Travelog for: Chuckle

On 6th January is Epiphany and all children of my host family went with the starsingers. Two of them weren't dressed as kings this year, only the daughter was dressed. She was the starcarrier. It's sad, that we don't have a photo of it. Somehow we missed it. But when we came home, we had the chance to take a look at all the sweets, which they got as presents beside the money. The money is for charitable use, but the sweets are for the children. We came home with three bags - for each child one bag of sweets. Here you see, what one child had in his bag.

On 6th January also was our host husband's birthday and today we celebrate with the family. For his and my host's parents she made a roast in a clay pot. It was really a lot meat for, but of course there were 10 people and us, who wanted to eat something as lunch.



We helped to cut apples and onions, which we added to the meat.

Again we celebrated the birthday. This time we helped to bake a lemonade cake.

Today we wanted to go on a short walk again, but it was so windy, that we decided to take the car. We sat down at the window - just turned around for the photo, of course.
We drove through Unteröwisheim.

And then we drove through Münzesheim, where we visited the Japanese Garden the other day.

Close to Gochsheim we saw this place, where we could stop with the car for a short time to take photos of the Kraich, a small river, which flows through the Kraichgau.

Then we drove to Odenheim to see the Siegfried fountain. It might be the place were Siegfried was murdered.

Maybe you know the "Nibelungenlied", if not here's a copy of an wikipedia article:

In the Middle High German Nibelungenlied, Sîfrit (Siegfried) is a prince of Xanten who is later revealed to have a heroic background including killing a dragon and winning lands and an immense fortune from a pair of brothers. From bathing in the dragon's blood, he is invulnerable except for a spot on his back where a leaf adhered to his skin. Determined to marry Kriemhild, the sister of King Gunther of the Burgundians, he assists Gunther in wooing Brünhild, queen of Iceland, using his cloak of invisibility to enable Gunther to beat the phenomenally strong queen at javelin throwing, boulder tossing, and the long jump. He also single-handedly conquers Nibelungenland to provide troops in case Brünhild tries to kill Gunther and his kin. Finally married to Kriemhild, he then wrestles Brünhild into submission, again invisible, so that Gunther can consummate his marriage. He gives Kriemhilt Brünhild's ring and belt. After some years, the two queens quarrel over precedence and Kriemhild shows Brünhild the ring and belt and calls her Siegfried's concubine. Siegfried and Gunther make peace but Gunther's courtier Hagen von Tronje plots to kill Siegfried and Gunther and his brothers go along with the plan. Hagen has Kriemhild place a cross on the spot on Siegfried's back where he is vulnerable, and spears him when he is drinking from a stream on a hunting trip, thus fulfilling a prophecy that whomever Kriemhild marries will die violently. He throws Siegfried's treasure into the Rhine so that Kriemhild cannot raise an army. The second half of the epic concerns her revenge.

Read more at wikipedia

In Östringen we stopped at the church St. Cäcilia. The church was built in 1895 in Neo-Romanesque stile, often mentioned as "Dom - cathedral- of Kraichgau"

Finally we were back in Bruchsal. You see a part of the palace.

On Rosenmontag (Carnival Monday) we all were invited to celebrate with our host's family at her parents place. We had a lot of fun. Here you see us short before eating Berliner - a jelly filled donut, not a human being

Our hosts like toy trains and think about building an own at home as soon as possible. Today we decided to go to the Märklin museum and have a look, whether they have something on sale, which they would like. So we all had the chance to go through the museum and have a look at all those old toy trains there.




This is a toy train, which was on its way to its new owner - by train. It had an accident then and so it never reached his destination but now is a part of the museum.

For lunch we drove to Plochingen, because my host said, that there is a Hundertwasser Haus (house) and she would like to see it. She like these colourful houses, she said, and so we were all really curious to learn more about one of these houses.
But at first we had a look at some beautiful halftimbered houses of Plochingen.




Here you see Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who was an Austrian artist.



In 1985 two architects of Plochingen planned to build a residential and business house as circular building with inner yard.
There are 62 flats, 16 commercial units. The area is about 1,5 hectare. 1992 the city got in contact with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and he actually liked to create the facade of the inner yard. He liked that the viewer of the inner yard would only have Hundertwasser around him and the sky above - an own Hundertwasser-world. (I found this on this website: http://www.plochingen.de/servlet/PB/menu/1211981_l1/index.html )




My host's husband took a photo of us and Petra

Finally we are here:



(I'm sorry, that I'm not on this photo, but it was a bit difficult to take a photo of this building with us while driving by, but I wanted to show you this interesting building)


Because my hosts already had been at the Märklin museum several times, they decided to go to the Porsche Museum, an automotive museum in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart. You surely know Porsche, don't you? To read more about the museum, please go to wikipedia or to the Porsche museum website. Petra said, that she just doesn't know enough about cars to tell you each name of the cars we took photos of, nevertheless we all like these cars


Okay, there are some really really old Porsche cars.








This Porsche was created for an Arabian prince with his emblem instead of the Porsche emblem on the wheel and even with golden exhaust pipe.




And here's a special Australian Porsche for the 50th anniversary of Porsche. I'm not sure, if you can read more on this photo, but I hope, you can.

Today we stopped by in Münzesheim to see the lovely spring flowers in the Japanese Garden.

Today we found a little time to go to see a part of the palace and palace garden again. It's another season now, but I love this place in every season.




There is a sundial at one building.











The chestnut alley is getting green again.