Sebastiaan, Poeldijk, Netherlands

Lejow Posted May 6, 2008, 1:43 pm	Hello! I am Sebastiaan, a sweet little Crab!! I want to travel all over the world because I have seen all the Dutch Aquariums by now! Thats why it's one of my missions! I want to see aquariums all over the world  Because I'm a crab it's logical I like the movie 'The Little Mermaid' from Disney, Mom called me after the famous Crab in that movie: Sebastiaan! (at least, thats how he is called in the Dutch version !) So my there is my second mission: See the Little mermaid in all kinds of languages. My other 3 missions speak for them self I hope I may travel a lot, and I hope to see you soon!! My Travellist: Tine - Germany (arrived on the 17th of May) Apperveilchen - Germany Kaiwiopele - USA Michi - Singapore Hug Sebastiaan (This is me!)
Tine1969 Posted May 17, 2008, 1:04 pm	Hi! This morning I arrived at my new host Tine. She opened the envelope immediately and I could breath some fresh air. I came out of the envelope and looked around. Wow - I'm not alone - two other voyagers are with me . Both like me, I got hugs and kisses and I feel fine. I show them my notebook, the dutch shoes, the postcard - and everyone was interested - how nice ! I think the next days will be fine here in Germany, Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted May 21, 2008, 6:13 pm	Good evening - here are the news of my first trip - my name is Sebastiaan the hiking and climbing crab - and I am sooooooooo tired. Therefore I would like to show you some photos of the trip to Monschau, an old village in a region called Eifel, which has got many hills... Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted May 21, 2008, 6:37 pm	Brrrrr - today my host had to go to the dentist. We went to Dortmund by car and had a short rest before visiting this kind of doctor. We visited the ruins of Hohensyburg and my host took some photos. Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted May 21, 2008, 6:40 pm	I am so sad, because Tux left us today - he is travelling to Mizzery now. Here are the last photos we took together with him ... Good-bye, lovely Tux - it was nice to meet you! Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted May 31, 2008, 1:35 pm	Last week I was on a trip for two days together with Tilda and my host. We went to Würzburg, a nice city in the Southern part of Germany. Würzburg is situated on both sides of the river Main. Therefore I wanted to see this river first. My host is great - she always does what I want to do  - and because of that we went there, having a nice look on an old castle on top of a hill. As I saw many ships on this river, I asked Tilda if she would also appreciate to go on a boat trip. And - on the next day we went to a small town by boat - the town was named Veitshöchheim, a really difficult name for me and this town had a nice garden with a castle and also with some dragons. I wasn't afraid of these dragons as you can see on the photos ! At the end of the trip we went back to Würzburg again - and there we saw a nice pig in green. I liked this pig and I was happy that my host took a photo of us. Bye, Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 3, 2008, 1:48 pm	Some days ago I visited a nice old town with a great market together with my host family and Tilda. We went to Kornelimünster which is close to Aachen near the border to Belgium and The Netherlands. Because of the fact that there were many, many people on the market my host didn't take many photos. But we all enjoyed the market very much... Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 3, 2008, 2:12 pm	Hi - here are some news from me - last Sunday I had a closer look at Alt-Kaster, the place where my host lives. I was on the playground too and we walked together to the lake. During the whole trip the sun was shining - I liked it very much. Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 8, 2008, 4:59 pm	Today Tilda and I visited the castle of Paffendorf and the castle park. The weather was fine - warm and sunny - and after some days with a lot of rain it was great to go on a trip outside again. I hope you like the photos - have a nice Sunday! Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 14, 2008, 3:03 pm	Hi - what a misty weather - we went to the open cast pit Hambach - and everything was misty and it was hard to see something. But after some concentrating I could see the huge excavators in the coal mining. It looks like they are standing on the moon - what a grim place. I was pleased when we came back home and my host took two photos of mine with nice and colourful flowers... Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 16, 2008, 7:37 pm	Today Tilda, my host Tine and I went to Tine's physiotherapy by car. I tried to drive myself, but I wasn't successful - then I had to sit down on another seat. We arrived a bit too early - therefore we had to wait a bit. Of course, we had been really helpful with the phone and the fax . Then we were allowed to go in - and, what was that??? We meet a skeleton - his name was Fridolin. I tried to talk to him but he was too shy to answer - what a pity... Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 16, 2008, 7:49 pm	Greetings from Düsseldorf ! What a hard day - I had to get up early in the morning. At 6:30 we left the house and I went with my host to her working office. I helped her with the phone calls and the computer during the day. In the afternoon we went to the Media Harbor where I saw the silver Geary Building, the TV-Tower, the marina and the river Rhine. The weather was great and I enjoyed every minute. Sebastiaan
Tine1969 Posted Jun 16, 2008, 7:59 pm	This evening we went to the castle park of Bedburg. I liked it there - it was calm and Tilda and I saw some ducks. My host told me that I have to leave her during the next days - I am bit sad about that, because Tilda is allowed to stay longer, but my host told me that I will travel to another host named Apperveilchen soon. I am really curiuos about that ! Sebastiaan
Apperveilchen Posted Jun 22, 2008, 8:29 pm	Yay, I arrived in Homburg! I had to wait in the mail box for a bit, but that was okay. Look what a greeting I got: There are Greta, Josh, Little Tex and beck the lion. They just got back from a short trip and we were all happy to get out or the dark and rest in the appartment. They told me about their trip to Bedburg today, where I just came from! Funny! They visited someone and then had a look around Alt-Kaster, where I was on June 1st.
Apperveilchen Posted Jun 29, 2008, 1:06 pm	This weekend it's not only the final of the European football championship, but also the Medimesterschaften. That's a yearly football (soccer) competition of teams from the medical schools in Germany. It's hosted by a different university each year and this year it's in Homburg. One or more teams from 31 different medical schools participated, bringing their own fans. They camped next to the stadium. The field was was divided into 4 smaller field because the whole competition is in one days and there are women's and men's teams. One game also only lasts for 20 min. The men's semi-finals were decided with exciting 11meter shots. Homburg and Ulm won. Then came the final. All the fans of the teams were at the side of the field and had to repeatedly be pushed back outside the side lines. I had to stay in the bag because of the pushing and shoving my host said. I don't think that was so bad, I think she just couldn't hold me, her beer and operate the camera at once. But I'm being understanding, after all she had gone there to celebrate. They had lots of fan songs and games and of course t-shirts. (The owl is on the flag of the Saarland university that the medical school at Homburg belongs to.) They even had various 'Flitzer' which were a lot of fun! There were pink bunnies, a couple from Magdeburg in matching thongs, a team in surgical caps and masks on their heads and faces and face masks creatively made to cover their bits and a number of others. I got the impression that the whole fan thing was more important than the actual games. But in the end the first men's team from Homburg won for the 3rd consecutive year. Everybody cheered, even those from other universities. The official Homburger fan t-shirt: This kind of barbecue is called 'schwenken' and pretty particular to this area. For the trophies everyone went into the party tent hours later. I'm not sure who cheered for whom here. I don't think they all knew. But people seemed to have fun. There were even torches:
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 1, 2008, 8:25 pm	............ My host talked to my mommy and mommy told her to have Nami hive me a kiss for her. I have to say, this is very different from my mommy's kisses. I feel like I swallowed something that's still wriggeling in my stomach.
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 1, 2008, 8:27 pm	............ I am now mostly just hanging out her with Josh and Nami. Nami has some trouble keeping her balance out of the water. As a dolphin she's just not as adjusted as a crab like me. So I gave her a manly shoulder to lean on.
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 6, 2008, 4:13 pm	Here you see me driving over the Vosges to France. We came via the yellow/orange road from the north, drove through Zweibrücken and Hornbach and are now at the white spot near Volmunster. We visited a small mill in Eschviller.
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 6, 2008, 4:21 pm	We drove on to Bitche. It's built around a citadel that's about 80m above the town. When we walked toward the citadel we passed the city hall and were surprised to see real storchs nesting on top of it. This is the view on Bitche from the citadel. A castle was built here in the 12th century by the dukes of Lorraine. It passed to Eberhard I of Zweibrücken in 1297 as part of a marriage contract. When his line became extinct a few hundred years later it reverted to Lorraine and was captured by the French in the 17th century. The citadel was first built in the 17th century by Vauban, but was rebuilt starting in 1740 by Cormontaigne. It has a seperate, deep well inside and a bombsafe ring of the local sandstone. That way it held against Bavarian troups for 230 days, until the end of the war in 1870. There are movies about that. This is the gate and the apparatus to draw up the bridge. There were lots of butterflies and these lizards. They were scared of me, so I'm not in the photos.
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 7, 2008, 8:12 pm	This is me looking at the now small garden of the ducal residence/castle at Zweibrücken. This is the place in front of the city hall. It has a statue of Bismark. On the way back to the car we took this way along the water. There's also a big rose garden, but we didn't visit it. One has to buy tickets to get in.
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 10, 2008, 2:53 pm	Tonight we heard many sirens and screeching tires and saw blue, blinking lights outside the window. Hoepfully nothing really bad happened there.
Apperveilchen Posted Jul 18, 2008, 10:58 am	I am now in Essen and we're busy packing the suitcases and buying some small stuff we still need. Bye for now! I'll update again when we're back in Germany!
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 9, 2008, 4:59 pm	Today we walked to Anse Lazio, a beautiful beach. To get there on has to take a bus and walk a steep way of road or one has to take the bus in the other direction and walk over the mountains, which is longer, but the single ways aren't as steep. It was a bit of a hike but since I got carried around I didn't mind and the views of the rainforest and of other islands are very beautiful, like that of Aride in the picture.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 12, 2008, 5:51 pm	First we had to go to the airport at Düsseldorf to catch our plane. We could watch it being made ready from the weiting area: We were secured for take-off and when we were allowed to get up and use electronic devices again we took turns looking out the window until the German countryside vanished under the clouds. It got really late, so everybody went to sleep eventually.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 12, 2008, 5:57 pm	In the middle of the night we stopped in Dubai to change planes. We go to our seats but I was hyper and looking for something to do: I looked out the window... ...greeted the nice ladies from Emirates (don't tell Nami and no, I did not drool!)... ...hung out... ...looked where we were going to go...
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 12, 2008, 6:14 pm	We finally arrived on Mahé and went to our house. and our beach: Dinner was a bit unusual. There's different food here: coconut: breadfruit, cut up to be fried, they also make crisps, chips, baked breadfruit...: fresh small bananas and jambose rouge:
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 13, 2008, 7:59 pm	I'm all packed up. USA, here I come!
Kaiwiopele Posted Aug 23, 2008, 2:52 pm	Hello! I made it to the USA in shipshape!  With a day to spare before we head down to Florida. We do have pictures to share but we are just about to run out of the house so they will be up later.
Kaiwiopele Posted Aug 25, 2008, 2:48 am	Me arriving out of my airpouch into Leesburg, Virginia. I meet TigerTheBest and Trafalgar who are also visiting kaiwiopele right now. Later that day (yesterday 8/23/08) we go to McLean, Virginia to one of the tallest buildings in the area. Out in the distance is Washington, DC the capital of America! We couldn't really see it though today, too cloudy. Don't look down!!! Today we all flew to Florida....but my host forgot to bring the memory stick adapter and can't get the flight pictures from the camera....this problem we will tackle tomorrow since we are all very tired cause we had to get up at 4:45am for our flight!!!
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 26, 2008, 3:56 pm	We all went to the beach today. This is the one directly in front of our house. There's this little inlet of water. Lucky Duck, Nami and I took a walk along the beach. We are sitting on palm roots. Here it got too deep for us to go on. The little walls keep the whole sand from being swept away. Coconuts can swim on top of the water and were probably spread over the world that way. It always changed between sun and clouds. That was good so we didn't get too hot. These granite rocks are typical for Seychelles inner islands and can come up in the middle of the garden or at the very edge of the road. Should I go swimming? Maybe not. A crab! a crab! I have to meet it! No wait, that's the worng way round! This is better. Hello there! This smart little guy is carrying a shell around for protection. Kind of like we Dutch people with our camping mobiles. Hello little guy, my name is Sebastiaan. It's called crabby bonding. And look who's there... another big one Back to the beach with some of our collected treasures. We'll just hang out here for a bit.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 26, 2008, 6:05 pm	part of our dinner: banana, fruit salad with peach/lime dressing, mango chutney
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 26, 2008, 6:53 pm	We watched the fruit bats today. In German they are called 'Flughunde' (flying dogs) because they aren't actually closely related to bats. They live in all the tress here and make holes into the fruit to eat them and leave the rind/nut.... They are very loud and seem to fight among themselves for the best places to sleep. They are most active at dusk.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 11:25 am	Today Nami and I got to go along. We all got in the car and drove to Anse Royale where we turned inland. What are we doing here?
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 11:28 am	Now what's this? Aldabra Giant Tortoises live here. First they were further away, but when Nami and I wanted to have photos taken with them, one of them came to see what we are. I guess they are used to human tourists but not to toyvoyagers. I think that's near enough. My host pulled me back but the neck of the totoise got longer and longer. Help! You only eat plants, don't you? I always wanted to play cowboy.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 3:32 pm	Let's see what it looks like here. What a view! I nearly match. Apparently we're at the Jardin du Roi. It's located in the mountains above Anse Royale. Close to here was the first and biggest spice plantation of Seychelles. It burnt down but a local family founded the new Jardin du Roi close to the original place and started cultivating all the spices that first made the islands rich. I had no idea what soem of the plants look like that our normal spices or  fruit come from. A male coco d'mer Vanilla coffee curry grapefruit Here we are going down the plantation, through bushes that are used as a hold for the vanilla plants. cacao nutmeg papaya Isn't the landscape amazing? Below the plantation there's a small farm. Cows seem to mostly be held like this here. On top again.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 4:00 pm	Then we went up from the house. The property is more extensive than it seems at first sight. pretty different kinds of chicken, small turtles and fruitbats were kept in cages like these. I hope they also get to walk free a bit. mahogany We opened a freshly fallen nutmeg. You can never be far from the ocean on these islands. A look back at the house. citronelle fire tree What a great root. Aren't we photogenic? A frog-mummy. s s Are those his killers? s How tall... Look, some sensitive flowers (or Kräutchen Rührmichnichtan "little-herb-don't-touch-me" in German) They closed when we touched them. What could this be? s These are some unusual roots. A view over the forest. Pride of Barbados
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 4:38 pm	These snails have become something of a plague on the islands.  Here are the fancy chicken. Jackfruit or Pomme Jacko Frangipani Here we get a better look at them than otherwise, but it's still great to see them fly. They sail in the air, even now at midday and when they land in a tree there's usually already another one there and the greet each other more or less friendly, usually it sounds like less. The baby Aldabra Giant Tortoises are kept seperate. The might be young and small for such a tortoise, as they get over 150 years old and over 300kg heavy, but they are huge to me. A way to tell someone to go away in German is to tell them to go where the pepper grows. Well, we're there. Corosol lemon Here's another one of those huge palm spiders, luckily they stay in their nets. (as far as we've seen in a total of 3 weeks on Seychelles with lots of those spiders everywhere) tree of life Lots of pepper again, they sell in in the little shop off the restaurant and use it for the food. You see that there are these granite rocks everywhere. Here under teh cover of the palms they are less bizzarly shaped from the water. Breadfruit and banyan sugar cane Next there's the banana plantation. The fruitbats were here to feed. We can even hear some from up there in the tree. Sometimes one can see an outline when they move or see their brown heads. There's one flying very high. These fruit are called coeur de beuf. The are kind of creamy inside.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 5:20 pm	It's called Jardin du Roi because the family who owns the land and runs the plantation claims to derive from the mysterious Monsieur Poiret, who landed in Seychelles in the early 19th century.  The story goes that in 1802 a bit sailing boat unexpectedly anchored before Victoria and from it came a young man who was accompanied by a distinguished older gentleman who introduced himself as Dangreville and the young man as Monsieur Poiret. Monsieur Poiret planned to settle on Mahé for a few years, he stayed forever. Monsieur Dangreville arranged for a house and servants for the young man and then left as suddenly as he'd arrived. Even though there are exact logs about arrivals and departures, there's noentry of the name of the ship that brought Monsieur Poiret or with which Monsieur Dangreville departed. There are however documents that Gouverneur Queau de Quincy gave M.Poiret a piece of land and slaves. M. Poiret was well-respected but kept himself isolated. Ha planted cotton and rice and at some point married the daugther of a settler. They had two daughters, named Marie Lisette Dauphine and Marie Elise Dauphine, traditional names of the French royal family. Rumors spread, that M.Poiret was from that family, might even be the Louis XVII himself. Monsieur Poiret didn't talk about his origins until much later and to this day his story couldn't be verified. He claimed his father had been King Louis XVI, who'd been executed. He himself had been imprisoned and been rescued by royalists in 1793. Someone had bribed the guards and replaced him with another boy. After that they had hidden him in churches and on farms until Monsieur Dangrville could accompany him to Seychelles. The governor, who was partial to the French royal family, had eased the formalities for his immigration to Seychelles. When Monsieur Poiret died at age 74, copies of letters from 1800 were found, in which the 18-year-old son of King Louis XVI asked for help among the European nobility. His family still owns silver with the emblem of the French kings. The small museum on the plantation is dedicated to old agricultural methods and this theory. I don't even want to know what all this is. old maps There are more than a hundred theories about what happened to Louis XVII. Many are obviously false. This is one of the more believable in the eyes of the experts. A real coco de mer. The are protected, only those with an official green number may leave the island. You can see why it's from the female palm, opposed to the seeds, which we saw earlier on the male palm. Other than on a botanical garden like this, they only grow on two islands: Praslin and Curieuse. We had lunch at the restaurant. It was really good. There's even more than we've seen. We went a short way into the water garden.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 5:50 pm	Refreshed by lunch, we started out again. We drove back to the coast and then around the south of the island. On the west coast we reached Baie Lazare. We decided to take a walk along the beach. Another little canal that drains into the ocean with the tide. There were lot's of these little Portugese men-of-war at the beach. In Germany they are called Spanisch Galeeren. We climbed on a huge rock directly at the water and had a great look. It was windy but refreshing. This is where we came from. Then we drove home and watched the clouds rise over the mountains.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 7:11 pm	We had a very nice dinner tonight of fish baked in veggies.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 27, 2008, 9:34 pm	We went to the beach again today. A breadfruit tree.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 28, 2008, 2:07 pm	We found a local artist who paints islands scenes on silk.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 28, 2008, 3:04 pm	Not far from the house there's a craft village. People are producing and selling handmade souvenirs from Seychelles here. Afterward we drove to Anse à la Mouche. And to Anse Boileau.
Apperveilchen Posted Aug 30, 2008, 1:49 pm	We wanted to visit the tea plantation up in the mountains today. This is the view going up the road above Victoria. Here we are at the ruins of a boys' school run by monks. When there are no clouds one has a beautiful view but the mountains were hanging in the clouds once again giving the ruins a haunted atmosphere. Next we drove to the tea factory. We wanted to have some tea. It was 3:30 and they were supposed to be open until 4, but...time is relative here and the ladies were closing up the tea room already and the truck with the workers from the tea factory left when we arrived. We just had a quick look around and then drove on. We found a great point for a view of the next bay and the small islands before it. It was sunny but the light was filtered by the trees and then by the camera. We drove up to Port Glaud. Here's a church. They'd just had a funeral and we saw the procession. People weren't dressed darkly but in their sunday best with hats and flower prints.
Kaiwiopele Posted Aug 31, 2008, 4:42 am	Today we went to the beach in sunny Pensacola, Florida! Here I am with the other TVs and my Host, kaiwiopele Before we left the dock, I met some of my wild cousins the hermit crabs! Later, when we stopped at the beach I found a real crab hole, but noone would come out no matter how politely I knocked.    Here I am facing the beach, you can see the Pensacola Beach water tower in the background. It is painted like a beach ball.  That blob above me in the water is a jellyfish! Later I went swimming, but close to shore so as to avoid all the jellies. We also visited some other places, but we'll post about them tomorrow. : )
Kaiwiopele Posted Sep 1, 2008, 5:45 pm	Saturday when we went out on the seadoo we also later went to Fort Pickins, which is on Pensacola Beach. The fort protected the coastline from foreign invasion for almost 100 years. It was completed in 1834 and was in use until 1947. One of the most famous prisoners the fort held was Geronimo, an Apache war leader,this was around 1887. Here is one big section of the Fort in the background. Us on the back end of a huge cannon that served as part of the fort's defense. The parts of the fort that were closer to the ocean had salt on the walls! Here we are inside looking out. and here we are looking down a hallway. We think that cannonballs and other goods were stored in these nooks. That is our host's silly dad too
Kaiwiopele Posted Sep 1, 2008, 6:03 pm	For the past few days Hurricane Gustov has been in the Gulf of Mexico and today it made landfall in Louisiana. This part of Florida is a few hours away from the area of landfall but we still are getting a good bit of rain, lots of wind and the water in the Gulf and in the Bay is very churned up. So when we woke up this morning to discover the power had gone off we took a little trip downtown to see the Bay. here I am looking out the window at the rain and gloom. Here is at a boat launch, the water is quite a bit higher than normal. the dock is even underwater! Usually at this little stop next to the 3 mile long bridge this ledge is 3 to 5 feet above the water level...not today! This picture shows some of the winds we are getting. Here is a big coastguard ship that was docked up downtown. I think it normally repairs buoys and the like. Here is another picture of the waves crashing These are just of the Bay area, we are sure that if we actually had gone out to see the Gulf the waves are a LOT bigger and more numerous. *Due to the weather and the raining all the pictures had all three TVs I'm hosting in them and so each TV is going to have the same post for this. Hope no one minds, we were just trying not to get too wet for us or the camera!* While we were at the boat launch we saw a teeny little crab, he/she was maybe an inch across. This little guy kept running away fast so kaiwiopele and I were not able to get me in the picture!
Apperveilchen Posted Sep 7, 2008, 11:14 am	Today we took a little island-hopper, a propellor plane that flies between the different islands of Seychelles, one like this: It only has place for 20 passengers. We were sitting all the way in the back, next to the emergency exit and could still see what the pilots were doing. On the runway... take-off... On Praslin we had a look at the beach across the street from the house. The weather wasn't that good (again) but we had fun. We could see Cousin and Cousine, two privately owned islands. We walked back along the road. That works much more nicely here than on Mahé. We saw lots of little and big crabs next to the road.
Apperveilchen Posted Sep 7, 2008, 11:16 am	We went to Cousin island by boat. It's an island that's owned by a society for the protection of native birds and turtles. Of some very rare species of bird that have less than 100 individuals in the whole world 2/3 live here and the numbers are rising again. Adult tropic birds on their nests: It was too bright for the camera. We left the beautiful beach of Cousin again.
Kaiwiopele Posted Sep 8, 2008, 4:42 pm	Howdy! Yesterday we left Florida and went back to Virginia. We decided to take some pictures while we were flying.  How often do crabs get to be this much out of the water???  Lots of land, this was over Florida. One more of the lovely clouds.
Kaiwiopele Posted Sep 22, 2008, 3:18 am	Hey Mom,   Just wanted to say that we have just been hanging out and I should be on my way back home within the week. : )   ---Sebastiaan
Kaiwiopele Posted Sep 29, 2008, 4:21 pm	I am now on my way back home!
Lejow Posted Nov 26, 2008, 6:05 am	Seb is home save now!!! Thank you all for hosting

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