Travelog for: Curly

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

Petra, Ted and I went to school today. We visited the second grade, in which Petra is teaching right now. She is a substitute teacher this year and since a while teaching in this class. I can tell you, that the pupils are very nice. They had been so happy to see us and to take a few photos with us.

Petra asked Snegovik, Ted, FoxForce and me, whether we would like to join her again and visit the third graders. She told us, that she teaches them, how to weave. They try to make a pincushion shaped like a ladybug - ladybird, when it is ready.

I think, I forgot to tell you 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.

I had a really great day today. The sun was shining and it was really warm. Now I believe, that it is springtime.
Petra woke up early and told us to get ready to for a walk. We were very curious and excited of course. First we bought some bread rolls for breakfast (only a few bakeries or open on Sundays) and then we brought Ralf to work (normally he doesn't work on Sundays).

And then we drove in the car for about 15 minutes. We sat in the rucksack and you can believe me, it wasn't the best way to travel.

After we walked a little bit, we found this sign:



It told us the rules, how we had to behave at this place.

Oh, you surely want to know, where we were. There is a small Japanese Garden not far away from Bruchsal in Münzesheim, which Petra was told, that it is really pretty. She never had been there before, but now she wanted to go there together with us.

So now look at the photos and enjoy!















I saw a part of the Berlin Wall:




This building was very interesting, especielly the ceiling, which was made of white and blue bottles.

Hi mom! 

I' ve just arrived at my new host in Amsterdam. Great timing because the weather is great here!

I have been biking this morning and saw my first windmill. I took a picture but my host is having some trouble uploading the pictures so you will see them hopefully very soon!

Hugs,

Curly

I safely arrived in Vienna/Austria a couple of days ago. Puh, I had to stay in my envelope for quite a while because my hosts were still on holiday and they neighbour who took my out of the postbox simply didn't open my envelope 

But I'm really relaxed now and slept enough for all the next days, so I'm ready to explore Vienna now!

We started sightseeing yesterday. My host took me and the other toyvoyagers - I'm in good company of Galen, a little monkey, Little Tex, an amadrillo, Ted, a funny frog, Malcolm51, the sweet little badger and Hippity, the crazy green monkey - to Grinzing. That's a part of Vienna situated on a little hill where many wineyards can be found. The wine produced there is sold a a special kind of restaurants called "Heurigen" that only open a couple of weeks a year. People know that they are open when they have this little bushes in front of their door. All the wine producers get a certain certificate and they are very proud about it. Did you know that Vienna is Austria's largest wine producing city?

We even went to the wineyards then and had a walk there. Our host was very happy about that because we also passed by the church where she and her husband got married - Kaasgrabenkirche.

The grapes weren't ready yet but it wont take too long anymore...

Today we went to Prater which is Vienna's big amusement park. It was wonderful!! We even saw the famous  "Giant Wheel" and tried some of the roller coasters. And have a look at the funny sculptures we saw!! We also said "Hello" to the mascot of Prater, a funny clown.

Today we had a long walk in the woods nearby. Autumn already started and I helped the kids to seach for chestnuts. We found tons of them, yeah!

Today we had a long walk in the woods nearby. Autumn already started and I helped the kids to seach for chestnuts. We found tons of them, yeah!

We also passed by Vienna's planetarium. It was closed but I was very impressed by the huge globe in front of it!