Travelog for: Peti

Today we went for a walk around the city center of Schwerin. The sun was shining but it was very cold, too.

These are some of the old houses and a part of the old city wall.



In front of a shop I meet a huge bear. He asked me whether I've already seen the castle. I haven't but Katrin said that we are going to see it soon.


The town hall


I even meet a strawberry rhinoceros! It's the symbol of the city Schwerin. You can find statues like this everywhere around the town.


In the background you can see the cathedral of Schwerin. It's hard to take a good photo of it since all the other buildings are standing right next to it. We are a the market place right nnow where they are preparing the Christmas market.


This is the "Petermännchen", I met it near the catherdral.

Quote:

The small impious ghost Petermännchen reportedly roams the halls of the Schwerin castle. This little spirit is no more than a few feet high, and is often depicted in clothes from the 1600s, something resembling a cavalier. His existence may be in doubt, but he is a popular legend as ever.

And here we are, the beautiful Schwerin castle!


This is a closer look at the entry.


Then we walked around the castle and walked through the garden of the castle. This is the plan of the garden, you can see the castle in the right part. It's on a little island.


We even found an area of untouched snow. I took the chance and made a snow angel.



This is one of the statues. There have been more, it look at the grey clouds, it started to snow again and we hurried back home.

Today we had to leave Schwerin and took the train back to Hamburg. I got my own seat...


...but it was very boring and I decided to look out of the window.


It got dark outside very quick and I decided to read in Katrin's book.

A huge letter has arrived, Katrin says this must be her next guest. Can't wait to see him or her!


Katrin opened the envelope and I discovered a trunk and then the head and a sleepy voice asking: "Where am I, is this Germany?" Yes, it is!


This is Luddie, the elephant from Hawaii. I gave her a big welcome hug. She was still a bit sleepy but happy to be out of the envelope after her one week journey.

Katrin's mum has started to decorate the house for Christmas. When Katrin came back home today, Luddie and I had to show her what we had discovered.

These two wooden figures are sitting on the window shelf on the first floor.


The bells on this photo are typical for Katrin's hometown, the way they are looking is called Fayencen.
This website is in German, but when you click on "Kellinghusener Jahresteller" in the left frame, you can see some more Fayencen.


We even met a small version of Santa Clause or the "Weihnachtsmann", that's how he is called in German. He said that we can visit him again and then he will teach us some German Christmas poems.

Today we went to Lübeck, it's an old city near the Baltic Sea.
This is the most known sight of Lübeck, the "Holstentor".


In front of the "Holstentor" there was this sleeping lion. It was snowing and raining the whole time, not the best weather to take photos outside...


The Christmas fair, in the background St. Mary's Church.
There were many many people and Katrin was scared to loose one of us, that's why she didn't take more photos.

Look at this! Although Katrin told her mum that she feels a bit to old to get an "Adventskalender", her parents gave her one with wine gum!


The door number one was on the left button side...


...and behind the door was a little bag of gummi bears! Katrin shared them with us.

Katrin had a day off from work today and had had big plans what she wanted to do today... well, she did about half of it... 

She wrote a letter to on of her pen pals and was happy, that she could finally use her paper with Christmas motives.


The most important work of the day: write the presentation about her work in the museum for next week's event at her university. Katrin didn't like this work, but it must be done.


This was her favorite work: preparing surprise letters for some other TV hosts. Since she read the Christmas wishlist thread yesterday, she's been busy and this is the result: three letters filled with little surprises.


And finally Katrin discovered unknown creativity, she draw this picture forsararingham's art sketchbook. It's nothing special, but Katrin is proud of it since she hated art class in school.

Katrin came back home at bit earlier today and she grabed us to take some photos outside. She was a bit sad, that she didn't take us with her to Hamburg yesterday, since it has been snowing more or less the whole day. Today most of the snow has been melted away...


This is the Christmas decoration in front of the front door.


It was getting cold outside and we went back to the kitchen. Katrin wanted to show us, what she is going to eat for breakfast for the next years. This is millet, amaranth and     buckwheat. She eats it with fruits and cream. On Monday Katrin went to the doctor's and the doctor told her, that she isn't aloud to eat anything which includes milk, egg and wheat/gluten anymore when she don't want to become really sick. It seems like Katrin has to change her eating habits a lot, but she has some plans and is still in a good mood...


But there was a surprise in the mailbox, that cheers Katrin up at once: It was a letter from Eryah...


... with a little Christmas surprise! Katrin fell in love with the little pig at once, but she is still looking for a nice place for it.

Today is "Nikolaus", Katrin seemed to be a nice girl during the last year since the "Nikolaus" filled her shoes with many presents. Luddie and I had to look. Katrin got some sweets and this little elk, but her boyfriend told her not send it away. Seems like he can read her mind, since the little elk has the perfect size to be a toyvoyager...

We are in Schwerin now, we are visiting Katrin's boyfriend. This afternoon we'll go to the Christmas Fair...

This afternoon Katrin and her boyfriend and his family went to the Christmas market in a small town called Grambow. It took about 30 minutes by car to go there.
The first thing I discovered was this wooden sled.


There were many tables in the house with hand-made things and lots of decoration stuff to buy.


I'm sorry, this pic is a bit blurry...Well, it must be the smell of the soap bars...


In the evening it was getting cold and I spend some time near the fire to warm a bit before we went back home to Schwerin.

We're on the way back home to Kellinghusen. Katrin was reading a book but Luddie and I wanted to enjoy the landscape. Well, as long as there was enough light outside the window...


Back home in Kellinghusen I had to say goodbye to Katrin and my new friend Luddie. She gave me a big hug before I crawled into my envelope. My next host lives in Germany, too, so the journey won't take too long.

Hey Mum!

today I arrived in Hameln, the town of Pied Piper. It is really nice here. And I already me three other toyvoyagers: Mumu, Chris the Cat and Phex.

Today we were in Stadthagen, a city in the district of Schaumburg. My hostmum lived here for 3 years and she also went to school here in her youth. We have seen some old buildings:
This is the castle in Stadthagen (built 1534), now there is the  financial office in it


This is the "Amtspforte" (built 1553), there is a museum in:


"Ratskeller", that is the old town hall (built 1595):

St. Martini church (built 1318)


an old house:

te old Latin school (built 1556)

now it was too cold to be outside, so we only made pics without us.. we had only -5°C (or it felt like that)...
a mausoleum:

St. Martini church again:



one old tower:



again the castle:

we had a really nice day in Stadthagen. Later we went to a friend of my host mum and we played DSA (a roleplay)..

Today another toyvoyager arrived in Hameln. Harold Giraffe arrived here. He had a long journey from Russia.

Today we decorated the christmas tree of my host family. It was a lot of fun:



and here we are with our result of decorating the christmas tree: