Travelog for: Cilly

Hi Mummy,
a new guest arrived today, Ragamuffin from the Netherlands. She loves all sorts of sweets. She came right in time because Katja had planned to bake a nut cake today. I already promised to help. Of course little bears who like sweet things, also helped.

We needed 4 eggs, melted butter, wheat flour with baking powder, sugar, ground nuts, dark chocolate and a cup of cold coffee.



We had to mix the dry ingredients and the "wet" ingredients ...



... than we had to mix both together ...



... and to fill it into the baking pan.



It had to stay in the oven for about an hour.

Hmmmm, it smelled delicious from the oven!

Ready!



Yummy!

Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
we visited the neighbour city Wuppertal today. Katja met a friend to take a walk. She said that the forrests are still covered with ice on the ground, so you cannot walk comfortly there. So she decided to visit Wuppertal.

We went there by bus and got off the bus in the city centre with its shopping streets.





The name of the city Wuppetal is made up of two words: "Wupper" is the river which is runing through the city and "Tal" means valley. This city was built in the valley of the river Wupper. On the next photo you can see how steep it is going uphill.



Before climbing out of the valley we needed refreshments.



Than we went uphill ....



Most parts of the city were built in 19th century. For pedestrians more than 500 stairs were built in the steep slopes to connect the streets. We walked up and down some of them today.



We walked to the "Nordstadt", one of many districts, where we saw lots of pretty art-nouveau-houses.







We walked back downhill through a small park.



We walked to another quarter than, "Briller Viertel" where the rich factory owners built their mansions, mostly in 19th and early 20th century.









We took those stairs to walk back to the valley. These stairs are under monument protection, like many of them.



When we walked back to the bus station we walked through a street called "Bärenstraße" (Bear Street). Walter even found a "Löwenstraße" (Lion Street).



We went home by bus than.

Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
is has been snowing  two days and nights now and it is still snowing. When Katja finished work we went out to buy some things.

The tower of the city hall is almost invisible now.



The shopping street ...



The entrance of the shopping mall ...



... and the street which is leading to the bus station.





When we came home it seemed to be almost dark in the kitchen. Can you guess why? The kitchen is a room under the eaves. Because there are tons of snow on the roof, the window also is covered with snow.



We opened the window carefully ...



Than I helped Katja to push the snow away from the window.



But it was kind of useless. New snow was coming down the roof. (I although like it )





Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
we took a walk in the forrest today. We went with Katja's brother-in-law and dog Berti.

I have been here before - it's the Route of Tools.



We had to walk for a while to reach the forrest.



Everything is white.





Even the sun came out, but only for a short moment.



Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
we took almost the same walk like yesterday, but today we walked a bit longer. We came along a cemetary and a grove of honour. This is a memorial for soldiers of Remscheid which died in World War I.

You have to walk some stairs to get there.







You can see walls in a round with engraved stones in the middle. You can read the name of each soldier, the date of death and the place where he was killed in action.





We all had a dismal feeling that so many - mostly young - men of this town died in this war.

To forget those sorrows we played in the wonderful snow.





Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
we went to Essen today to visit an exhibition and an art museum. Essen is a a city in the central part of the Ruhr Area in North Rhine-Westphalia. For the year 2010, Essen is the European Capital of Culture on behalf of the whole Ruhr Area.

We went there with Katja's friend Erika. We went to Essen by train.



We  have a new guest  here - BineHH, the red shore crab, arrived this week.

First we went to a church in the district Frohnhausen. A friend of Erika has an exhibition here together with another artist. We had to take another train to get there. The train station is looking funny - like someone toppled the staircase.



Here we are.







This part of the church is a so called "Notkirche". I'm sorry but we did not find a translation for this word.

We went to the city centre afterwards to have lunch, so we took a walk though the shopping streets. Here you can see the cathedral in the middle of the city centre.







On a central space they have a skating rink and this downhill ramp. Here you can dash downhill with a large rubber tire.



Seems to be great fun





Than we took a bus to the Museum Folkwang, a major collection of 19th and 20th century art. Its new building was opened a few days ago.





As almost always it was not allowed to take photos inside the museum. We have seen paintings and photographs, space installation and placards in a special exhibition. It was very interesting, but also somehow straining.

It was a very interesting trip.

Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
we visited a friend today in another district of Remscheid. This district is called Luettringhausen, a district with a historical urban centre.

Here we were waiting for the bus.



We decided to take a walk with the dog. We had to walk through the city centre first to get to a nice valley.







Soon we reached the valley, with meadows and forrests.





We even saw some houses in the middle of nowhere.





I met some sheep here.



It is still snowing.

Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
today we took another walk in one of the valley which are surrounding the municipal area. We walked along the creed "Morsbach", which is marking the border between Remscheid and the neighbour city Wuppertal.





Here is a frozen pond.





We came through a small hamlet.



This is the creek "Morsbach".



Later the sun came out.



To get home we had to walk uphill for ages.





Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
we baked a delicious cake today, a cake with curd-filling and tangerines. Baking a cake is always a good idea    Soon we gathered all the ingredients which we needed for the cake, a cake with curd-filling and tangerines. That sound really good.

For the dough we need margarine, sugar, eggs and wheat flour with some baking powder. The filling is made of curd, eggs, sugar, a little bit oil and milk and vanilla sugar, and of course canned tangerines.



I put the tangerines into a strainer and saved the juice.



First we made the dough and put it into the baking pan.



For the filling we had to mix curd, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla sugar, oil, milk and finally beaten egg whites.





The tangerines were put on top of the filling.



The cake had to bake than for about 50 minutes. It was almost ready than.



Finally the cake was covered with "Tortenguss" .

Than we enjoyed the cake. It is really delicious and refreshing.

If you would also like to try this cake you can find the full receipe here .

Bye
Cilly

Hi Mummy,
the weather was much better today so we took a walk in the forest. Katja was picked up by her friend Kerstin, who brought her dog Pepe with her. We parked the car on a parking site for hikers at one of the outer limits of Remscheid's municipal area.

From here we crossed the district "Unterburg" which belongs to the neighbour city Solingen. It is a very old district, situated at the river Wupper.

We walked down a really steep and narrow road to reach the valley.



A large tree was cut down recently.



Soon we reached the river Wupper. Due to snow melting it has high-water.



We followed a path along the river, uphill and downhill.



We crossed the river at t his bridge.



Close to a café we found snowdrops.



Now we followed a path on this side of the river. Again it went uphill and downhill. Here we saw high rocks.



Snow water is running down the hills everywhere.



A large bridge came in sight: Muengsten Bridge, Germany's highest railway bridge.





Finally we reached the bottom of the valley with the bridge.



Muengsten Bridge is made of steel. It is 107 m high and spans the valley of river Wupper, which is marking the border between Remscheid and the neighbour town Solingen.

The bridge is 465 m long and was completed in 1897 A.D.

A leisure park was built underneath the bridge a few years ago. You can relax on the lawns, play in the water and they have playgrounds for the kids.

Wolle found some snow remains in front of a building. She wanted to play with us in the snow, but we all are completely fed up with snow.

We walked until we reached another bridge, we crossed the river here once more. In the background you can see a cute little outlook pavilion. Katja told us that we would walk along this pavilion later.



Here we are!



We rested in front of this waterfall (also snow water) for a while.



Once more we walked underneath Muengsten Bridge, this time on the slope of the valley.



When we were on our way back to the car, the sun came out.



The sunshine does so good to me 



Bye
Cilly

Hi, I arrived in Bruchsal and will start my travel to USA as soon as possible - should be tomorrow latest

Hi Mom!

I am in America!  When I opened my eyes, I was so happy to meet Chuckle. He is so friendly, and I think we are going to have a very good time together.


The first thing we did was to visit a statue of a Native American. The statue is called the Menotomy Indian Hunter. It is very beautiful. He seemed like a gentle soul. I got to sit in his hand.



There is a nice picture of this statue on Wikipedia, but I'm not in their picture. 

We walked around Arlington center a little bit, and we found some other statues. I had never seen an American Eagle, so I begged to have my picture taken with this one!



We found some other statues there, near the flag pole. I sat with the Native American Indian for a few minutes, while Chuckle was reading with the colonial folk.


We stopped to hide in the flowers. Chuckle is so much fun!


I got here just in time! McFloozy is going on a road trip tomorrow to Poughkeepsie, NY, and she said we could come too! I can't wait.

Bye for now.

Mom,
I went to college!! It was so wonderful. Here I am on my way to the library at Vassar College! It is a beautiful campus, with amazing trees and flowers.

Well, we were busy loading boxes into a truck, and it was raining, so we didn't walk around too much. But it was exciting and I felt really really smart!

We had a busy day today!

We finished putting everything from the dorm room into our cargo van. I watched the cars go by as we did this. It was pretty comfortable.



After that was finished, and it took a while, we went to a place called Walkway Across The Hudson. It is an amazing pedestrian bridge (and for runners, and bicycles too).



I got to walk all the way across. It was really windy and beautiful. Chuckle went with me, and we sat on the edge. He is so cute. He held my hand so I wouldn't blow away.



Before we left, we took pictures on the gate.

We went geocaching today! That was so much fun. We went to geocaching.com to find out if there were some caches nearby, then we loaded up the latitude and longitude of three caches that are in conservation land, and off we went!

I got to look at the Blackberry, which has a GPS inside it. I wanted to eat it because I love blackberries, but it isn't edible.



I had fun with Palette. We watched the crew play Pooh Sticks. I think Palette is pretty cute, but not as cute as Chuckle!



We walked around in the conservation land. Here is a trail map. I know exactly where we are. See the arrow? That's where we are!



I got to climb around in the trees. This one was pretty comfortable.



In one of the geocaches, we found a dinosaur. His name is Hank2. I guess Hank1 got lost. Anyway, I was very pleased to meet Hank2.



After we finished walking around, we went home and had some nice cold drinks. Geocaching is fun. Maybe we could try that at home when I come back!