Travelog for: Sandi Rose

Hi Mom!

Today we had to say goodbye to LittleWestiePup, who is continuing his journey!
We had a Linzer cake and champagne. The Linzer cakes comes from the city Linz, which is in another part of Austria and this year's Cultural Capital of Europe. Graz was that, too, in 2003!

It was nice meeting Westie, though we didnt have much time together!

Bye!

Hi Mom!

We wanted to do some sightseeing today and started with the Opera House. But then it started to rain cats and dogs    so we decided to postpone the sightseeing and went home to watch a DVD. We watched Marley and me. Have you seen that movie? It was a bit sad at the end, but I think that Marley, the dog, was really cute! And the popcorn and nachos were great 

Hi Mom!

What a surprise!

When we opened the mailbox today, we found a card from Michel's mom! That was such a lovely surprise!
We TVs were of course really curious about the card and so we all sat in a circle while Michel showed us the card and told us about Hamburg and all the sight you can see on this card!

His stories about Hamburg were great for yet another rainy day in Graz!

Hi Mom!

Today we went to the western parts of Styria, to a city called Bärnbach. The city was famous for its coal mining in former days. That's why you see me on some coals and the wagon!
We visited the (catholic) church of St. Barbara there. The church is named after St. Barbara because she is the patroness of miners. This church is quite famous as is was redesigned by the famous Austrian painter and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser. He designed many buildings for example the Hundertwasser-House in Vienna, the KunstHaus in Vienna, a thermal spa in Bad Blumau, the oncology ward of the University Hospital in Graz, to just name a few.
The inside of the church is mostly the same as it has been before the redecoration, there were just a few alterations made to the altar.

The outside of the church is very colorful with mosaics and nothing is really geometric. Everything is a bit different, no straight lines.
Therefore my post today is also really colorful!
There is a walkway around the church and the path is uneven, made of different stones, bricks, tarmac... You pass through many archways, which all stand for a different religion with symbols of this specific religion on the archway. And then there is one without any symbols. For all people who don't believe or have a different view of life. My host mom decided it would be best to photograph me under the "naked" archway as not to offend any of her guest's parents!
You can also see that the pathway has been decoreted with an autumn theme!

We were given an extended tour through the church and its history and then it was time for some meal! No pics of that though.
We then went on to another city. I'll tell you more about that soon!

Hi Mom!

After we had visited the church, we continued our travel to Piber. We went by car and were of course all buckled up!

We went to Piber, to the Federal Stud, which is part of the Vienna Spanish Riding School. I was soooo excited, as visiting the Vienna Spanish Riding School is one of my life missions- well, obviously I wasn't in Vienna, but it was a part of the Vienna Spanish Riding School! And for the future of the School, this part here in Piber is really important as they breed the horses here!

You can see the Lippizan horses there. They are born there and stay on there until they are old and/or good enough to go to Vienna. Just the best horses get a chance to go there, the others stay at Piber and you even can buy them there (prices start at € 3.000,--).

There is so much to learn about the horses, so we took a guided tour. I can't write down everything I learned that day, but you can find tons of information her: click me.

The horses that aren't white yet are the young ones. They are really curious and come to the fences looking for some sugar cubes! But you have to be careful as they try to taste anything that is near...  Even small grey bears... And they are sooo huge compared to me...

The big white horse you can see on one picture is a stallion. He has of course his own quarters! But he got really excited in his paddock, as the mares were there in the morning!  You can also do carriage rides here and you also see some of the special costumes of the riders or carriage drivers! But there wasn't a chance for carriage rides this day because there were two weddings scheduled there. We even saw the two brides!

I also took a picture of some information about the stallion stables so you can read about that!

After the tour we sat down in a cafe there and had a lovely blueberry cheesecake ans some coffee... mmmhhh..that was nice. Sorry- no pictures of the cake! I was eating the cake so fast that my host mom couldn't take a picture quick enough 

That was really a great day!

Hi Mom!

Today we made a trip to the Southern Styria, the part which is located near the Slovenian border. This part is very famous for its vineyards. They grow for example Welschriesling, Weißburgunder, Chardonnay (here called Morillon) and Sauvignon Blanc.

We first went to a "Buschenschank". Wikipedia translates it with "inn"... well, thats a kind of restaurant, where the wine farmers serve cold meals which have must contain just products that are homemade. In former days they weren't allowed to buy products and serve them and they also weren't allowed to serve hot meals. Now the rules aren't that strictly any more, but mostly you still find cold meals.

We were sitting on the balcony there, looking over the hills and the vineyards. We had a "Brettljause", kind of a Ploughman's lunch. Well, it's a wooden board (in the traditional version) or a plate (in the modern version) with different kinds of ham, bacon, cheese, pickles and so on. And a glass of white wine, of course! 

Then we went for a little walk, through the hills and vineyards, up to a small plateau. We rested on a bench there, because it was a little bit steep climbing this hill...
And then we saw this really strange thing...it looked like a windmill, but it makes a strange sound when its windy... My host mom told me that's a very common thing here and called "Klapotetz". And there's a reason for its sound: It was built in the vineyards to scare away the birds who were eating the grapes!

Later we had roasted chestnuts, which are always made here in the vineyards when the grape harvest starts in autumn. And then they drink a special drink here called "Sturm" (translated storm). That's a wine in fermentation stage and it's only available for a short time every year.

After this day I was really tired because I have eaten soooo much!

Hi Mom!

Today we had to say Goodbye to Michel! He continued his travel! I will miss him and hope that he will have a great time with his new host!

Hi Mom!

Sorry for not updating any sooner but my host mum had a tummy bug and was housebound for a lot of days....

But now she's up and good again, so we can update what Ive been up to in the meantime.

We went up to the Schlossberg one day and had absolutely great weather! First we had a cup of coffee and enjoyed the sun, before we did the actual sightseeing! The Schlossberg is a small mountain in the city center and up there is the clock tower, the town's landmark!

You can see me looking down to the city, which is divided by a river, the Mur.
On the next picture you see me looking at the Mariahilferplatz (square) and the Mariahilfer-Church. Then you see me looking at the Kunsthaus- that's this strange blue building you can see in the background. It has a very unusual form and is also called "the friendly alien". It has strange things on the surface- those tubes are calles nozzles and they all look in the same direction. All nozzles? No, there is one that looks directly at the clock tower!

That's what you see on the next picture! The clock tower! That's a pretty interesting clock because the hands are swapped- normally the big one is for the minutes, the small one for the hours, but here it's the other way around! Thats because in former days people were just interested in the hour and not the exact time. Therefore they just needed one hand that could be seen from far away! Later they added the second hand, which had to be different from the first hand!

Bye!

Hi Mom!

I had a baking lesson today! We made some blueberry muffins- mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhhhhhh they were really tasty!

I helped measuring the ingredients and putting the dough in the muffin tins! Then I had to wait patiently for them to bake... when they came out of the oven I had to wait again- you are not supposed to eat them as long as they are so hot... But then finally!

And did you see the chef-apron my host mom has? That's my picture on it! Isn't that lovely?

Hi Mom!

Here are some pictures from a very nice football (soccer) evening last week! We were watching a Europe League Game on tv and were dressed with scarfs from our host mom's favorite team, SK Puntigamer Sturm Graz. That was fun! We had Pizza and some other fast food!

Hi Mom!

We went for another sightseeing trip through the city of Graz and we were lucky because it was such a beautiful autumn day!

First we went to the Murinsel, an artificial island in the river Mur. It was built when Graz was Cultural Capital of Europe in 2003. You can see different views of the island.

From one of the bridges over the river you also have a great view up on the Schlossberg and you can see the Uhrturm! There are many ways to go up the Schlossberg, for example the staircase and also the funicular railway. When you look between the trees you see the two red cars going up and down.

We then went over one of the bridges again onto the other side of the Mur and went along the river. We came to Mariahilfer-Place with the white Mariahilfer-Church and went on to the Kunsthaus.

That's the Museum for art and photography and it looks quite funny. It was also built for the Cultural Capital of Europe 2003. Parts of the building are old, from the 19th century and the other part, including the blue bubble are new. The building is also called "the friendly alien" for its unusual form. There are lights on the bubble, kind of illuminated rings and they can display lots of different patterns in the evening (you can see a photo of that if you follow this link). You see me and my friends on a small model of the Kunsthaus, made for the blind, so that they can touch it and know what the building looks like.

At the end of our tour we went to the Franziskanerplatz and looked at the Franziskaner-Church.

I hope you like the pictures!

Hi Mom!


Brrrr....it's getting winter here! The days are getting shorter and it is also getting dark earlier. We enjoy our time inside where it is warm and snuggle up with a cup of tea and a blanket!

And one day, we even had the first snow this autumn/winter. It was quite heavy and for a few minutes everything was white. But soon the snow melted away.

I'm waitng for the first big snow here so we can have a snowball fight or build a snowman!

Hi Mom!

Today we went shopping. My host mom is a bit unlucky with electronical things lately, first the computer, now the cell phone. So we went to the city center and looked for a new phone. We finally agreed on a phone and when we returned home, we toyvoyagers had to explain the phone to our host mom... she is not really friends with her new phone yet  .... but we're proud of her when she manages to take a call 

We also bought some baby clothes because a friend of our host mom just had a baby boy. We tried the clothes on and we found out that we are even smaller than newborns!
That was fun.

Maybe I'll get such a cap and some gloves for Christmas!

Hi Mom!

In preparation for the upcoming Christmas Time - here in Austria they call this time "Advent" - we did some cleaning!
First we loaded the washing machine, put in some washing powder or more a liquid. We even wanted a turn in the machine, but our host mom told us that it would be too dangerous for us... So we just sat there and watched the clothes turning!

Then we went in the kitchen to load and unload the dish washer. After having cleaned the kitchen we went on to the living room and used a glass cleaner to clean the glass table there and last but not least we took a tour on the hoover!


When everything was clean we did a little nap on the couch!
I think we were good TVs today, kind of Santa's little helper 

Hi Mom!

We met another TV today. It's a travelling polar bear. His name is Papelbon.

We were really happy about the arrival of a new friend and he told us about his adventures and we had a chat about the different countries we have visited and the different host parents.

In the afternoon we did some baking. My host mom loves to bake, so we helped and tried a new recipe. It was for an Italian cake, called Panettone. It's made of a yeast-dough and takes a lot of time as it has to rise two times before baking!

But it was worth waiting... the small cakes were really delicious! Most of the cakes were a present for my host-mom's step-mom, but there were enough left for us TVs too. Yummi