Travelog for: Tilda

Avisit to Austria - more snow and very cold, about minus 12. I hope they do snowboots my size and do they have skis for kangaroos??

I think I make a very fine Christmas ornament. What do you think?

I did visit here but was off elsewhere skiing down the slopes when the photos were done. Life is unfair sometimes. It´s very pretty and apparently here they speak francais or something - such a small country and so many languages - a bit different to Australia.....

This week I am off to Germany - time to get in the envelope and hope for fun times when I am released again

Hello,

I arrived in Germany safety. Fabi is a real nice girl and she takes us to a friend of her.
Photos will follow soon.

Have a nice day,
Tilda

Hello mum,

we visited a friend of Fabi today - Vanessa. She is a nice girl and we had a lot of fun there. I watched her dog from a table !





It was a nice day,
Tilda

Hi mummy,

I just wanted to let you know, that I arrived in Bruchsal. Petra is really busy, but we all wanted her to get in contact with our family before the human guests arrive. Petra told us, that her daughter celebrates her birthday today, altough her birthday was in December. It seems to be a funny family.

Bye, Tilda

Hurray!!! Hurray!!!

We had a little party today!!!


We had some snacks and water to drink and a lot to laugh about, of course. Dogs became friends with cats, a turtle with a kangaroo, a monkey with a moose and more.

We played with a big and a small ball and we learned how to play the card game "Mau Mau".



Didn't the table look nice?



Mingus Moose prefered to sit on the ballon.



(Playmo)Bill decided to not eat anything, because he was afraid to be too thick for his hobby.



Bullet wanted all the peanuts for himself.


Coco first had been a bit sad, because there was no honey on the table, but she liked the gouda then.



How did (Playmo)Bill come to that peanut? Maybe he asked Mingus Moose???



HolidayHarry had been really thirsty after eating a lot of sweets.



Florence is very hungry and wants to try a chocolate banana muffin.



Pebbels thought, that the Harry Potter muffin looked nice. It was a muffin with blueberries. Curly took the chocolate banana muffin too.



Amara Anthea tried a muffin american style, just on with chocolate drops.



AliG seemed to play the detective. What did he expect to find out today???



Do you see how happy Tortilla and Josh look with this dish filled with gummi bears?



Chokito, Davy and Schnuffi shared another Harry Potter muffin.



Only Hasi prefered something healthy - she wanted to eat a carrot.



I hadn't been sure, whether I should try a "nimm 2 " or whether it is better to eat a carrot too.



Then we started playing with balls. At first we choose the Australian ball, but it was so big, that the little toyvoyager among us had big problems.






Later we decided to use a table tennis ball, which of course is much easier to play with.










At last we learned how to play "Mau Mau".








Our first winner was: Chokito


Second place: Bullet


Third place: Hasi


Fourth place: Pebbels

Today was one of the rare sunny days. Petra came home from school and packed her rucksack to show us some places in Bruchsal. She didn't have so much time for it, because she had to go back to school for a teachers' meeting.

Here you see the backfront of the palace.


This is the Feldkirchle (field chapel)


Next to the Feldkirchle (field chapel) you see this cross

and these beautiful flowers

Today it's time for baking cakes for my host's mum's birthday. She is 70 years now and Petra was asked to bake two cakes: Donauwellenkuchen (Danube waves cake) and Zebrakuchen (zebra cake). Petra decided to bake a surprise cake too, with a part of the Happy Birthday song.

We sat all together watching and helping Petra with preparing the dough.



So here are the photos with me. If you are interested in recipes, I can try to ask Petra to write them here or send them to you.

















Finally the cakes are ready

The nougat cream cake:

only the words "Happy birthday" have to be put on the cake now.

The Zebra-cake



Somehow we miss the last photo of the Danube waves cake, the one with the cherries.

Hi Mum

today was a crazy, very busy and very rainy day again. It was only a short time without too much rain, so Petra decided to take us to a park with animals, that live in Germany. Here you see me with some wild boars. We only could take a few pictures and even missed some with the other toyvoyagers, because Petra's camera stopped working. She forgot new battery

Today Kari arrived at home again and he told us a lot about Australia. Now I know, that Kira1997 send him to my host family as a present for their daughter some years ago. He wanted to see them again, so he decided to go to Australia as a toyvoyager.

Maybe you heard about the Buran arriving in Speyer? The new home will be the technical museum in Speyer: http://www.museumspeyer.de/index.html

The Buran ( the only space shuttle of the Soviet Buran program)was only on one unmanned spaceflight in 1988. The shuttle program was cancelled in 1993. It was destroyed by a hangar collapse in 2003.
The Buran is the world's first genuine space shuttle to be exhibited to the general public.

Petra wanted to go there to watch the arrival, but the weather was too bad, so we only got the chance to read the newspaper

I think, I forgot to tell something about the history of Bruchsal.
Bruchsal was first named in 976 A.D., but since a few weeks we know, that it must be even older than this. They found something next to a church and realized that this is really old. I had been very curious to get to know more about this, but the weather was so terrible, that we had no chance to go there.
So you only see the most interesting places here. Petra was in a hurry, so the photos aren't that great she says.
Here you see the backsite of the palace and a part of the palace garden. The palace was nearly completely destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt around 1973.

Because the weather was much better than the days before, we drove to Untergrombach, which is one of the suburbs of Bruchsal. The Michaelsberg, a small hill - only 296m high, belongs to Untergrombach. You have a wonderful view over the Rhine valley and if the weather is very very good, you can see the Palatine Mountains in the far.
3500 - 2600 BC first signs of humans had been found on this place, the "Michelsberg culture".

This view shows a part of Bruchsal, which is at the border between Rhine Valley and Kraichgau.




The quarry pond belongs to Untergrombach, which you see on this photo. This is the best view to see the Palatine Mountains on the horizon, but today we had no luck.




You see another part of Untergrombach. You see, that it is also to the border of the Kraichgau.






This nice chapel is called Michaelskapelle and it is on top of the Michaelsberg. Petra told me, that there are many couples, that want to marry in this chapel.




Here you see so-called "Steinriegel" (field clearance cairn), made by people working on their fields a long long time ago. They threw the big stones from their fields to the border of the neighbour's field, so that in the middle all stones were accumulated. Many animals and flowers love this gaunt places and that's why a few weeks ago, people cleaned the Steinriegel from all the earth, that came between the stone during the many many years and from all the other plants, that love to grow in earth.




Another word I learned is "Magerrasen" (neglected grassland), which is typical for the Michaelsberg. The town you see is Untergrombach.



The Michaelsberg is nature reserve area, I'm sure, you already realized this too. There are beautiful rare flowers and animals.