Travelog for: Pepita

Hi!

Today I left France to reach my next host in Germany  . I can’t wait to get there. All my friends here gathered around to wish me a safe trip  .



It was particularly hard to say goodbye to Sigfrido as we became such great friends, but maybe I’ll meet him again one day  .

After a very short trip I arrived safe at my next host. I crawled out ofthe envelope and was hugged by a red monkey called Hiro. He is from China and asked me a lot of questions about my journey.

The weather was sunny today and Katrin decided that we should enjoy the sun. On our way we passed the city sign of Kellinghusen....


...and the traffic circle with the pottery called faience, which is a typical product of Kellinghusen.


I also discovered some more or less free living turkeys...


...and in the forest I saw some squirrels. Katrin had to zoom to take this photo, that's why I'm not on it.


In the late afternoon I enjoyed the last sunbeams in the neighbour's wine leaves.

I'm in the library of Katrin's university. We have about three hours time until the lecture start (it starts at noon!) and Katrin wanted to finish some other homework. While the laptop was loading, I had a quick look around the library.


This is one of the working areas. We were the first there. Look how Katrin spread her things. Do you see the suitcase? Looks like we are going to travel a bit this weekend...


A view over the shelves, not very interesting. Katrin don't really like the library, because it's just a long floor with shelves on the right side, but it's better than nothing.


The view out of the window is usually very nice (we are on the 7th floor now), but today it was grey and foggy. Usually you can see the river Alster from here.

I was right when I guessed that I will travel a bit this weekend. Now I'm in Schwerin, about an hour by train east of Hamburg.

During a walk around the city center I saw a lot of interesting sights:

a part of the old city wall...


...the huge cathedral (which is really difficult to take a good photo of)...


...modern art...


...the museum building...


...and of course the Schwerin castle


I'd loved to see more of the castle, but it was very cold outside and I decided to go back inside.

Hiro and I had a look out of the window. The colorful trees look nice, but it's raining outside again...


We went downstairs into the kitchen to have a hot tea. There was a huge selection and it was difficult to choose the right one: Loose strawberry tea, or black tea, or white tea, or jasmine tea, or green tea?


We chose the green tea and went back upstairs into Katrin's room. It was raining heavily outside and Katrin lit some candles which gave the room a calm and relaxed atmosphere.

Katrin is doing homework now, she says she feels a bit like in primary school when she learned how to write. But these letters don't look like the letters Katrin usually uses when she is writing.
This is Sütterlin, a widely used form of the old German blackletter handwriting which was only taught in all German schools from 1935 to 1941. Katrin has a class about the history of books and libraries thi semester and her teacher wants that all the students can wirte at least a bit Sütterlin. When you can write it, it's also easier to read.


Then Katrin wrote my name in Sütterlin. It looks interesting, doesn't it?

Look at this weired soup! Katrin is preparing some meat loafs - without meat. It's buckwheat flakes and parsley which is going to cook until it's a mash.


About 20 minutes later all the water was gone and I helped to add fried onions and sour cream. Then we mixed everything and waited until it cooled down.


In the afternoon we took a spoon ful of the mash and put it into the hot pan. Then we fried one "meat loaf" after the other. I had to sit a bit away from the hot pan because the oil sprinkled everywhere!


Finally we had fried all the mash and Katrin had a box full of "Meat balls". It will be enough for the next months she said.

Hiro has left me today, he is travelling to Munich. He says it will be a short journey, just across Germany. I'm a bit sad, because I'll spend most of the time alone at home wil Katrin is at her university.

Katrin has started to realize one of her "crazy" ideas she got during her summer break. She wanted to make self-made socks herself and since she can't knit she wanted to crouchet them. Now her boyfriend has looked for an instruction how to crochet socks on the internet and mailed it to her.


And what happened? Katrin bought some sock yarn and spend a lot of time during the weekend croucheting. The going-to-be-sock looks a bit like a sleeping bag for me...


But since a pair of socks is not enough Katrin has already new plans: From a friend from the US she got an insturction how to crochet mushrooms from Super Mario. "When I have enough..." Katrin's idea: Crouchet some mushrooms and release them as wild TVs. Sometimes she is a bit crazy, isn't she?

Today I helped to dust the shelves. Katrin played a joke on me, because she let me crawl into the "dust glove" and then she let me zig zagging blind over the shelf. But she took care of me that I won't fall over teh edge.


Then I should clean the banister which was more fun. I started at the top and then I used the "dust glove" as a slide.
Getting ready....


...and here I go!

I'm going to Hamburg again! Right now I'm at Wrist, the station next to Kellinghusen. We are waiting for our train to arrive.


Katrin wanted to read a book for one of her classes. I read with her, but after a while I decided that it would be more interesting to look out of the window.



In Hamburg we made our way to the next subway station...


...and left the train at the stop "Jungfernstieg". The map on the right shows all the different subway lines in Hamburg.


Katrin said, the station Jungfernstieg ist always veryconfusing for her and she never leaves it at the exit she wants to leave it. This time we took the exit right at the huge city hall. It was not easy to take a good photo of the city hall that's why we tried it several times from different positions.




Did you see the little huts on the photo above? There were workers who prepared everything for the Christmas market which will probably start next week.


Then we walked over to the water. This part is like a little river and it's called a "Fleet". In the houses at the bachground there are cafés.


I took a rest a the water when a swan came close to me. When I turned around, more and more swans were coming and I just wanted to move on!



This was our destination: the "Europa-Passage". This house doesn't look very interesting from the outside...


...it inside you can see what it is: a huge shopping mall!


This is were Katrin wanted to go: the store "Idee" is her favorite craft store and we spend a lot of time there. You can spend here nearly as much money as in a clothes store because you get so many ideas which crafts you could try.


Now we had to hurry back to the station and cath a subway to Katrin's university. We arrived just in time for the lecture.


In the evening, the train back home. I would like to show you what Katrin bought at the craft store, but I can't show it because it's a Christmas surprise for her boyfriend. What I can tell you is, that Katrin is going to crouchet something.

Do you remember when Katrin wrote my name in Sütterlin? Today we are going to read a whole text on Sütterlin as homework. It's a bit like playing detective because you need to find out what the letters mean. Katrin wrote down the translation on a paper. The longer we read, the easier it was. This first text was about material people used to write on.

Katrin has been away over the weekend and when she came home today I waited for her on this huge package. It arrived yesterday and is from Russia.


When we opened the package, Fed jumped out of it. He is Katrin's new guest - and he is huge!

Do you remember the sock Katrin started to crouchet? It's finished now and it even fits! Now she needs to start the second one, but she is working on her boyfriend's present now...