Travelog for: Eddy Bear

Well he has left in his own little box, after waving a tearful goodbye to Sylvia and Nigel and little fluffy snowy the bunny.  Hope it does not take too long, as he is stuffed unceremoniously in a box and travelling all the way to Europe, but the box has been checked and it is fully of breath holes so he should be ok.  Looking forward to meeting Aarons family who I know will look after him.  He will then travel to Japan, now that is a long way.
Anyway, looking forward to exciting adventures and hope to hear about them soon

What a luck to be out of that small box again!!!! Also it was well prepared, it was so dark and narrow in it.
Oh, I have to tell you something funny. The first thing I did, was sitting in the cupboard, but then I found another toyvoyager. It is Cassiopeia, who will travel to Japan next Monday. And you don't believe, who I met too: Aaron (that's what I thought first). But my host Petra told me then, that it is Aaron's twin sister. Why did Aaron forget to tell me about her???? That's enough for today, I will go to bed. Sabrina will share her bed with me and my new friends. Let's see, what will happen at next.
Greetings to my family, I miss you, but I'm happy too.

Brrrrrr, what a weather!!!!! I thought, it would be a little better than in England, but then my host told me, that mostly the weather is the same. We had snow here too and now it is raining, raining and raining.
I had a nice time till now anyway. I was with Sabrina's toys and lived in a special house in her room. I will share the photos here and hope, you like them.

And here is the snow, not enough to get one mission completed

I found a new friend: Björn Bangsi! He lives here with me for a while and we had a nice soccer game already against our host. And you maybe don't believe it, but we won!!!!

Last Monday I met Taro, another toyvoyager, who just arrived at my host's home. After we had a nice soccer match together with Björn Bangsi, we fell in our bed. This time it was the bed of the oldest son. I think, he never would like his friends to see this picture, hahaha.

Oh, I forgot to explain, who is who. You see from left to right: Aaron's twin sister, Taro, Björn Bangsi, me and Cassiopeia's twin sister.

Today we went to the beautiful baroque palace of Bruchsal and took a lot of pictures there.

Rebuilt from the ruins of the bombing of March 1st 1945 the magnificent baroque residence serves many purposes today. The portrait of Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, looks upon the shining and gleaming Marble Hall from Cardinal Hutten. The crowning glory of the stairwell by Balthasar Neumann leads to the reconstructed halls and modern museums. In the south wing the parish of St. Damian and Hugo has its church with a modern interior.

First and second picture: the tower belongs to the church, both are connected by a dark hallway.
On both pictures I'm in front of the church, on the first picture the church is on the left side and the other building between church and tower is the hallway. The second picture shows the back side of the church.

At the front, on top and at the rear - baroque elements and shapes everywhere. THe palace's garden terrace was laid out in the eighties according  to the original, unused 18th century blueprints.

On the first picture I'm sitting with Björn Bangsi and Taro with the Damianstor in our back.
The Damian's Gate forms the remarkable northern entrance to the palace area and the town. The splendid palace of Damian Hugo of Schönborn - bishop, sovereign and cardinal of the state of Speyer - with its numerous surrounding baroque buildings, is fenced off by walls and ditches to produce the impression of a baroque quarter of its own.

The other photos are taken in the palace garden on the backside of the palace. On one building I saw a sundial. I met some ducks at the fountain and one came really close to us, but didn't like to get on the photo.

Last Sunday and Monday I celebrated Easter with my host family and friends.
I was Easter egg hunting with the kids and Björn Bangsi and Taro, but all photos from Sunday at my host mum's parents are deleted by accident. 
So I was so so sad, but I still hope, that they can work it out and find them again with a special program. 
Happily the weather was fine also on Monday so we could take some more pics in the garden of my host's. I also met a wooden Easter bunny in my host's livingroom and some Easter lambs made of biscuit on the table in the diningroom.

Today we were in Mannheim. We visited our host's aunt and uncle. And my host showed us the Water-Tower of Mannheim. Her kids and we loved that place with all the tulips and other flowers. Can you smell them?

Mannheim is in the Rhine-Neckar triangle, one of the largest areas of industry in Germany. It's the second largest city in Baden-Württemberg with 325 349 inhabitants. It's 70 km south of Frankfurt a.M. and 140 km northwest of Stuttgart.

The Water-Tower is Mannheim's most famous landmark. It was built in 1886. The construction is made of yellow sandstone, has a height of about 60 metres, holds 2000 cubic metres of water and is built in the Roman monumental style.
The Christmas fair around the Water-Tower is very popular.

I saw a big wall with a man, who had something like a bicycle at his side. It is of Carl Benz. It seems, that they aren't sure how to write it correctly, because I found Carl on that wall, but Karl on wikipedia. I saw that he was born in Karlsruhe, which is only about 20 km from Bruchsal.

Karl Friedrich Benz (December 6, 1844 – April 4, 1929) was a German engine designer and automobile engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, also worked independently on the same type of invention, but Benz patented his work first and, after that, patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in automobiles. In 1886 Karl Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which he designed in 1878.

Karl Benz (Related to the Benz family today) was born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant, in Karlsruhe, Baden (now part of Germany), to locomotive driver Johann George Benz and Josephine Vaillant. When Karl was two years old, his father was killed in a railway accident, and his name was changed to Karl Friedrich Benz in remembrance of his father.

Finally we arrived at the garden, where we wanted to eat cakes and drink some juice and have some chat.
I was so fascinated by all the flowers around me.
We took a lot of photos and I will show some here. You see my friends and me in the forsythia and me in front of the appletree and cherrytree.

On Friday the whole family was on a trip to Schwetzingen to show us the beautiful garden of the palace.

Schwetzingen Castle began as a simple aristocratic fishing retreat (much like Versailles which began as a hunting lodge) and had an eventful architectural history, in several phases of construction, especially during the reigns of the Electors Palatine Karl Philip (1716-1742) and Karl IV Theodor (1742-1799) who, as their answer to Versailles, embellished the castle gardens with some of the finest and most elaborate formal water parterres in Germany gardens.

As it evolved, the high central Baroque block of the Castle was extended to either side (from 1747 onwards) in matching curved ranges of glazed arcades that were punctuated by pavilions which followed the arc of the vast garden circle. They partly enclose the circle bisected by a wide gravel axis flanked by parterres which centers on a spring-fed water-basin inspired by the bassin of Diana at Versailles, but here expressing the more appropriately water-centered Greek myth of the poet Arion and the dolphins.

The Schwetzingen Castle is the most famous landmark of the city. The accompanying garden is also very famous as there are elements of French Baroque styles combined with the English gardening style, with statuary by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt. Also worth seeing are the theatre, the orangery, the bath, the Apollo temple, Mercury temple, the mosque (built 1778 – 1791), the Minerva temple and the fountain of Arion.

I'm sure, that you believe me, that I was so so tired, when I came home again.

Wow, today evening I have been at a museum, where they showed different things of the Stone Age and I heard one man playing percussions and one woman telling Anatolian fairy tales. One man and another woman played guitar and Turkish guitar between the stories. I never heard such sounds, but I liked it. Unhappily we have no photo, only one, that isn't really good, but be sure, I really have been there. We came home at 11pm early, because the museum night ended at 1am. I was so tired.
You can see a photo of the palace of Karlsruhe, but without me. 

I met three guinea pigs today, but on the photo you see only one of them.