Travelog for: Lieselotte

Here we are passing through Hannover Messe/Laatzen station:





The station is located near the Hanover fairground and was built for Expo 2000 in Hanover.

The second train wasn't as cozy as the first. It was a newer train and very full. But we took some pictures nonetheless.



We passed an old factory building near Hanover main station:



And we also passed the spot where many freight waggons are stopped and rearranged.







It was a nice trip even though we nearly only saw things along the rail tracks.

Mummy promised next time when it has cooled down we will see more.

Today we helped Mummy bake a cake for her mother’s birthday.

First we gathered all the ingredients we needed for the base cake.



Then we melted some butter in the microwave. Wow, so fast!



We let the butter cool down and grated an apple. Cookie held the grater while I grated the apple and Henri observed everything from a safe place high up on the coffee pot.



After that Cookie and I mixed sugar and butter and Henri cracked the eggs.



After mixing the eggs into the sugar butter mix we had the important task of weighing the flour. Look, we are hard at work here:



Then Cookie cut open the almond pieces and added some to the flour.



I added a pinch of cinnamon and Cookie a teaspoon full of baking powder.



We mixed everything well, added the grated apple and put it into the oven.
While the cake was baking we got out more ingredients to make custard. And we tested out the pot.



We poured some apple juice into the pot and let it heat up while Mummy mixed the other ingredients together with the custard powder. And no Cookie didn’t get her feet wet here.



While the custard was cooking we grated chocolate – lots of chocolate. *phew*



Then we had a little break while the cake was still baking and the custard was cooling down in the fridge. *yey* When the time was right I took the cake out of the oven and Henri cut it into pieces to make it cool down faster.



When everything was cool enough we crumbled the cake and mixed it with the custard.



Then Mummy melted the chocolate while we watched from a safe distance so as not to get all choclatey.



While the chocolate melted we formed little balls out of the cake-custard-mix and stuck sticks into them.





Because the chocolate didn’t turn out as it should have we opted for a chocolate-free icing with lemon juice, water, powdered sugar and colourful sprinkles. 



Our cake pops turned out very yummy!



Of course we had to try one. Can you see the empty stick in the bottom right corner? Yes, we snatched it while Mummy wasn’t looking. 



And Mummy’s mother was happy with her unconventional birthday cake as well.  

Something very exciting happened today! 

Mummy brought a big envelope inside from the mailbox.

We all really wanted to see what was inside.



Mummy opened the envelope carefully so we could all peer inside.



We saw a cute little pig in the envelope and told it to come out as we all wanted to meet it. The little shy piggy did as we told it when we all smiled our best smiles. 



We all gave it a welcome hug.



And we learned that in fact it is no "it", but a "she" called Oink. She was sent to Mummy from
Strunki, her prevous host.

And she brought chocolate, a postcard and a real treasure map. We asked her to tell us all about her previous adventures. So she gave each of us a piece of chocolate because story-telling is so much better with sweets and told us all of her travels in the Bergisch Land and beyond.



Wow! 

We are really looking forward to showing her around in the coming days!  I'm especially excited because it will be a part of one of my life missions! 

Today we went on a little walk around Uchte - or more precisely the neighbourhood around the retirement home and the industrial area and showed Oink around a little.

But first we had to send 2 postcards and then we posed on the mailbox.



On one of the meadows behind the retirement home we saw some goats. Two came running to have their pisture taken with us.



Around the corner we saw a huge blackberry bush.



After some more steps we saw a big construction site:



Here the buildings belonging to the agricultural cooperative society and the freight depot had been pulled down after a big part of them were burnt in a fire earlier this year.

Here we are posing in the construction site fence in front of a big pile of rubble:



A little way down the street we posed on a street blockade in front of one of the many corn fields.



Can you spot us on the barrier?



Also we have all been wondering what the street signs are supposed to mean. "Please only crash here" maybe?

At the end of the street we saw a field full a solar panels.



What a strange crop!

On our way back home we found this lovely pear tree hanging very full with fruits *yummy*, but without a partridge in it though.



Where one of the little streets is today there were many little garden plots. The street was built when Mummy was little so she remembers all the nice little gardens and she was very sad when they were all removed in order to build the street. Luckily a few of the gardens still exist today.

This one has a nice vegetable selection. Here you can see big cabbage plants:



And here are more different plants:



And we just had to pose in front of these beautiful sunflowers:



The last thing I want to show you today is another construction site:



Here they started a few years ago after the only high-rise building had been pulled down. They built a lot of little houses. Some of them belong to the retirement home and elderly people can live there and still be cared for by meals on wheels and other services the retirement home offers. Others are independent of the retirement home. They are also still building new ones which is very noisy and the street is always crowded by site vehicles. Luckily there is very little space left to build on and so hopefully they will be finished building soon!

Today we all helped Mummy bake cupcakes for her aunt's birthday.

First we had to gather all the ingredients for the cupcakes.



Look, how well we fit into the bowl! 

Then we had to grate an apple.



Or more precisely Cookie and I grated the apple while Henri observed us and Oink  snacked on an apple slice.

But Oink made it up when she took over the important task of weighing the sugar.



Cookie mixed sugar and butter together while Henri and I weighed the right amount of flour and Oink measured the baking powder.



Everyone watched while Cookie mixed everything together well.



Then we let Mummy fill the dough into the muffin tray and we snacked on the leftover dough. *yummy* 



While the cupcakes were baking we weighed ourselves.



Look, all together we weigh a little over 200g.

Then we measured the red currant jam for the topping...



... and mixed it together with butter, powdered sugar and crème fraîche.

To make the finished cupcakes look like apples we had to make some decorations from marzipan and colouring.



Here you can see the results:



The cupcakes fresh out of the oven...:



...and decorated:



Sadly, we couldn't taste them just now because they were for the next afternoon and had to be put in the fridge overnight.
But tomorrow I'll try one! 

Today is the day of cupcake-tasting! 

We took them to the apartment of Mummy’s grandmother to give as a present to Mummy’s aunt. We set them nicely on a cake stand (another present) around 2 smurf figurines.



Looks good, doesn't it? 

And finally after so much work and waiting we got to taste one of them:



Very good! (And yes, in case you were wondering they were supposed to look like apples so some of them even had marzipan worms. *eek*)

Because of the bad weather we have to stay inside mostly and spend our time often in the kitchen. It's actually much fun and we’re learning a lot of new things. 

Today we made a fairly exotic dinner: jasmine rice with red coco curry.



First we all weighed the rice and Mummy set it to boil on the stove.



(Well, technically we watched Mummy cut the chicken meat first, but we didn't want to put any pictures of raw meat here because it's a little yucky and we are considerate of others.)

So we only show it after it was already in the pan.



While the rice boiled on its own we took the coconut milk and red curry paste...



...and mixed them together in the pan (after removing the meat again).



After a while we added the meat to the mixture and let it simmer.



We also added the rest of the coconut milk and some almond pieces and cooked everything until the rice was ready to be served.



We served the rice in a heart shape and put the curry around it. It tasted very good – very spicy and totally different to what we are used to here. And the whole house smelled amazing.



We also learned how to eat with chopsticks, but we weren't very good at holding the chopsticks with our paws. So there are no pictures of this embarrassing endeavour.

Even though we don’t get outside much at the moment we have a lot of fun and we are certainly well fed.

We went on another sightseeing tour. Today we went on a long walk around the Landschaftssee, an artificial lake that was built as a recreation area.

But first we stopped at another nice place overlooking the fields I had visited already in June. But now everything had been harvested.





On the way to the lake we even saw a dragonfly. And it stayed still long enough for pictures.



Then we finally reached the lake. It's very green and peaceful there. Plus only very few people were around which made it seem even more peaceful and secluded.





About halfway around the lake we sat down on a bench and enjoyed the beautiful view and the nice weather.



We also saw a pretty blue dragonfly. It was gone too fast for more pictures, but I want to show it nonetheless.



On the other side of the lake we saw two swans. Can you spot them both?



A hint: One is looking for food with his head under water in this picture. 

On our way back we saw the Uchter Mühlenbach (millstream of Uchte) also called Beeke which is Middle Low German for rivulet.



We followed the rivulet until we reached one of Mummy's favourite places:



Mummy used to play here often as a child - also in the forest you can see on the left side in the background. Btw the bridge is a railway bridge.

From here we followed next to the railway tracks until we reached this huge rock:



It came from Scandinavia and was transported here during the Ice Age. It weighs 31 tons.

This was our last stop today before we went home on the railway tracks.

Today we started on a trip early in the morning. First Mummy went by car to a fellow Postcrosser who would take us to Soltau with him.

We had a look around once we were allowed out of the backpack in Mummy's car for a minute.



In Soltau Mummy met with some more postcard-crazy people. First they had a little sightseeing tour and of course some postcards were bought. But after a while we went into the Lüneburger Heide (Luneburg Heath) where the humans found a nice place to sit down.

We had a look around:









Doesn't the purple look nice?

But after such a long time we were very hungry. Luckily every Postcrosser had brought something to eat or drink and we had a picknick.



Doesn't it all look yummy? 

Coincidentally we also met lots of other toyvoyagers.
Here we were inspecting a big stack of postcards (it was a postcrossing meeting after all) :



And of course we had to have a group picture taken:



So many TVs!  Most came from different cities in Germany, but one was on holiday from the USA and another was raised in China (where a Postcrosser found him). 

This stone marked the place where we had settled down.



Yes, it was definitely a beautiful view! 

Of course we needed a picture close up with some heather.



And when all of that got too boring we played hide and seek and catch around the heather bushes. 



Cookie and Henri also had to say goodbye to us because they'll be going on new adventures now.



Have fun and come back safely! 

Going  home today we took a slight detour to see a nice street in town.

We saw many trees hanging full with miniature apples. This one looked very nice:



This street has many trees:



Every second tree was full of these apples and every other one had some remaining cherries. *yummy*

Then, as we turned around the last corner we were rewarded with a nice sunset.



Today it looked especially nice with the interesting reflections in the clouds.

Today was an amazing day! To celebrate yesterday's great news we went to the ice cream parlour. 



I had a chocolate sundae and Oink had an apple sundae. Delicious! *drool* 

Today we went on a roadtrip to one of Mummy's aunts.

We saw lots of fields and forests as usual...



Because it is so flat all around we have a saying here in Northern Germany: You can see yesterday who will be over for dinner tomorrow. 

See for yourself:



It's kinda true, isn't it? 

Also on Facebook there's a group called "I come from a town where a traffic jam is 3 cars behind a tractor". Here is prof:



And we saw another field full of solar panels. Those are sprouting everywhere.



The weather wasn't all that nice:



Luckily we were inside the car.

About halfway there we passed Sulingen.



It's a nice little town where Mummy had her driving test. (Nowadays you have to go to the next big city for that.)

As I said before we passeed lots of fields:





We saw corn fields, potato fields, cabbage fields, and some already harvested fields.

We also saw this nice windmill:



And we went alongside the railway tracks for most of the ride:





Our destination was somewhere in the woods as well:





I have to admit it seems a little creepy. But of course it's very quiet around here.

On our way back it was already dark so there are no pictures. But something happened. We hit a deer on the road!  We were all very, very lucky though as no one was hurt (not even the deer that was running away into the forest). And the car wasn't damaged either. *phew*

It was an exciting day. And tomorrow will also be a long day. So I'm going to bed now. *zzz*

Today Mummy had a doctor's appointment and an appointment in the hospital as well. It was over in literally 2 minutes and as we were hungry we stopped at McDonald's on our way home.





This afternoon Mummy has some more plans. Of course we'll go with her. Exciting! 

As I said, in the afternoon we went on another little trip. This time we went to Rahden.

Mummy needed application photos taken and a friend had recommended the photographer in Rahden. It's some distance away, but he did a really good job and that was important.

After this task was done we went a little around town, bought some postcards and just looked around (Mummy only ever went to the cinema here).

We saw these nice chimes on a wall...



...and this old oven in front of a bakery and café.



As it started raining then we cut our visit short and went back home. But it had already been an eventful and exciting day anyway.