Travelog for: iluaP ruhtrA

Hello!
Today we went to the city centre and were really surprised to see many football fans around. But then my host remembered that today was the final of the UEFA-Cup between FC Fulham and Atletico Madrid.

This is the town hall of Hamburg.

Then my host decided to show me some more of Hamburg and we walked to the St. Michaelis church. It is the main church of Hamburg and they usually just call it "Michel".



The Michel is really close to the harbour and we had a look without so many people as last time.

Then we walked to the statue of Bismark.

Before we went to the underground to go home we had a look over the "Heiligengeistfeld".It is a free space in Hamburg and translated it means "Holyghostfield". You can see the TV tower from there. The stadium you can see it the Millerntorstadion.



We haven't decided yet what we will see next but I am sure, I will see still more of Hamburg!

Bye,
iluaP

Hello again!
Today we went to the REWE Family summer celebration. REWE is a big company with many supermarkets in Germany. But the summer celebration was not really our destination. Yesterday evenig my host read in the internet, that the Finnish band Sunrise Avenue will have a concert there and she decided to go there.
These guys were some band before Sunrise Avenue.

Here you can see our surroundings. The summer celebration was at the Heiligengeistfeld, so perhaps you know some of the buildings in behind.


Then finally Sunrise Avenue went on stage. You can't really recognise them on the picture but I think they were the real ones and they made a real great concert!


After the concert we decided to go home. But before we bought some ananas as they were really cheap and the pyramid was really funny.


The last picture for today we took at the underground station St. Pauli. We got on the train there.


Bye,
iluaP

Hello!

Today we were on our way to a Postcrossing-Meeting in Hannover. If you want to know more about Postcrossing you can have a look here: www.postcrossing.com
We went there by train and we had to change in Uelzen. Uelzen has a famous train station as it was designed by the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser,


Then we arrived at Hannover. Here you can see the opera building.

This picture shows the new town hall.

On our way we met some statues of Niki de Saint Phalle. They are called "Nana"-figures, I thought they were kind of strange...


We also came along this church.

We had some food afterwards and wrote a lot of postcards, of course. They had some stickers to put on the cards and I got one, too. I could not run away fast enough!




Afterwards we spent some time out in the sun before we had to go home again.


We were really tired after such a long and exciting day and did not take any more pictures.

Bye,
iluaP

Hello again!
Today we had another walk through Hamburg. We took the underground to the station "Rathaus". We came out of the station directly at the town hall.


We also had a view over the place in front of the town hall.

We took another short walk and came along some water as everywhere in Hamburg.

Then we arrived at the old St. Nikolai-church. It was destroyed in the Second World War but the remains are keeped as a memorial.





Jenny told me that we will go to the harbour and on our way we came through the small street where the Great Fire from 1842 started. The fire destroyed about a quarter of the city. Here is a link to Wikipedia. Unfortunately it is only in German but you can see some pictures.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_Brand

Then we arrived at the harbour.

We arrived from the direction of the Speicherstadt (warehouse district). It was built as an area of free trade without customs.


The Speicherstadt is divided by small canals as the transport of goods was done by boats in the past.

Later we walked along the harbour to the St. Michaelis-church, the main church of Hamburg. It is really beautiful from the inside.


We climbed on top of the church tower. We came along some signs and the bells.



On top we had a great view over Hamburg in every direction. First we looked back from where we came, so here you can see the tower from the old St. Nikolai-church.

Then we walked over to have a look at the harbour. In the first picture you can see the building site of the new Elbphilharmonie.



Here you can see some more of Hamburg, it is the direction of the Reeperbahn and Planten und Blomen but it is hard to see.

In the middle of this picture you can see the TV tower of Hamburg. It has a restaurant in the top area from where you have a good view over Hamburg, too.

Here you have a view over the city centre with the town hall.


And here you can see the Alster, the lake in the middle of Hamburg.

We left the tower and the church and took another picture from outside.

I am very excited for my next adventure as we will make a trip to Hinterzarten in the Black Forest.

Bye,
iluaP

Hello!
Today we started our trip to Hinterzarten in the Black Forest! We should take the train from Hamburg to Freiburg and then change into a train to Hinterzarten. But at Frankfurt/Main our train was not running anymore and we had to change there. As the train was very crouded and we had only a floor to sit.


I wasn't the only racoon on the road. Here you can see me with igroM, a very similar racoon to me!

We only had about 30 minutes delay and so we took only one train later in Freiburg as planned! We came along Himmelreich, translated it means something like Kingdom of Heaven.


And here you can see the third racoon in our team, he is called Hasi! He is no Toyvoyager, I think he is too big to be send around the world!

It was very green outside and we tried to take some photos but we were not very successful!


We arrived in Hinterzarten and we brought our luggage to our home. Then we left again to buy some food for the week!

When we stand in front of the house we had a great view over the surrounding area!

And we had some cows right in front of the house.

We put all the things in the kitchen and then we went and had some pizza! On our way back we found some funny wooden figures.


We were very tired after such a long day and went to bed early.

On the next day we went to the skijumping hill for the first time. Oh, I didn't mention that before, did I? We went to Hinterzarten to watch a skijumping summer competition. But as you can see, it was very wet that first day and we had some rain.


On this picture you can see a skijumper just after he jumped. But you have to take a close look as it was a bit foggy up there.

Here I found a dry place to watch the skijumpers.

This is the Finnisch skijumper Olli Muotka. He was one of the poor guys who had to train in this wet weather.

Ha, some more pictures with me and then me with some more TVs. The giraffe is called Kasper and the snowman is called Mister Snow. My host told me that she hosted Mister Snow and took him to Hinterzarten last year.



After everyone left the skijumping hill we had a short look at Hinterzarten. As you can see, the surrounding hills were all hidden in fog.

This was the day of the qualification. Only the best 40 skujumpers of the competition are allowed to take part in the competition and the best 10 skijumpers in the ranking. So there are 50 skijumpers in total in the competition.
The weather was better that day, we had some sun and so we decided to went up to the place where all the skijumpers arrive. From there we also have a great view over Hinterzarten and the surroundings.





Here you have a look at the skijumping hill-tower. In the small huts you can see there the skijumpers have there jumping suits and all the things they need for the jumps.


Here you can see the team from the Czech Republic arriving.




Here is the Japanese team.


Here you can see some Finns in blue jackets.

To see the qualification we went down to the hill. There we sat unter the lift, so we could see the jumps from very near and some skijumpers in the lift.

Lukas Müller/Austria

Peter Prevc/Slovenia

And here with our Kazakhstan-flag.

Jernej Damjan/Slovenia

Martin Schmitt/Germany

Matti Hautamäki/Finland

Robert Kranjec/Slovenia

Here is another view over the hill area!


Next to the big hill where some smaller hills.

Now was finally the day of the first competition. It will be a team competition, every nation named four skijumpers and the team with the best jumps will win.
Today we wanted to watch the competition from the foot of the skijumping hill.


igroM was with us this time and we played some games in the time we waited for the competition.


After some time we got very hungry but we brought some delicious pizza with us.

We were very busy during the competition as it was very exciting and so we did not take anymore photos.

On Sunday it was raining very hard and so we did not take any photos either in fear the camera would be damaged. And somehow it would be the same pictures as on Friday as we were at the same place.

On Monday we had great weather again and so we used the time for a walk through the town. Here you can see the church of Hinterzarten, perhaps you already saw it in the photo with the view over Hinterzarten?


Hinterzarten is a small town and so it is also very green.


This is a small shop for tourists but it is closed for the time around midday. We bought our postcards there.

For persons who wanted to see more of the Black Forest, there are many bus tours on this sign.

Of course we couldn't spend a day in Hinterzarten without visiting the skijumping hill. We brought a blanket and had some nice hours in the sun.



We also took some pictures of the fantastic blue sky!



Here you can see Pascal Bodmer, one of the jumpers who trained there.

We went home when be got hungry and after some dinner we decided to go to Titisee-Neustadt to buy some food for the way home.

First we went to the supermarket. There is also a skijumping hill in Titisee-Neustadt and we were able to see it from the parking lot. It is green as gras as it isn't used much in winter and not used at all in summer.




From the supermarket we decided to visit the skijumping hill.



They were using the runout for some theatre called "Schwarzwaldmädel". We started to climb the hill to have a better view over Titisee-Neustadt and the surrounding area.


After some climbing we arrived at the jump-off platform.




Here you can see the huts for the skijumpers.

And here is the tower of the skijumping hill.


Then we finally climbed the tower to sit at the very top of the hill! It was great view and really impressing that there are persons who jump down there!




On our way back down we stopped at the place where the trainers normally stand and give the sign to start to the jumpers.

We took some more pictures from the hill when we arrived at the bottom again and also from the small hill next to the big hill.


Climbing the hill made us really tired so we decided to go home and have a quiet evening.

This was the day for us to go home. It was very sad as we had a great time in Hinterzarten and so much fun. We took some last pictures at the train station. On the third picture you can see the skijumping hill if you have a close look!



We had to change trains in Mannheim.


There we could see a TGV which was going to France.


From Mannheim we headed straight to Hamburg and we were very glad to be at home and have some rest after a long day in trains.

Bye,
iluaP

Hello!
I was really really excited! Jenny told me that we will visit another zoo and that I will hopefully meet racoons today! So we started our trip early in the morning and get by train to "Wildpark Schwarze Berge". Jenny told me, that she was there when she was a child with the kindergarden and that the main thing she can remember are the pot-bellied pigs!
But first thing we met inside the park were some otters.

But here it is, the pot-bellied pig! They were allowed to run free in a special part of the park and all the small children loved them.

Oh, there were so many interesting animals but all I could think about were the racoons. But as you might think, they were just at the other end of the park. Here you can see me with the capricorn, a special goat and a Galloway (a cow originally from the highlands in Scotland).



I just didnot knew were to look first. But now we met some better known animals. You can see ducks, guinea-pigs and geese.



I really loved the guinea-pigs, they made so funny noises while they ran around. Then we walked in to have a short break. There we saw this budgies. Budgies in every colour and all chatting und flying around.

Outside again we then saw this deer. How proud it looked!

And some more pigs, this time wild pigs! There was a really heavy smell around them.

And finally we artived at the racoons. I was really happy but they were all asleep! You can see them up in the tree.


We decided to come back later when they were hopefully awake. It had started to rain while we walked through the park but now the sun was shining again. Jenny said, that there cound possibly be a rainbow and so we climbed the tower. And she was right, we could see a rainbow!


And we had a beautiful look around over the trees, with great views of the clouds.

We left the tower and met these funny animals. They were ferrets.


And we were back with the racoons and this time they were awake. I was so happy! Finally I could meet some of my own kind.


They were bigger than me and I was a bit afraid, they looked at me so longing and they also tried to steal me! Can you imagine that?


Did you see it? Jenny was just able to put me out of reach!
We kept watching the racoons from safe distance some more time. It was so fascinating!









Finally we decided to go. We met some more deer and some wolves on our way back to the entrance.



Ah, did I mention that we were not alone but with Panda_Lilo? She arrived some days ago! Here you can see us in front of the entrance building.

On the outside there was a little park.



In the parking lot we saw this sign but I think, it is a very ugly racoon! But we also saw a funny looking elk.



We had some time to cover until the bus was arriving and so we took some more photos. There was also a flower field were you could take the flowers yourself but you had to pay anyway.





The bus came and took is home and I went to bed very happy!
The next day Jenny told me that I will start on the German Trail by now and she will send me on. So this is my last entry from Hamburg!

Bye,
iluaP

Hi Mummy,
I arrived in Remscheid today! That was a really short trip

It is raining outside and my new host Katja has a bad cold, so we did not go outside.



Some furry animals are running around here, they wanted to play with me. This is Shiva, she looks like a raccoon, at least a little bit. She is a ferret lady.



And here you can see Shiva and Brighty assaulting me



That's all for now
iluaP ruhtrA

Hi Mummy,
I went to the city centre with Katja and Vakinas today. We only took a short walk along the shopping street because it lookes like rain again.







Nobody was sitting outside, enjoying a coffee. It was really cold in the morning, only 7°C! Now it is about 12°C, not what we're expecting for September.



This is one of the churches in the city centre, there is also a funny fountain. Let's have a closer look!





We went back to Katja's workplace than, just in time before it started to rain again.

Bye
iluaP ruhtrA

Hi Mummy,
we took a walk to the municipal park today.
My current home is in a part of the city where many old houses "survived" World War Ii.



This church is surrounded by large trees, so you cannot take a photo from a distance to show the whole building (only in winter )





After a short walk we reached the municipal park. First we visited the pond, ducks and turtles are living here.







The observatory is situated here in the park.



We walked around a bit. On the next photo you can see the outskirts of the neighbour city Wuppertal in the background.



You can find three allotment areas in the park. Here is one of them, the district Hasten lying in the valley behind the gardens.



On our way back home we said "Hello" to Katja's sister-in-law. On our way there we walked along another allotment area.





The weather is supposed to become better in the following days, I hope we will go out a little bit more often than!

Bye
iluaP ruhtrA