crizle@westnet.com.au
Posted Dec 27, 2008, 7:26 am
My name is Elston and I am an Australian Native Animal.
My main diet is ants and termites, so I have a very long nose.
My ID bracelet won't fit on me anywhere, so when I visit you, I will always have a photo with my ID on it.
I am hoping to travel all over the world after Christmas.
Posted Jan 13, 2009, 9:15 pm
I arrived at the home of my first host Katja today. She was delighted when she found me sitting in my envelope on the stair when she came home in her lunch break.
She immediately opened the envelope and I was welcomed by three other ToyVoyagers, Ninni from Finland, Theodore from the USA and Big Bird is an American who is living in Japan usually.
I have a nice ID-card because I am too knobbly for attaching a travel tag with a chain. I don't even have a neck ...
I brought a beautiful key holder for my host with me. She really loves it and attached it to her keys immediately.
Katja will have to learn much about my species. She thought I'd be an anteater! Anteaters are living in South America, Everyone knows that - at least in Australia.
When Katja had to return to her working place I went with her. On our way to the law firm we took a few photos.
Here you can see houses which are typical for this region. They are covered with slate.
This is part of the town hall, in the basement you can find a restaurant like in most town halls. These restaurants are usually names "Ratskeller", wich means "cellar of a town hall".
It was a little bit boring in the office. I was hungry but the only thing Katja had which was eatable was an apple.
After closing-time we went into an Asian store to buy some things. I asked for ants but they didn't have any. They have vegetables and fruit(ugh!), many sorts of deep frozen fish, Asian sweets, noodles and much more.
Here you can see what we've bought.
I tasted the coconut juice. It's good but I'd prefer squashed ants or termites. Katja told me that she does not know if there were any termites in Germany. Ants stay in their nests or hills during winter here in Germany. It's too cold for them to come out. Even worse, this is a veggie household!
Katja cooked a hot soup with red lentils. I tasted it because otherwise I would have to starve.
It's not so bad.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 16, 2009, 2:47 pm
Katja showed me a little bit more of the town centre in her lunch break. Look, the weather is fantastic, in the morning it did not look as nice as now.
We went through a street with lots of beautiful old houses, most of them were built in the late 1800s. Katja told me that large parts of the town were destroyed in World War II. But also many parts stayed intact. I am living in a house which was built in 1904 at the moment. I'll show you a photo later.
Now we are in a street with post war buildings.
Here we are back in the middle of the town centre.
Here you can see more of the town hall. On the space in front of it the farmer's market is held twice a week.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 21, 2009, 5:07 pm
a new ToyVoyager arrived today, Fluffytail, a cute squirrel.
In the afternoon we took a walk to the muncipal park. Look, I am living in this nice house at the moment, in the attic storey.
This is a street in the vicinity of my current home. A friend of Katja is living here, they will meet in the evening. Katja is teaching her friend to knit socks.
We came along a playground, in the background you can see one of the churches in the town centre.
Here we are in the muncipal park. The duck pond is still covered with ice.
This is the observatory.
Here you can see more of the park.
This is a very special thing: A garden for blind people. All descriptions are made in braille and the flowers are planted at a convenient height. In summer they have flowers, herbs, sounds, stones and more.
Here you can see a memorial for citizens of Remscheid which died in several wars before World War I.
Theodore told us hat he met a chipmunk girl a few weeks ago. He wanted to look for her, we were helping him.
I had a look here in this rhododendron, but I did not see any chipmunk girl.
We left the muncipal park, walked downhill and walked back home along the Route of Tools. I'll tell you more about it later.
In the background you can see the outskirts of Wuppertal, the neighbour town.
Here we were back on the street. These slate covered houses with green shutters are typical for this region, they are called "Bergische Häuser".
This steep street is leading back to the muncipal park. You have to be in a good shape to take walks here.
I'll go sock knitting with Katja later.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 27, 2009, 8:14 am
we had delicious fruits in the evening. Katja said we all should lose some weight, so we had fruits instead of a real dinner.
We had banana, a golden kiwi, an apple, physalis and honeydew melon.
We helped to cut all fruits into pieces.
We watched "Hundkatzemaus" on TV. That's a tv show about pets. In English the name would be "dogcatmouse". You can learn a lot about pets.
We enjoyed it.
Later Big Bird and I tried the socks on that Katja is knitting for the toddler of a friend.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 27, 2009, 12:34 pm
today Katja and her friend Erika took a long walk with us in the forrest. We went to Erika's home to pick her up. We came along the police station with a little park in front of it. The first photo that we took is showing a pillar in the park with the engraved coat of arms of Remscheid and the names of the twin towns.
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She is living in one of the oldest districts of the town, it is called Hasten.
This is the district's church.
We met Erika here and went back to the town centre by bus.
This is the view from the town centre to the south of Remscheid,
We walked along the industrial ruin of a former brewery, Kipper Brauerei. Here you can see how it looked like before the buildings were demolished.
We rested a little bit on one of the remaining walls.
From here we walked into the forrest.
This sign says that this forrest is a nature reserve.
A creek is running through the forrest here. It is carrying a lot of water now because we had lots of rain this week.
Our last break on a tree trunk ...
No, it wasn't our last break, but at the least the last one in the forrest. The two ladies were hungry and had to go to .... I think you know where they had to go after walking two hours through the cold.
Yes! Our favourite break
From here we went home by bus.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 31, 2009, 10:34 am
a new ToyVoyager from England arrived today. It's Kelly Bear.
Now we are already four ToyVoyagers here. I'm sure we'll have lots of fun.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 31, 2009, 5:48 pm
helped to feed the pet rats today. They are really funny animals. They are hoggish, playful, friendly and cuddly.
In the background you can see rat girl Jordan, she is a little bit overweighted. Katja is calling her lovingly "Mopsi". I'm afraid I cannot translate it for you. In any case it has something to do with Jordan's round shape.
This is Nicole. She was thrilled to meet someone with an even more acute nose than hers. The white one with the funny dumbo ears is Bella.
This is Karla, Nicole's sister. She also was delighted to meet me.
Bye
Elston
Posted Jan 31, 2009, 6:12 pm
today we visited Düsseldorf, the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The city is situated on the River Rhine and is renowned for its many events and also for its fashion and trade fairs.
We went there by train and walked to the town centre.
We saw this interesting pyramide, a fountain which is put out of service in winter,
this is a church, Johanneskirche.
This is an equestrian sculture showing Emperor Wilhelm I, one of the former German Emperors, who lived from 1797 until 1888 A.D.
We reached Königsalle, the most famous shopping street here. They have stores of the world famous designers here. Königsallee is called "KÖ" here.
The small river Duessel is running through the town.
From here we walked to Altstadt (old town). Here you can see the town hall.
From here it is not far to river Rhine.
This is the Landtag of the state North Rhine-Westphalia, the provincial government, also situated at the river Rhine.
Here you can see an information board regarding to Rhine tower.
In Germany they definitely have too many traffic signs, even on footways.
Now you can see Rhine Tower.
It was already getting dark than. The river lookes so beautiful with the sun going down that we made more pictures.
Sunset in the haven.
We walked along the backside of the Landtag, here a library is situated.
When we returned to Altstadt all the pubs at the waterfront were illuminated.
Katja and her friend had a few delicious beers later and an even more delicious mojito.
Oh, my feet were aching to badly that I won't make a move before Monday.
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 2, 2009, 5:07 pm
you won't believe what I did today. I made a cake. A very special cake, an ant cake.
Yes, really, I had a look at the dictionary: "Ameise" means "ant".
On the first picture you can see the ingredients margarine, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar, rum and chocolate covered ants.
I made the dough with egg yolk, margarine, butter, flour, vanilla sugar, rum and beaten egg whites.
Than I added the most important ingredient: ants, covered with chocolate. I tasted them, they tasted a lot like chocolate, I missed the taste of ant legs, but I thought they will do for a cake.
Then everything had to be mixed and filled into a baking dish.
When the cake was ready I put some icing made of icing sugar, lemon juice and rum on top of the cake and decorated it with more legless chocolate ants.
Of course everyone wanted to taste it. Doesn't it look great?
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 5, 2009, 10:53 am
we have a new guest here: it's Womat, a fellow from Australia. I'm glad to meet him here.
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 6, 2009, 5:01 pm
today a new ToyVoyagers arrived, Louis the rat.
Katja brought delicious cookies for us, they are called Nuss-Schiffchen (nut boats).
They are really delicious. Womat also liked them.
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 11, 2009, 2:18 pm
it started to snow yesterday in the evening but today most of it already melted away, because it is not cold enough.
We went to the muncipal park in the afternoon. We have to walk only a few minutes to get there.
This is the observatory, situated in the muncipal park.
We rested in front of the memorial for victims of several wars before World War I.
This is one of the walking paths in the park.
This is a pond where lots of ducks and turtles are living. It is still frozen.
The weather is not very good, but we had fun anyway.
Bye
Louis
Posted Feb 13, 2009, 7:08 pm
today two ToyVoyagers arrived: Harold Giraffe from Australia and Peti from Hungary. We made a group photograf sitting in the kitchen window. Outside it was snowing, I hope you can see it.
In the afternoon I made lamingtons with the help of Womat and Harold.. They are supposed to be my farewell dinner, I'm going to leave Germany tomorrow.
We started with baking the sponge cake.
Here it is before going into the oven.
Half an hour later is was ready.
Than it had to be taken from the baking tray to cool down.
The waiting time was sweetened by a glass of sparkling wine.
Here is our sponge cake, already cut into squares.
We prepared the chocolate icing ...
... and the dessicated coconut. Then we dipped the cake squares into the icing and rolled it in the coconut.
Doesn't they look fantastic?
Now the whole kitchen is a mess but all ToyVoyagers like the lamingtons.
I hope we don't have to clean up the kitchen
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 14, 2009, 10:12 am
today we went with Katja to her working place in the afternoon. She took one of the chocolate bars with her. Maybe she was afraid that the ToyVoyagers which stayed at home could eat them.
First we took a photo in front of the front door of our house.
Later we took a look out of the window. From here you are looking to the space in front of the town hall.
Than we helped to eat the delicious chocolate.
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 14, 2009, 11:51 am
Posted Feb 17, 2009, 1:38 pm
I'm on my way to my next host now.
I hope the jouney won't last too long.
Bye
Elston
Posted Feb 20, 2009, 5:44 pm
Posted Feb 26, 2009, 7:00 pm
Tomorrow, we all travel to London. Lucy has promised to take lots of photographs and will update my travel log on Monday.
Love from Elston xxx
Posted Mar 4, 2009, 8:30 pm
Well, last week we all checked the map for where we were going to go to in London. I was very excited to be travelling to the English capital.
We were travelling by train from Milton Keynes Central to Euston station and my host, Lucy, took my photo outside the railway station before we left and with all of us toyvoyagers together too. She also took a photograph of me when I arrived at the station in London. We all waited for a London Bus, sat on a bush together outside the Park Lane Hotel and at the Hard Rock Cafe too. Rocky is on a mssion to go to Hard Rock Cafes. We sat on top of a bus ticket machine and a postbox and were pictured in Piccadilly Circus.
We all had a wonderful time and now we are safely back in Milton Keynes.
Love from Elston xxx
Posted Mar 4, 2009, 8:49 pm
Love from Elston xxx
Posted Apr 16, 2009, 7:37 pm
My host Lucy has been very ill in hospital but is now back home having stayed with her Mum for a few weeks whilst she recovered. I read a bit of her favourite Enid Blyton novel to her with the other toyvoyagers she is hosting at the moment. She is sorry that she has not been a very good host over the past few weeks but hopes to take some photos at the weekend and update my travel log then.
Elston xxx