Travelog for: Billy

Hey Mum!!

Guess where I've been today!! I've been at the German Sea for a day today. There are many small villages along the North Sea coast and there are some islands as well. Well, the North Sea coast is about 4 hours by car from Bochum. The weather was okay but it could have been better. It rained outward bound but it stopped raining as we arrived there, what a timing!! Well, it was a bit foggy at the beginning, but anyways.
But let me start at the beginning. I had to get up early in the morning, the departure was about 8am. After a while we stopped at a motorway service area because my host's dog had to walk, eat and drink something. So I had time to discover the area.





About 12am we arrived in:

Norddeich

We took a walk along the dike and the beach. It was a bit foggy but it didn't rain, so it was okay for me. There were only a few people there, well... it's not holiday time at the moment.





Here you can see Dottie Mouse and me on a big anchor:



Peek-a-boo



Unfortunatly it was low tide when we were there, but well. They have a swimming pool near the beach. I wonder why people pay money to go swimming in a pool when they can go to the beach..




Alright, afterwards we went to:

Nessmersiel

It's a very very very small village. Well, actually it is just a dirstrict of the municipal area "Dornum", Dornum belongs to the administrative district of "Aurich".
Most of the houses in Nessmersiel are holiday houses, so out of summer season there's almost noone there.
The beach of Nessmersiel is just very small. My host told me that it once has been bigger than now, but I have no idea what happened...

This is an old mill in Nessmersiel, but it's closed now, that's why there are some typical things missing:



This is an old sluice gate:




This is another old sluice gate:


And this is the "beach" of Nessmersiel.





And last but not least we visited:

Neuharlingersiel

Neuharlingersiel is a district of the city "Esens", which belongs to the administrative district of "Wittmund". Neuharlingersiel is much bigger than Nessmersiel and it has a lovely small harbour!! God, I love it there.







On our way back home we passed another old mill. It's 200 years old, it's from 1812!!



Well yeah, that was my trip to the German Sea. It was very exhaustively but it was a nice day and I saw many nice places today

Love,
Billy

Hey Mum,

I've been to Oberhausen today to do some shopping It takes about 20 or 25 minutes by car from Bochum to Oberhausen, so it isn't that far away. There's a big shopping mall called "CentrO". There are many shops and a big food concourse. Next to the mall is a stream with a promenade. It's lovely to sit in one of the cafés or restaurants along the promenade.
The weather was absolutely lovely today!! 

Well, this is the food concourse in the mall:


Have a look at the mall, it is very long and there are 2 floors.


And this is the promenade outdoors.



Look at the big Irish Pub, it is awesome!!


And last but not least there's a theatre, called "Metronom Theater". Musicals like "Wicked", "Dance of the Vampires" and "Beauty and the Beast" have been shown there, but currently there's a musical called "Dirty Dancing". Bet you know the movie, Mum. But my host told me that it's not worth watching the musical.


Yeah, so that's it for today..

Love,
Billy

Hello there,

long time no type, I'm so sorry!!
My host has been very busy and still is, so I couldn't visit so many places. But what could I do... It's raining all week, it's kinda depressing. This year's summer in Germany isn't very nice
Well, today I visited a furniture shop called "zurbrüggen" in Herne, a city next to Bochum. I just needed to flee from the rain!!



A special thing is that there are no stairs, there's just a huge ascent in the middle of the building which rises like a spiral to the highest floor. (Okay, and there's an elevator)



I found some furniture that reminded me of my home... It was some kind of South African - Style with elephants and giraffes and all that stuff. Wish I could be with you know..


Okay... that's it so far. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do the next days but I'll let you know when anything interesting happens.

Love,
Billy

Hey Mum,

good news, no rain today!! Even though there were some really dark clouds, but in the end it didn't rain.
I visited the "Phoenix See" in Dortmund today. It's a new project in a district called "Hörde" with an artificially produced lake and new homes and offices around the lake, and gastronomy and an insomnia clinic. There are still many construction zones because some things are still not ready. The lake area was permitted to the public in 2010, so as you can see everything's very new.
Besides, there are remains of an old castle near the lake, called "Hörder Burg". The remaining building was refurnished and looks quite new now.




The castle was built some time between the years 1100 and 1200, so it's very old!! Here you can see some original foundations of the castle near the building:



In the past, the area of the lake was an industrial area with furnaces and all that stuff. Among other things there was a converter that refined crude iron into crude steel.
This is the old converter, called "Thomas Konverter".



Alright, so let's have a look at the lake itself!!




This is a creek called "Emscher" which flows from Holzwickede (next to Dortmund) to Dinslaken and has a length of 83,1 kilometers!! It flows along the Phoenix See. Do you see the cranes in the background? It's the construction areas of the new insomnia clinic.



Aaaand the other direction:



And finally this is an old industrial building next to the Emscher and near the lake. It is protected as a historic monument so it can't get demolished. It gets completely refurbished and the building is expected to have some nice flats. Can't really imagine, but who knows.... maybe it's gonna be a real beauty.



Alright, that's it for today. I enjoyed walking around the lake, about 5 kilometers.

Love,
Billy

Hey Mum,

I am very busy at the moment with helping Kate doing some stuff for university. We study very hard because there's an exam about economics in August. Urgh! The tables in Kate's flat were too small for all the things that we needed, so we had to sit on the floor, not the best position to study. 





Love,
Billy

Hello Mum,

guess what, I'm going to Vienna with my host!! It's the capital of Austria. We'll stay there from monday morning until thursday evening, I can't wait!!!
We had to pack the suitcase in Dortmund today because we'll spend the weekend in Bochum and won't come back to Dortmund until next weekend.




In german, the city is called "Wien"


Monday will be pretty hard. The plane departs about 6am so we have to be at the airport about 4am. That means that we have to leave the house about 3am!! Jesus, I'll be tired as hell and I won't sleep that night because Kate and her friend Tiffy decided to pull an all-nighter in a bar.  Tiffy takes a TV called Frosty with her, I don't know him yet but I think he's gonna be a nice guy. And guess what, Marawarpina will be with us, too!! Do you remember her? I spent some time with her here with my host and she joined us as we went to London and I saw her at the Starlight Express theatre a few times. Can't wait to see her again.

I'll tell you everything about my holiday in Vienna when I'm back.

Love,
Billy

Hey Mummy

I'm sending you many greetings from Vienna, the capital of Austria!! Today was our first day here and the weather was beautiful!!!
Departure was about 6am, so I had to get up very early.



We started our sightseeing tour at the Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral). It's the most important religious building in Vienna and is in the heart of the city.



Here you can see the Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera), well at least the profile. It's near the cathedral and it was built from 1861 until 1869. Most of it was destroyed by war in 1945 and this is the reconstruction. But there are still some old remaining in the building and it looks stunning!!!




We continued our sightseeing and passed the Franz-von-Assisi-Kirche, an emperor-jubilee-church which was built from 1898 until 1910. This church is located near the Reichsbrücke (Empire Bridge) which crossed the Danube River. This bridge was built from 1872–1876 and was originally called Kronprinz-Rudolph-Brücke (Crown Prince Rudolph Bridge) until 1919.




We took a boat trip that started under the bridge. It was very nice to sail down the Danube River and I enjoyed sitting on deck with the sun shining down on me. We also passed a ship lock.




Then we headed to the Donauturm (Danube Tower). It's the tallest free-standing structure in Austria and has a height of 252 metres. The view is stunning!!!




That was the last thing that we did today... It was a quite long day without any sleep and we all were very happy to be at the hotel and finally find some rest.

Love,
Billy

Hey Mummy,

it's our second day here in Vienna and the weather is awesome! Bright sunshine and no rain We visited many things and walked soooo much that my feet hurt!! Well, almost our whole day was under the theme of "Sisi". Sisi is the nickname of Elisabeth, the empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. I'll tell you some facts about her life now before I start showing you some pictures.

Elisabeth was born in 1837 and got killed in 1898 by the italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni. Her husband was Franz Joseph I, emperor of Austria and king of several countries. They were cousins and Sisi was very young when they got married, she was only 16 years old!! The couple had 4 children; 3 daughters and 1 son. Her daughter Sophie died at the age of 2. Rudolph, the only son and successor to the throne, committed suicide at the age of 30. Sisi had a quite tragical life, she hated everything about her life in the Schönbrunn Palace and the "Hofburg", she had eating disorders and depressions. That's why she went on many journeys through the whole world for many months and sometimes a few years. Her death was a tragedy for Franz Joseph, he loved and adored his wife so much.
Oh god, imagine you were Franz Joseph and you would have lost 2 children, a brother, your wife, your nephew (Franz Ferdinand, the successor to the throne after Rudolph's death, got killed) and the wife of your nephew. Poor guy, he had so much to cope with

Anyways... This is "Hofburg Palace". It was the imperial winter residence. Nowadays there are museums and the national library. It looks nice, doesn't it?



And this is Schönbrunn Palace, the imperial summer residence. It's a huge Palace and the the garden behind the palace is much bigger than the garden of the Hofburg. Actually, the garden here is a huge park, with a huge zoo, a labyrinth and things like that. It must take many hours to walk through the park...






Unfortunately it wasn't allowed to take pictures inside of the Hofburg and Schönbrunn Palace
After visiting these buildings we headed to the "Kaisergruft" (Imperial Crypt), it's underneath the Capuchin Church and is therefore called Capuchins' Crypt. Here are the bodies (of course in coffins) of every emperor and every empress and some other important members of the imperial family.
Here you can see the coffins of Elisabeth (on the left), Franz Joseph I (in the middle) and Rudolph (on the right). I can't describe what I felt when I looked at these coffins, knowing that the people in there are so important people for the european history, it gave me the shivers 



Well, at evening we walked through the city and passed a theatre, called "Ronacher". Normally the musical "Sister Act" is shown there, but in Austria the theatres have a summer break in July and August and during this time there's no play, musical or opera shown in Vienna.



Alright, I think this were enough history lessons for you today, Mum 

Love and miss you!!!
Billy

Hi Mummy,

it's our third day in Vienna and we visited the Wiener Prater, it's an amusement park. There was heavy rain in the morning, that's why everything looks so dreary. Well, the best known thing there is the Wiener Riesenrad (Vienesse giant wheel). It symbolises the city for many people all over the world, so it's very popular. It's very very old, it was built in 1897!! We took a ride with this historic wheel, it's an incredible feeling!






Another popular thing in the park is the "Madame Tussauds" wax museum, I guess you know it There are many celebrities shown, it's awesome!! Well, we decided to visit the museum and we had lots of fun there!!
Here you can see us with George Clooney!


Robbie Williams:


Leonardo DiCaprio:


And this is Audrey Hepburn. God, she looks beautiful!


Afterwards we went to the hotel to take a little rest. At evening we headed to the townhall.
In July and August there's the "Vienna Film Festival". There's a big screen in front of the townhall and every evening there's another opera, recording of a performance with classical music, concert, musical or ballet shown. There are about 6000 seats for the audience!!  Imagine how great it is to be a part of that. The atmosphere is just stunning!! This evening the opera "Carmen" was shown, we sat down very early that's why the auditorium looks so uncrowded.



We all were very knackered at the end of the day so we were happy to go back to the hotel later this night.

Love,
Billy

P.S. I couldn't make an update for the second day yet because the pictures were taken with another camera but I guess I'll get them in the next days.

Hi Mum,

it's already our last day in Vienna today. It was damned hot and the sun was burning this morning, I almost melted!!
Anyways, we visited the "Tiergarten Schönbrunn" today. It's located in the huge palace garden of Schloss Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn Palace) and is a World Cultural Heritage. My host told me that it's the oldest zoo in the world and that it was founded in 1752. Originally it was only for the imperial family, but after the end of the reign of Maria Theresia (died in 1780) it was also opened for "normal" people. Pretty impressing, isn't it? It hosts giant pandas, only a few zoos in the world are hosting pandas and I got to see some of them 
Unfortunately the pandas were asleep when we were there Can you spot them lying there?



This is the "Kaiserpavillon", it was the imperial breakfast-pavillon of the empresses and emperors but now it's a restaurant / café for the visitors of the zoo. I think it looks very nice!! Mum... Imagine the empress Maria Theresia sitting there with a beautiful dress and some court ladies walking around.



As I already mentioned the zoo is located in the palace garden. We took a little stroll through the park after visiting the zoo and passed the palm house / greenhouse, it is among the largest botanical exhibits of its kind in the world. It was opened in 1882 and most of it got destroyed in 1945. It was reopened in 1953.
It looks awesome, doesn't it??



Afterwards we headed to the "Schatzkammer" (treasure chamber) where the crowns and all that stuff are coffered. It was very interesting.

Well, at evening we went to the airport to get back home, but some big problems came up!!! We couldn't fly from Vienna to Düsseldorf as we actually booked. The flight was overbooked and our airline AirBerlin changed our booking to a flight to Berlin and from Berlin to Düsseldorf. Well, the flight to Berlin had a delay, so as we arrived in Berlin we missed the flight to Düsseldorf. AirBerlin didn't want to pay for a hotel for us so we had to sleep on the floor of a small air terminal and take a flight the next morning!!!  It was horrible, I couldn't sleep a single minute that night Bad end of a beautiful holiday...

Alright, that's it so far.

Love,
Billy

Hey Mum,

today was my last day here in Dortmund and I had to say goodbye to Dottie Mouse and my host. I spent a long time here so I'm quite sad to leave my host, but it's time to move on and I can't wait to arrive in Kiel






Well, my next Update will be made in Kiel, I can't wait to tell you everything about my first days there!!

Love,
Billy

Hey Mum,
yesterday I arrived in Kiel. I felt that my travelop was dropping into a letterbox and later someone with a deep voice took me out saying "uh what´s that... hm... have I buyed something...?" and it was getting light again because he opened the envelop. Yeah fresh air again... 
So I first meet Jan, a friend of my new host. I was sended to him, because she didn´t expect me bevor in a few weeks and she´s just moving and don´t know where she will live then.
urks it seems that I lost a little bit of my english-knowledge during the last travel 
but that will become better again...

The first evening i spent watching The Olympic Games with Jan and it was relaxing to do nothing else than watching tv after the travel, but exiting too to see the athlets.

Today I was introduced to my new host, sunset. I´m glad to know now whith whom i will spend the next weeks.
She was very happy and surprised that I am here 
First she said was "oh is he sweet and I didn´t think that he´s so small"
Than she looked what I was bringing with me, and she says many thanks to Katja that she send me so well packed and thanks for the nice card. I also had some sweets for the journey, but I didn´t eat them all... 
Every thing is allright, I´m a bit excited to see my new home, and I will write again in a few days.

Love, Billy

Hey Mum,
let me tell you now, what happend the first evening with my new host.
First I got something to eat and drink because she thought, that I must be hungry after the day in the envelop. We had noodles and ZucchiniHack.

After that I got a place at the window to get an overview where I was now.
Later we went "home" by bike.
It is nice to travel by bike, because you can see everything.
We wanted to see the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal, internationally called Kiel-Canal.

On the way we had to pass a small dark underpass for pedestrians and there I used the first chance to try to escape!
Of course sunset noticed immediately that I was away and came back and picked me up.
She was very concerned why I try to escape allready the first evening...
We discused it and came to the result that I´m not used to travel by bike and so I didn´t hold on good enough,
or it is because I came to Kiel to fullfil my Life mission Going on a boat cruise and now it is allready completed 
and so I have to travel on... that I want to go to the wilderness...

The next morning sunset found my identitycard on my back and now she isn´t so much in sorrow anymore what might happen if i REALLY escape.

Back to that evening:
I watched the canal from above on the bridges and had a fine view to the flootgates. There were two ships in it who came into the canal and I was lucky because one ship was coming from Brunsbüttel while we were taking fotos 

The small white point above my right ear is the only ferry that passes the canal in Kiel - although Kiel is the capitol of Schleswig-Holstein! It carries only pedestrians and bikers.

After the photosession on the bridge my host showed me her home.
It looks nice, but...
of course it has reasons when someone moves.
What a luck that I can travel by envelop- uh what difficulties to change apartement when you are a humanbeing with possession...

I spent a while on the balcony and then we eat the sweets from Kate and watched Olympia.

We also had some minutes without stress playing a computergame.

Next days my host has to visit apartements and things like that and I can´t join her then - people might think that she´s crazy when she carries a toy with her...
I will stay here then and look at the map par example, it is a map from sweden. I think I should go there to see the nordern lights...

love Billy

Two photos are missing.

I don´t know why it dosn´t work that the text is around the photos but all photos on the end of the text...