by Romans 2,000 years ago.

Ashley travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

The Romans, who built a fort nearby at Pumsaint,  searched for gold at Dolaucothi using a drift mine into the hillside rather than a vertical shaft. They used fire and water to crack the quartz, and little children ages 10 to 14 would then sort out the quartz, looking for gold. It took a ton of quartz, according to Ray Miller of the National Trust, to yield an ounce of gold about the size of a peanut.

Archaeologists have found fragments of the Romans’ water wheels

Ray Miler of the National Trust teaches Ashley the ropes. Betsa Marsh photo

on the mining site. They’re now on display in the Cardiff Museum.

After the Romans, small-scale mining resumed in 1853 and grew until 1912, when, according to the BBC, the complex geology of the site brought an end to work there. Miners returned to Dolaucothi one last time between 1933 and 1938, after which the equipment was sold off.

Today, the National Trust has reconstructed the mineyard to the 1930s period. There’s a gold exhibit, a shop with rare Welsh gold and a tea room.

You can, of course, pan for gold there–Ashley tried her paws, but didn’t find enough to quit her day job as traveling ambassador for the students of St. Joseph.

Ray Miller of the National Trust welcomes Ashley and other travelers to the Long Adit, the Roman opening to Dolaucothi Gold Mine in Wales. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley with all-day suckers at Economy Candy in New York. Betsa Marsh photo

Lower East Side, popping into Economy Candy and Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery.

Ashley travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

Economy Candy has been dishing up sweets since 1937, and stocks every delectable adults remember from their childhoods.

Ashley with giant Pez dispensers. Betsa Marsh photo

Next up, a light bite at Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery on Rivington Street.  Ashley and her pal Marilyn Marx of New York split an Ooey Gooey with chocolate cake and chocolate-almond buttercream. Yum!!

Ashley, an Ooey Gooey and a cappuccino--perfect! Betsa Marsh photo

And the eating wasn’t done yet! The next day, Ashley attended the VisitBritain luncheon at posh Daniel, and saw Chef Daniel Boulud himself! For a bear who loves to cook, it was a big event!

Ashley at Daniel. Betsa Marsh photo