Travelog for: Robby

It is Sunday, the fourth of advent. So nobody did think, that the doorbell would ring and the postman would come and bring a package. But suddenly we heard a bell ringing and when we went to the door we found a big package in the hands of the postman. Of course we were very excited, especially because it was the day before Holy Eve. So we all sat around the package and waited until Kari and I had opened it.




What a big surprise for us! There were so many new toyvoyagers guests in the package: Michel, nosyblue, Bobi, Hippy and Queenie and Robbi. So the house got crowded








We told them to walk out of the package, so we could introduce each other and exchange adventures. We had a nice chat.

Our hosts received a present: An Anastatica. Anastatica is found in arid areas in the Middle East and Sahara Desert, including parts of North Africa and regions of Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan .

After the rainy season, the plant dries up, dropping leaves and curling branches into a tight ball, and "hibernates". Within the ball, the fruits remain attached and closed, protecting the seeds and preventing them from being dispersed prematurely. The seeds are very hardy and can remain dormant for years. Wetted again in a later rainy season, the ball uncurls and the plant wakes up from its dormant state, which causes the capsular fruits open (dehisce) to disperse the seeds.




Then we finished some other cookies called Staenglein. They are very yummy.




On Holy Eve we had the family's traditional dinner: chicken fricassee in pasty with lamb's lettuce.




Later we sat around the plate with cookies and sang Christmas carols under the Christmas tree.
sorry, it was so dark, so the photos aren't that good and somehow the flashlight didn't work.

We have our Silvester Dinner now. It's fondue with minced meat and different sauces and some other little food like cornichons and more. It way yummy.

Finally it is time to welcome the New Year 2013. We watched the fireworks and our host's children made a special firework with sparklers for us. Then we went to bed, really tired.

On January 6th is Epiphany. Children go out as the three kings and collect money for church and special needs. Many people offer them sweets. That's why they also carry bags with them to put the sweets, chocolate and other things like apricots and appels in it. Here you see some of the sweets the sons and daughter of our host brought home on 5th January. (This year they went on 4th and 5th). Maybe they will share them with us, who knows.

Finally we have some snow, so we decided to go on a walk around the Kreuzbergsee in Tiefenbach. The lake was contured as recreational area in 1974 and it's magnitude is about 200.000 m². It is about 340 m long and 70 m broad.

The weather was so grey, that we had not really a chance to go out and see other places. It had snowed during the night - everything is white now. At least it isn't so dark outside now.

Today I joined my host on a trip to Blaustein. Her son studies at the university of Ulm and she visited him over the weekend. He has a nice view out of the window and today we had been really lucky, because the sun was shining.

Blaustein is a municipality in the district of Alb-Donau Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is situated on the Blau River, 6 km west of Ulm and has about 15,000 inhabitants.

It was created in 1968 after the union of Ehrenstein and Klingenstein and some more municipalities joined.

It is home to one or more prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlements that are part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps UNESCO World Heritage Site.


View to Löwenfelsen in Ehrenstein




The river Blau really shimmers blue sometimes. The name comes from the celtic name Blava. The blue colour comes from light scattering due to the high chalky spring water. River Blau is a left tributary to the Danube.




It was so so cold, that we hurried home again after these two photos.

The next day we joined our host's son and her on the way to the university and after we said goodbye to him, we walked back home. The way was rather steep and I had a lot of fun on the icy way. But you can see, that the sky was grey again.






Back in Blaustein we walked through the Szeklertor, which is a present of the partner city Cernat in Romania. The Székelys derive their name from a Hungarian expression meaning "frontier guards" and were regarded as the finest warriors of medieval Transylvania, but it isn't completely proven.

Today I watched tv, because it was a special day. We followed the flight of former Pope Benedict XVI. out of the Vatican.

Wow! We have another sunny day! I really had no chance to see the flowers in the garden behind the house until now, because the weather was that bad. I can't remember, that we had springweather like this before. All flowers are blooming at the same time and the trees got leaves within minutes it seems.

There will be a big event in this family this year: the wedding of one of the sons. Petra is happy, that she is allowed to bake the wedding cake. It will be a cake with strawberries and maybe some marzipan. She still doesn't know the other ingredients, so she has to try some cakes and find out the best version. And of course we are part of this.
Here's the first cake - I can't remember the ingredients anymore, I'm sorry.