Lucky bunny, Mumbai, India

fam-united


Posted Mar 1, 2008, 12:36 pm
I'm here!!! And I'm so happy, that I'm a toyvoyager now. Petra thought, that I'm just too tiny to go on big journeys, but I told her, that I already traveled from Oregon, USA to Bruchsal, Germany. This made her feel a little better and so I'm allowed to leave my new home for exciting adventures.

My travel plans:

Chitra (India)
Steve&Helly (England)
Nostalgia (Chile)
fam-united


Posted Mar 7, 2008, 2:22 pm
Tomorrow we will go to a birthday party. So I helped Petra to bake a biscuit cake. The whole family loves it, because it is easy to make and really tasty with the butter cream layers.
fam-united


Posted Mar 7, 2008, 4:17 pm
I had a little sightseeing tour through Bruchsal today. Petra showed me the palace and told me a little bit about the history of Bruchsal.
Bruchsal was first named in 976 A.D, although the oldest settlement was discovered dated back to 640 A.D.. located near to the St. Peterskirche. Since then Bruchsal had been a place for Kings to visit and for Prince Bishops to live. 
In 1rst March 1945 during the second world war about 1000 people lost their lifes. The inner city and baroque palace were destroyed and the palace was rebuilt during the 70th.


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church tower of the catholic church St.Damian and Hugo, which was also baroque until 1945, but was rebuilt rather modestly. The part with the three dormers is the church.


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On the left side you see the gate St. Damianstor, next to it you see the big red tower of the jailhouse. The building on the right side is the county court.


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While the palace is in the flat area of Bruchsal, which belongs to the Rhine valley, the Belvedere is at the edge to the Kraichgau. It was a former hunting lodge and is now used as theatre platform during summer. Close to it a few clubs celebrate garten parties in summer too. My hosts like to go there, when there is a party of a choir, in which some members of their families are singing.

Next to the Belvedere is the oldest grammar school of Bruchsal, which uses the Stadtgarten, the park next to the Belvedere, as a school yard.


Only a few stairs down from the place before, Petra showed me some views over Bruchsal.


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I just will try to remember the towers names, because I think, I forgot everything else.
The tower on the left side is the old tower of the old castle of Bruchsal, which is called Bergfried. I remember, that there is the Bügerzentrum, where citizens meet for cultural events and where also is a restaurant. Then you see the tower of the city church, which is in the inner city, where the market place is located. And at last you see the Lutherkirche, which is one of the two evangelic churches of Bruchsal.


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On this photo you see the two towers of the baroque church St. Peter. And maybe you see a big building right under the crane. This building is called Sancta Maria and it is close to where I live right now.


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Next to me you see the older people houses, a new one with the orange colour and the roof in the right corner and the white building behind it is the old part. Behind this white building you see the grey building of St. Paulusheim, which is a private catholic grammar school, only open for Christian pupils, because they do many religious things in their free time.


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Now I'm in front of St. Peter. It is only a few metres from my  home to go. Petra told me, that this church is also baroque inside, but mostly it is closed.
I'm on the area of the graveyard right now. The graveyard is a very silent place with a wonderful view over Bruchsal, but it is hard for older people to walk there, because it always goes up and down.


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Standing nearer to the church I had this view to the grey building of St. Paulusheim again.


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Maybe you remember, that I mentioned Sancta Maria. This building with its nice garden is on the left side of the photo. The left tower is the City church tower and the other tower is the one of St. Damian and Hugo.
fam-united


Posted Mar 8, 2008, 11:05 am
Because the weather was much better than the days before, Petra took us to her school, where we had to wait for her in the car for hours. Then she drove to Untergrombach, which is one of the suburbs of Bruchsal. The Michaelsberg, a small hill - only 296m high, belongs to Untergrombach. You have a wonderful view over the Rhine valley and if the weather is very very good, you can see the Palatine Mountains in the far.
3500 - 2600 BC first signs of humans had been found on this place, the "Michelsberg culture".


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Here you see a part of Bruchsal .


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The quarry pond belongs to Untergrombach, which you see on this photo. This is the best view to see the Palatine Mountains on the horizon, but today we had no luck.


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You see another part of Untergrombach. You see, that it is also to the border of the Kraichgau, just the same as Bruchsal.


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This nice chapel is called Michaelskapelle and it is on top of the Michaelsberg. Petra told me, that there are many couples, that want to marry in this chapel.


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Here you see so-called "Steinriegel" (field clearance cairn), made by people working on their fields a long long time ago. They threw the big stones from their fields to the border of the neighbour's field, so that in the middle all stones were accumulated. Many animals and flowers love this gaunt places and that's why a few weeks ago, people cleaned the Steinriegel from all the earth, that came between the stone during the many many years and from all the other plants, that love to grow in earh.


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Another word I learned is "Magerrasen" (neglected grassland), which is typical for the Michaelsberg.


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Here we are still standing at the same place like before with view back to the chapel. You see the "Magerrasen".


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The Michaelsberg is nature reserve area, I'm sure, you already realized this too. Soon there will be beautiful seldom flowers and animals.



We all wanted to go into the chapel and take some photos there too. It is nice baroque, not too many paintings or golden things.

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fam-united


Posted Mar 16, 2008, 4:28 pm
Today we had to say Goodbye to some of our friends:

Elle travels to Munich now, Mocke, a really new toyvoyager, travels to England and Chocolate Moose will stay at the German border to the Netherlands and I will travel to India. I can't tell you, how excited I am.
fam-united


Posted Apr 8, 2008, 4:35 pm
Poor Lucky Bunny is a very unlucky bunny now. Only her envelope and small notebook arrived at her destination in India.

Maybe someone will find this unlucky bunny and come here to update this travelog someday. :(

We all are very sad.
simply_chitra


Posted Apr 25, 2008, 1:55 pm
Yesterday, I arrived in Mumbai, India. my host in mumbai Chitra was very happy that i arrived. we have plans to visit a winery in Nashik tomorrow where i will see how wine is made. I also visited A hotel in Mumbai where my host works. (i'll have more pics of the hotel later. I am looking forward to lots more adventures in the coming days.
simply_chitra


Posted May 7, 2008, 3:02 pm
A few days back, i visited a vineyard in nashik,which is small town around 150 km from Mumbai.

The Indian Wine making is a very New Industry and growing very fast . the vineyard i visited was just 3 yrs old.

I was given a tour of the facility first. we saw where grapes were recieved, destemmed, crushed and then fermented in Huge steel vats under controlled temperature. i was also shown the automatic wine filtering and bottling machine.

Then i was taken to the cellar where some of the wines were aged in oak casks to improve the taste and boquet characteristics.

i learned that pottasium Bi meta sulphate was added as a perservative in wine to maintain the SO2 levels.

Later i did some wine tasting.. t

the trip was a lot of fun buut very tiring and long.

simply_chitra


Posted Jun 7, 2008, 9:53 pm
Today, me, Chitra and her Sister went to see a Cricket match being held at the Wankhade stadium. Cricket is one the country's most popular game, although hockey is India's National sport. Cricket is almost like a religion in india.

the match we watched was between Kolkata Knight riders and Mumbai Indians. We obviously were rooting for the Mumbai Indians. It was a very interesting Match. The crowd was sensational and the atmosphere was great. everyone seemed very interested in enjoying themselves more than enjoying the match and we were singing and dancing the entire time.

The Mumbai Indians were no match for the kolkata knight riders and we won quite easily with a 8 wickets.
simply_chitra


Posted Jun 7, 2008, 10:02 pm
today i visite the hotel where Chitra works. I met some of her colleagues who seemed very happy to meet me and get some photos clicked with me.

I was also given a box of truffles as a gift

What a wonderful day!!!!
simply_chitra


Posted Jun 7, 2008, 10:09 pm
Oops forgot attach the pic with the chocolate box...

I extremely enjoyed it.

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