Travelog for: Dharma

Hello everyone!

I'm Dharma and i want to travel the world.
My owner is a 3,5 years old boy wich name is Mirdin. His mother is an addict on this site so Mirdin want to send one of his toys into the world. He askes us all wich one would go and i immediately screamed yes!
So here i am, ready to go!

Here i am sitting in the garden for the last time. Tomorrow i'm going to Germany


My owner and me

Big hugs Dharma and hope to see you soon!

My travellist is:

1. Apperveilchen (Germany)
2. Brightondebs (UK)
3. Penvmbra (UK)
4. Boneyard bears (Australia)
5. Chrissini (Aussia, but not before july)

Hello Mirdin! As you can see I arrived at Germany and was greeted by Aoi, Philéas and Little Tex. Since it's midday, we got a nice lunch and maybe I'll be told a story later.

Today I got to go to one of the celtic sights I've been promised.
In the first picture you can see me in front of burial mounts. In the little building is the entrance to the rebuilt grave of the celtic countess of Reinheim. The other finds here were men with some grave goods but nothing that spectacular. The women was buried with beauiful jewelry and unique art, though. I like the different heads a lot but you can't see it very well in the photos because it was very dark. I promise I am on the photos, though. The statue was made after the one of the carafe in the grave.

Here's a detail picture for you, but it still can't catch the size and beauty of the artwork.

There's a small simulation of a celtic settlement somplete with animals, and oven and typical boundaries.

There's also a Roman villa that was built right next to and over the celtic stuff. The actual villa and functional houses were all arranged around a big yard that housed kitchen gardens and small lifestock, Outside we actually visited the bigger animals in the pastures. The sheep are: Schafe in German and the cows: Kühe.
The little tower is the gateway into the yard from the outside. We could climb up the ladder into the dark and open the sutters on teh little wondow to watch out over the area.

Over in France there's a Roman town that's being excavated.
We took a little rest at the tavern and of course I wouldn't be a good dog if I didn't take a good look at the holes in the ground, also called wells.
The little alcove is storage space in a craftsshop along the main road through the town.
People lived, behind, below and above their shops.
At the river there was one mill for the whole town. No KitchenAid for everybody...

A new TV arrived today: Super Grover. We'll do something fun together on the weekend.

Hello there!
I went to Luxembourg for half a day.
On Bock Promontory are the last ruins of the first castle that's the origin of the town. These fortifications and the old town are part of Unesco WorldHeritage. There are casemates underground, but we thought a much too nice day to go there.
Instead we enjoyed the sun and the old town (which includes some modern additions).

Next stop on our trip was Trier. Here's a big old Roman gate: The Porta Nigra, right at the edge of what's now the city center,  many lovely houses of different eras, you can see some along teh big market place, and a cathedral, basilica, Roman thermes, amphitheatre, student life... and today also a fair it seams, with all these people and street artists.

We went huunting for more burial mounts today. To help us we lent a dog from the local shelter that's close to where the burial mounts are supposed to be. The dog was really nice and we had a good time together, but it wasn't a whole lot of help in finding our goal. Maybe we'll ask someone next time, but my host said not to expect mounts like in the culture park, but maybe just little ridges along the way or hidden in the forest.

It's hot here, so Little Tex and I spent lots of time on the balcony. We watched clouds and looked for pictures or just at the different colors.
I wanted to play with the parakeets but they seem a little scared of me. I got them around in the end.

Mirdin asked me to collect fairytales, legends and myths. Well, many German fairytales are well known in the western world, but I heard a local legend:
The Giant Kreuzmann
Near St.Ingbert, on the mountain, there's a big rock that's formed like a giant boot and named accordingly. There once lived, a long long time ago, a terrible giant called Kreuzmann. He hunted people down to eat them. First, he put them in a wooden cage so he could sharpen his knife on a whetstone and finally kill them on the stone surface of the 'boot'.  He lived like that for a long time, until one day the people in the people in the valley took heart and decided to kill him. They knew that he normally slept in his tower for a few days after each meal, so they collected straw and wood, carried it to the tower and set it on fire. The smoke woke up Kreuzmann who had to sneeze mightly. The ground shook and the frightened villagers ran away. When Kreuzmann came to the window and saw what they had meant to do to him he got very angry and threw the whetstone down into the valley. Then he ran down the mountain, meaning to slay the villagers with a mighty tree trunk, but the smoke had put him in a daze and he stumbled and fell down, stunned. The villagers took their chance and ran to him to strike him dead. The whetstone that he threw landed in Rentrisch and can still be seen there today, standing in a front yard.

Here's another legend I was told about today. I don't want to hear these things as good-night tales, because most seem to be at least a little scary.

Varussage
Around 300 AD, Trier had a feared and cruel proconsul named Rixius Varus who thought himself invincible. One day the devil came to pay him a visit and challenge him to a wager for his soul. Varus, who was convinced he could beat anyone, even the devil, accepted. And so it came that on one fine day, Varus drove his horses up onto the hill where his villa stood, while it was the devil's task to pave the way by taking away the stones from behind the wagon and lay them in front of it again as quickly as Varus drove his horses. When Varus saw that the devil would indeed beat him and thus collect his soul he tried to flee, but the devil banished him immediately. The precious gilded wagon was buried in the Varusforest and is said to still lay there today, the shaft so close under the earth that a cock could lay it free if he just knew where to paw. But all treasure hunters be warned: woe whoever enters the forest for Rixius Varus still walks there.