Travelog for: Rex

My name is Rex and I'm a blue dinosaur as you can see. I'm a true gentleman and very brave, although I must admit I'm a bit scared of monsters. I'm very kind and trustworthy. My softer side is seen when I draw/paint as I'm artistic too. I'm owned by 3 little girls who set me my missions. I take those missions very seriously and want to make my owner-girls proud of me! I hope I'll meet nice people to host me and take good care of me.

Itinerary:
1. Apperveilchen - Germany
2. gingermuggins - Australia
3. Lejow - The Netherlands
4. rothko - Texas, USA
5. magickzzl - California, USA

Pfuh, I am exhausted. Today I finally arrived after my long journey. It shouldn't have been that long, but I was delayed by customs.

Tha weather isn't so good here. My host tells me there was a bad storm over the weekend so I am happy that we are going to stay at home today. I did sneak outside onto the balcony to look at where I've landed, though. I can see the movie theatre and the road that leads directly downtown. Unfortunately they are currently renovating the court house. It's a pretty building without the green net in front.

Today it snowed heavily all day, but it's just a tiny bit too warm for it to stay, so it's muddy outside. My host decided to put up spring decorations in protest and I helped. Don't I look pretty in pink?  I also got to meet the rest of the family. Eddie and I became good buddies.

My host took me to work with her today. We saw a beautiful sunrise and it was cold, but not as cold as I'm used to. I found a big patch of ice to skate on and then I had to explore the special play fountain. Children can splash water with maneuverable water guns in all directions when it's filled in spring and summer, or just dip their feet in the water, and can operate little machines like a track loader or paddle boards. Now they move snow. There are little bridges where the machines are fastened and one can use them to play catch. 

I might have made my host a little late for work with all my playing around but it wasn't too bad. I got to look through the slit lamp in one fo the examination rooms. It's really funny looking through there. I could change the settings so it gave off blue light and with special yellow eye drops the eyes all glowed green. I have to remember that next Halloween! I wanted to get someone to check my eyes, but noone wanted to because they thought I might breathe fire on them. Stupid! I'm a dinosaur, no dragon. You can see that because dragons have wings. My host says taht I might be a dragon at heart, though, because I'm so brave and noble. I think I like that. They did test my vision though and said it's great! As if I didn't know that already.

Guess what, today when we were leaving to go to the playground we stopped by the mailbox and.....insert drum roll here.....there was a big padded envelope from Australia. We opened it and out came......another drum roll.......Philéas! So I'm not the only TV here anymore. It's better to have a buddy when going to the playground anyway and Brigitte thought it was a good opportunity for us to bond.
So here we are in front of the playground. I like the storks, Brigitte tell me that the playground has been redone not long ago and it's great, because now whenever the weather permits it, it's full of children, even in winter. Today there were bigger kids playing soccer and small ones playing on the little rides. I got to swing by myself but shared the little animal ride.

After getting some fresh air this afternoon, I felt inspired and decided to draw a bit. First, I worked on a dancer in motion, but I was interrupted by Philéas who'd found a book on Hieroglyphs and wanted his name drawn. So I did it for him.

We went shopping and around the city a bit today. First we saw a Kindergarten, then smaller steep roads and finally the market place with some nice older buildings. The one in the center is the public library and education center.

Today my host came home from work and brought presents. She said she found them all in her mailbox and seemed really happy. I was also excited. The envelopes were pretty but looked like they'd come a long way, like me. One had funny signs on the postmark. I found out that it was from Korea. I helped open it and then really carefully opened the wrapping paper and found a really pretty spring top and a pink card. Philéas opened the other one and found cute things. I want to try out those pens!

We went to the photo shop and collected a big stack of holiday photos. They needed to be sorted into an album and I volunteered for the job. And guess what, I found real dinosaurs! Don't I look just like them? Same size, too, I'm just a prettier color and better fed. 

Today was Emil's birthday. He isn't here right now but we got the eat cake anyway. I had my own 2 little Pastries, which are called "Amerikaner" (=Americans). I thought it was really funny. This way I can tell everybody about what great food I had without spoiling my image of being a dangerous carnivore.
Later I listened to Philéas tell stories of this little boy and his friends who got up to great adventures. I wanted to know more of them, but the stories were written in French. It's really lucky that I have Philéas here with me. He agreed to teach me French and now I can not only understand and talk to everybody if I ever go to France or meet French TVs but I can tell my little girls more night time stories when I get back home.

I found a great place to play space ship in. Don't I look like an astronaut?

We drove up to Essen. That's a big city in the middle of other big cities and it's generally warmer here so it feels a lot more like spring and Easter time. We went to the postoffice and collected a big letter and enjoyed seeing all those green trees and especially the ones in bloom.
I also found a school that fits my coloring, but it's closed for the holidays at the moment.
Then there were gardens, just gardens, one next to the other. I found that strange and asked about it. Appenrently many people live in appartments here and don't always have back yards, or at least none where they can pland flowers or veggies or so. So people rent gardens called 'Schrebergärten'. where they can spend summer days or hours on the weekends.
And I got to play soccer with a couple of kids. It was fun, but all that endurance training is exhausting.

This morning I watched lots of ships o the Rhine. Many were open and I could see the containers or stones they were carrying.
Then we went through the old city parts of Düsseldorf. They are very pretty. I took a photo of myself at the market place. But there are also modern buildings. The not quite regularly shaped ones are the 'Medienhafen'.

We wanted to buy some Easter presents and a birthday present for a friend. Our host drove into an old part of town with us that used to be a little village on the other side of the river. There is a nice children's and youth bookstore in an old factory type building. That part of town also has very old churches that we could see from the highest level. There are toys and books on display and easter decorations all around.