Travelog for: Batgirl

Hey mum!
I just wanted to let you know I arrived in Germany sound and safe!
But being out of a travel bag (like the envelope) will not last long as my new host Liz is taking me with her to London!
She's doing a weekend trip to England with three friends and I am really excited!
She said there'll be some more ToyVoyagers on the trip with me so it'll be a very nice weekend I guess! I love getting to know some more TVs and hear about their stories and where they've been so far!
Well, I am really tired from my journey.

Miss you mum.
Love, Batgirl

Hey mum!
We’re at the airport in Dortmund now and waiting for our flight! We just boarded and went into that plane.

The airport in Dortmund isn’t really big. I expected it to be bigger actually, but it’s nice to see other planes landing or taking off. That is sooooo cool! My host said she’ll take me to Düsseldorf airport at some point because they have a visitor terrace there so you can watch the incoming and outgoing planes from the outside and you get a really good look!
I’m already looking forward to that! But now I gotta go! We’re about to start. Whooooo.

Miss you mum.
Love, Batgirl

Hello mum!
So, we arrived in the hotel. It is 11.30 pm so we’re all very tired and will go to sleep now.
The flight was great. I had so much fun! I was a bit scared at first but after a few minutes it was really cool to be up in the air – I never noticed the sky being soooo blue!
I enjoyed the 1-hour-flight with the other TVs. Look at our large group!!

I have to be honest – I forgot their names... Shame on me! But there was so much to see...

So here are some more pictures from the flight ☺



Miss you mum.
Love, Batgirl

Hey mum!
Today was sightseeing day! London ist he capital city of England and there are a few places you have to visit when you’re on a trip to London so we got up quite early and after getting some breakfast, we got on the first underground and went to King’s Cross. King’s Cross is pretty famous since it was mentioned in the Harry Potter books. There’s the platform 9 ¾ from where Harry and his friends leave to Hogwarts. An interesting fact about King’s Cross in connection with the Harry Potter movies – well, that’s what my host said – is, that the exterior of St. Pancras was used instead of the real King’s Cross exterior. St. Pancras is a railway station across the street from King’s Cross.

So this is me inside King’s Cross. It looks pretty modern, huh?

And here I am with the rest of the tourist group at platform 9 ¾.

So, we went on to another sight of London. This is Tower Bridge. The bridge was built from 1886 til 1894 and it's near the Tower of London. And on the right side of the picture you can see a part of London City Hall. It’s pretty modern – it opened in 2002.

This is me in from of the Thames. And in the background you can see the Tower of London.

So we crossed the Tower Bridge to get to the mentioned Tower of London.


It’s actually called Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress and it’s a historic castle. The Tower of London houses the Crown Jewels. They’ve been kept at the Tower of London since 1303 after they were stolen from Westminster Abbey. There are curretnly stored in the Waterloo Barracls at the Tower.


We also went to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It’s a Church of England cathedral and is dedicated to Paul the Apostle. Important services held at St Paul's include the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill; Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer, the launch of the Festival of Britain and the thanksgiving services for both the Golden Jubilee and 80th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. St Paul's Cathedral is a busy working church, with hourly prayer and daily services.


We headed on to Big Ben and Houses of Parliment.

Most people think that it's the name of the tower, but actually it's just the name of the bell of the clock.
So, and finally this is Buckingham Palace. It's the residence of the British monarch - The Queen.


At evening we went to Wimbledon to see the musical "Starlight Express", it's currently on UK Tour. The show here in London is a bit different to the show in Bochum. The stages in Great Britain are much smaller than in Bochum, so the "races" aren't live but shown on a screen in 3D. Some of the costumes look very different, some choreographies are new and some songs have a different beat or are new or are missing in the show. Most of the performers in London were already a part of the german production, so my host and her friends knew almost everyone who was on stage this evening.
And you won't believe what I tell you now... Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber himself was with us in the audience!! Oh my god, exciting times!!

Tomorrow we’ll just check out the hotel and get to the airport so I won’t be posting pictures I guess.

I miss you mum.
Love, Batgirl

Guten Tag!
Hehe, I learned some German. „Guten Tag“ means „Good day“.
Today my host took me to Bochum. You remeber that we watched Starlight Express in London? Well, this time we went to the theatre in Bochum. The theatre was built for the musical. Here’s what it’s about.
There is a steamtrains, who is in love with the first-class-carriage, but this carriage wants to race with the diesel and the electric train during the worldchampionship so she leaves him. But Rusty (the steam train) gets her back in the end.
Well, we didn’t watch the show today. There’re still 1 ½ weeks left until I’ll see it in German. I hope I’ll understand what they’re singing then...

Today we were just hanging around the theatre. The „New Kids“ are still in rehearsals and my host wanted to talk to one of them. „New Kids“ are the people, who’ll be part of the new cast. In Bochum they have a cast change at the end of May every year, when some of the old cast leave (so have their last show) and then the new kids get part of the cast and have their opening.

So here are some pictures of me hanging around the stage door. It’s called „Bühneneingang“ in German btw ☺




Miss you mum.
Love, Batgirl

Hallo mum!
Whoa, it is soooo hot in Germany at the moment! It’s 26° - 29° degrees at the moment. Lovely! I love it.
Today I joined my host to a trip to her parents. She lives in Duisburg with her boyfriend but grew up in Mettmann, which isn’t that far away from Duisburg. Both cities are located in Northrhine Westfahlia!


It was time for a nice and cosy barbeque in the garden.


What a piece of yummi meat!! But, well, it took a while until the grill was hot enough so I walked around the garden a bit.





I wanted to help, but I wasn’t allowed. Liz said it was too dangerous for me, because I am so small. So I just watched and waited until everything was ready.



It tasted soooo good! Yummi yummi. Afterwards I just layed down in the sun. And I guess I got a little tan.

Bye mum. I miss you.
Love, Batgirl

Hey mum!
So, I went back to Bochum with my host. Remeber what I told you about cast change at Starlight? Well, today was the last day of the cast 2011/2012. Means saying Goodbye to some people. My host and some friends used this „event“ for a little reunion. They used to hang out at Starlight together some years ago and usually do at least one reunion a year to get back together and share some news or just have a good time.

They had a little picknick and invited me and some other TVs to join them. It was a very funny day.

So here are some pictures of me hanging around the stage door and around the theatre.

This is the so called "Starlight Halle". It was built just for this musical, which opened in Bochum in 1988. They did slightley improvements inside the theatre over the years, but it's still pretty close to what it looked like back in the late 80s.


We just walked around the Halle for a while and found this giant banner. It shows all the characters in the show. I love their costumes. They look amazing, don't they? My host told me, that they didn't really look like that when she show was in the US and the costumes they have at the currently running UK tour also look different. At least a bit.



Here you can see me with all the other TVs I met that day. I'm sorry I can't remember all their names. Just too many! Sorry, everyone!


This is me in front of Buffy, the buffett car, with Sterni. He is also a teddy bear, you see? Isn't that great!


Staring at Hashamoto (called Nintendo in other productions).


Volta, the freezer truck. She's one of Electra's components. My host loves this role!

In the evening we ordered some delicious pizza. Yummi!


Miss you mum.
Love, Batgirl

Hey mum!
Today was the day. My host and her boyfriend went on their first vacation together. So a week in De Koog, which is located on Texel, an island belonging to The Neatherland, was ahead. And of course I was allowed to join them I also met another TV again. It's Marawarpina. I already met her at the Goodbye reunion at Starlight. As she is the TV of my host's friend, she was travelling with us.
We went there by car, which took around 3 1/2 hours. The journey itself wasn't too exciting. Lots of fields, lots of cars and even more fields in the end. We were sleeping a lot actually. We arrived at the booked bungalow around 4 pm. It was very sweet. Not too big, but me and Mara had our own bedroom, because it was supposed to be for 3 persons, but as it was just the two of them. They unpacked and then we went on to the beach for the first time.
It was very windy, but the sun was shining.
This is me and Mara at the beach. You see this very blue sky? It looked awesome, but it wasn't that warm because of the wind.



The sea! Awesome, right? We wanted to go for a swim, but weren't allowed to. But I guess it would've been really really cold and I didn't wanna catch a cold right in the beginning of the vacation so it was fine.

You see how the sand flies over the beach? Now you can tell how windy it was! It looked very cool, but it really hurt, when we were walking along the beach for around an hour. Afterwards we went back to the bungalow and just relaxed. Sitting in the car for a few hours can be exhausting

Love you, mum!

Hello mum!
It it Sunday, so there wasn't that much to do in the "city" of De Koog (which is really really small) so we took a walk through the forest close to the beach.

There was a sign saying that this circular route had a total length of 15 km. I don't know if we really walked 15 km, but it took a while, until we were finished. Thank God we didn't get lost. Everything looked the same *haha*


You see? There were just trees everywhere around us and we rarely met other people. It was really quite, when we were walking through that forest. I mean, it was relaxing, but sometimes some noises can be good... I was frightened, because there was nothing else around and we didn't see anybody else and you start to wonder if there's something wrong...
But then we found that city sign of De Koog and so even Marawarpina and I knew where we are so it wasn't too bad.


It started raining just about an hour after we got home so we just stayed at home and watched Comedy Central. In English with Dutch subtitles. Pretty cool!

Hey mum!
It's Tuesday already! Yesterday it was raining all the time, so it was a really relaxed day. Plus it was my host's boyfriends birthday so they just went out to dinner in the evening - through the rain.
But today the weather was much better - the sun was shining again so we went on a trip we usually wanted to go on yesterday already.
There's the lighthouse close to De Cocksdorp in the very North of Texel. My host spent several holidays on Texel with her family in the past and they always went to the lighthouse at least once so it was clear we had to go there, too
We went there by bike - of course me and Mara couldn't get our own bikes so I can't show you much of the bike tour to the lighthouse - just pictures of us at the beach there.





Just sand everywhere! What a beach! Amazing. We just sat there for a while, enjoying the sun (it was really hot. I have no idea where that rain came from yesterday!), before we got back. Well, we didn't get back the same way we got to the lighthouse.
On the way back we even got to see a few sheeps. OMG, they were cute!
All in all the journey was around 35 km long. What a distance! I was really sporty that day, wasn't I?

Hey mum! Here I am again!
Today it was time for another trip. As none of us was able to sit on a bicycle saddle again, we walked. This time we went to Den Burg. It is the next city close to De Koog and definiately bigger than De Koog. It's located in the middle of the island and it's the main town of Texel.
Den Burg is around 6 kilometers away from De Koog. It took us around an hour to get there. It was pretty boring for Batgirl and me, as we were in the bag most of the time, and it was soooo hot! After an hour we finally arrived:

We walked around the city and sat down in a little cafe to get some rest and some food.


We went back home after a while and just relaxed in the garden of our bungalow. Isn't that what holidays are for?

Goedendag! (This mean Good Day!)
Our vacation is slowly coming to an end. It's Thursday already... But as long as the sun is shining, we put our books aside from time to time and just go out an walk around.
This time we took a trip through the dunes.


We passed a statue of an old man. I actually forgot what the signature was saying, I'm so sorry.
We ended up at the beach again.
This was the first time I saw a jellyfish. Well, one at the beach so it wasn't really alive anymore I guess. But it still looked... strange... to me. So flabby. Urgh... Didn't want to tough it or get any closer to it...
But this could stop us from collecting shells as a souvenir.
And look what we found.

What a tiny crab! Well, it was dead as well, because it was lying in the sun for too long and the seagulls probably had some "fun" with it but it still looked to real and alive. I expected it to move again any second... We saw around 15 of those tiny crabs...


Our shell collection by the end of the day. Don't they look great?

So, this is it.
It's time to go home now! Yesterday was all about packing and cleaning the bungalow, because we had to leave until 10 am this morning. Well, and it was raining again yesterday... We went to the beach again yesterday evening, but didn't take any pictures. Sorry for that.
So, today we left our "vacation home" at 9:20 am and went to 't Horntje, where the ferry leaves to Den Helden.
We were all pretty tired because it was so early, so me and Batgirl slept during the car journey back.

Here's a picture of the ferry in 't Horntje. It's huge, isn't it? I have no idea how many cars or people can be transported with it, but I bet it's houndreds!

Hey mum!
Today it was time to go to Bochum again. You may wonder why we spent time there again. Well, this time we were watching the show! We went there, because one of the actors had his first show as Greaseball. Greaseball is the Diesel of the show and he is racing against Electra and Rusty in the final race. So we caught up with some other fans - most of them have already been there at the Goodbye reunion and got stall tickets for row 11. So close to the stage! Amazing!

Here's a picture of all of us in the break. This was pretty close to where we were sitting. It's a part of the stage. Cool, huh?
The show was great, althought I couldn't understand everything. But Liz told me what the show was about before so it wasn't too bad!
I really enjoyed it.

Miss you mum!

Hey mum! Today I visited Essen. Essen is located between Duisburg and Bochum. My host will go to school there next month and works there now and today she had an introduction at work, like who she will work with, where everything is, how everything works and so on. She will be selling Frozen Yoghurts. You know that? It looks like ice cream, but with low calorine and they have different toppics you can add to your Yoghurt, like chocolate sauce or gummibears or strawberries or other fruits. But I wasn't allowed to taste any of this...
Afterwards we walked through Essen for a while. Frosty was with us! He's Liza's new TV because her other two got lost. I hope this never happens to me!!

This is the "Marktkirche" in Essen. It's in the middle of the city and looks pretty small. We couldn't go inside because it was closed already, so we just sat down next to it for a while and relaxed because there was so much time left until we had to catch our train...

That was my "Essen visit"