Travelog for: Josie

Hello mum,

today we went to a holy spring. Many people take water from it. It should help against sicknesses.



This was the main spring.





The water was so bright!



Here you see 2 other springs – coming directly out of the hill.



There was a small altar next to the spring. People sacrifices things here, and hope that the spring never stops.



The water from the spring feed this river.



Hopefully it will be warmer soon, because we want to search mushrooms.



Greetings

Josie

Hello mum,

it is so frustrating. I don’t want to leave the house. There is snow everywhere. I don’t want to see snow anymore!



Where are the orchids? Where are the morels?



Look here! No bear’s garlic! Only snow!



OK – at least this small spring has a beautiful story.



There should be a small church in the past. One night all bells rang at midnight and the church sank. The next day there was this lake at this place.
We really thought about the truth of this story for a long time. But who knows it?



Well – I will go back home now. And I won’t come out of the house before the winter is over and the snow is away!

Until then

Josie

Hello mum,

today it is Easter. Murph wanted to go with us into the forest, where the Easter bunny lives. But look – snow everywhere.



What should we do? Will the Easter bunny put the eggs into the snow?



We decided to ask Bine, what to do? But look what we found at the door!



There were baskets – and they were empty.



Maybe we can find Easter eggs here? Let’s have a look. Keep your fingers crossed. Wow – an Easter egg.



We found the first eggs. There should be more!







I found something!





Murph, look – what I found!



Wow, our baskets were almost full. Dottie’s nose smelt something.





Ui, so many Eastereggs!





Murph called! He saw something bright. What will it be?





Sofia threw everything into our baskets.





Now all baskets were full. It will be yummy!



Greetings

Josie

Hello mum,

there was still snow outside. I didn’t want to go out. But Bine told us that fresh air is good for our health. So I was back in the snow. Near to the parking lot I said hello to this snowman.



Can you see, how much snow we have?



Okay, the lake was really beautiful.





It is already frozen.



On the pier we took a short break.



There was snow on the ice!



We still found Easter eggs. But the chocolate eggs were much better!



Actually they still exist!



Many greetings

Josie

Hello mum,

Finally we saw the sun again. In the forest there was still snow. So we didn’t want to go there. We went to a big lake.



There were some people with water skis on it. Can you see the man behind me?



During our walk around the lake we saw this small pyramid.



On the other side there was a big sandy beach. I wanted to go there!



Eventually we found flowers. Weren’t they beautiful?



What will this be?



What a wonderful beach – in the middle of Lower Saxony. Unfortunately it was too cold to take a sunbath here.



But we took a longer rest here.  Coltsfoot at the beach – cool.



Finally it is spring.

Until soon

Josie

Hello mum,

Finally the spring started! Last weekend there was snow in the forest. And today we found many flowers. This was amazing! But look: spring snowflakes.



kidneywort



The orchids didn't bloom yet.


What a beautiful cave in this tree.



Another flower: daphne mezereum


And so many kidneyworts.  We urgently wanted to have a photo.


We even found the first mushrooms.


Oh no! What an awful view. Murph was so angry. He hates these machines. They are monsters!



They destroy the whole forest.



It was time to say goodbye to the others. I had a great time here, but now I wanted to go home.


Until soon

Josie

Once again I decided not to go home. As I told you before, my adventure isn't over yet. So during my flight I changed the envelope, again... All my stuff was sent home to my brother Alex. I think he was confused when he opened the envelope and I wasn't in it.

See you soon with more adventures.

Josie

Hey Mummy,

I arrived in Dortmund this eve!! It was a quite long day for me as I spent the whole day stuck in the mail box. Everyone gave a warm welcome to me and I'm feeling very good at the moment. My new host Kate told me that this is not the only place where she lives. She lives in Bochum as well, a city next to Dortmund. She was born and raised there, so we're gonna spend much time there. I'm so excited to explore both cities
I already met another TV, his name is Commodore Quack and he's from Wales. He's a nice guy!!
Some of my buddies which I met at other hosts have already lived here, for example Dottie Mouse and Brownbeard.
Well, I'm really tired and I need to catch some sleep now.






Love,
Josie

Hey Mummy,

I've been to Oberhausen today Oberhausen is a city near Dortmund, it takes about 25 minutes by car to get there.
There's an area called "Neue Mitte" where a big shopping mall, a canal, a theatre and amusement parks are located. Well, today was the Open Day at the "Metronom Theatre", it's a theatre where musicals are shown. This season the musical "Ich war noch niemals in New York" (in english: I've never been to New York) is shown there. The songs are all written by Udo Jürgens, an old german singer.
However, as it was the Open Day today I got the chance to get to know what really happens in the world of theatre. I watched a Tech-Show where they told us how the light & sound engineering works, how the performers find their right positions on stage and stuff like that.




Afterwards we walked along the boardwalk at the canal. On the one side of the canal there are many restaurants and bars where we sat down and ate some pizza Yummy!! 




Love,
Josie

Hey Mummy,

today we celebrated the birthday of a family member. We expected some guests, so we made a cake It was an easy one, it's called "Schmandkuchen". All you need is 2 cartons of heavy sour cream, 1 carton of whipping cream, a packet with pulver for Vanillacreme and the yellow of one egg. Well, and you need a flan case




At first, we put the heavy sour cream and the whipping cream into the bowl.




Then we added the pulver of the Vanillacreme. We chose "Paradies Creme".




Then we added the yellow of the egg and then it was time to mix it up!! 



Afterwards we spreaded it on the the flan case.



For the topping we used some strawberrys, but normally you can choose whatever you want. Well, at first we washed the strawberrys in the sink.



Then we put them on the cake. Et voilà, this is it. It was really easy and fast, wasn't it?



Before our guests arrived, we took a walk with the dog through the forest and the meadows behind our house. It was lovely







Here you can see me with Lexie. She belongs to my host and just came back home a few days ago, she traveled through the world for a year




As you may know the Ruhr Area was popular for its industry, collieries and mining maaaany years ago. We found something in the forest that looks like an old entry, but I have no idea what it was for. Maybe it was the entry for a mine.



Well, the first guests arrived shortly after we came home. We celebrated together and we had a great time

Love,
Josie

Hi Mum,

today Kate showed me the area of the "Phoenix-See", it's a project in Dortmund Hörde where an old industrial area is being redesigned. From about 1841 until 2001 there were steal and ironworks at this place. In 2006 a project started where the redesigning of this area began. Now there's a big lake and there are many new buildings built around the lake. It's not only new private houses, there's also a new clinic, restaurants, office blocks and stuff like that, but everything's still a huge construction area with many brownfields. It will still take a few years until every building will be finished, but the lake itself is already finished.

Well, the weather was lovely!! The sun was shining and it was warm  At some point the weather changed and the sky darkened a little bit, but it was not too bad. As we walked around the lake I saw many nice things like landing stages and an outlook. 










Next to the lake there's an old converter which was used in the ironworks that was located there. It's placed there to remind of the past.



In the far, far past, there was a castle on this area. It was built somewhen between 1100 and 1200. It's hard to imagine how everything looked like in the past and it gives you a strange feeling to know that this is such a very historic place. Here you can see some remains of the castle.




In 1920 an outer ward was built in the style of the historism, it was used as an administration building for the ironworks. It looks nice, doesn't it?



Well, that's it about the Phoenix-See. I had a very nice day there and I enjoyed it alot!!

Love,
Josie

Hey Mummy,

today was a truely wonderful day. The weather was glorious so we decided to take a walk through some fields near our house at evening. Even though it was late at eve, the sun was still shining and it was very warm  I enjoyed walking through the fields, the view was wonderful, we could even see houses and other fields in a very far distance!!








As we walked back home we passed a riding club. We looked at the horsemen and their horses during their exercises, it was quite nice!! Afterwards we used our chance to take some pictures of the field where the horses were jumping. The sun was slowly going down and the light made everything look so lovely





Then we walked home and enjoyed the rest of the evening on the balcony.

Love,
Josie

Hey Mummy,

the weather was wonderful again today so I decided to spend the day in the sun
Kate, Commodore Quack and me walked through the fields near our house here in Dortmund again and we ended up in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Dortmund and Bochum. 




After walking a bit we reached a forest. Thank god, because it was pretty hot that day and the trees brought some cooling




Later on we passed the riding club again that I showed you the last time, sadly there were no horses




Love,
Josie

Hey Mummy,

today was a very exciting day!! I spent the evening at the "Starlight Express" in Bochum. It's a musical by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. The musical is about the world championship of the trains, where many different engines want to win the races. Besides it's about finding self-confidence and true love.

My host told me that the theatre was built from 1986 til 1988 especially for this show, with skating rinks which show rails through the audium, different levels and a great technology. The show opened on the 12th of June in 1988 and is still shown today without any interruptions. A special thing about this show is, that every actor wears roller skates because they play trains.
There's a world record for the most visitors to a musical in a single theatre. I think this is very impressive.

Well, the musical is celebrating its 25th anniversary this week and there were some special jubilee shows this week with an aftershowparty, free food and drinks and a band playing live music. I was lucky enough to join the main gala on the 12th, where many german celebrities, other bidden guests and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber himself were guests at the theatre. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures that day
But I watched another jubilee show today, the food was different today and the general procedure was a bit different, but actually it was nice as well

Due to the celebrations they built a huge tent in front of the theatre where you could eat and take pictures in front of a wall, write birthday greetings on this wall and so on.



This is the foyer of the theatre. There's a stage built in the middle of the foyer where the band will perform on the aftershowparty.




Outside of the theatre, at the Stage Door, there's a wall where the fans write their greetings or draw something. It's quite nice, some of the greetings are many years old!! One fan even draw a huge picture of the character "Red Caboose". Awesome, don't you think?




Here you can see the stage and the auditorium. It looks amazing and it's so impressive! The theatre is huge and the atmosphere is incredible.




Well, at some point it was time to party 
There was lots of food in the tent and there were many people who took pictures in front of the wall.









Well, there's only one thing left to say:
Happy Birthday, Starlight Express!!!

Hey Mum,

Kate took me with her to the city of Dortmund today There was a presentation at the "Dortmunder U". It's a high-rise which belonged to the Union Brauerei (Union brewery) in the past, but now it's a famous center for culture and creativity. The "U" on the top of it reminds of the brewery. The building doesn't look very nice, but it looks great inside! Unfortunately I don't have many pictures for you from the inside.

Well, my host told me something about the Dortmunder U and I want to tell you what I learned today. There are many different things in this high-rise, there's a ECCE European Centre for Creative Econonomy, exhibit rooms, a restaurant, a museum, a center for cultural knowledge and some other things. A special thing about this building is the top of it. There are huge LED monitors around the upper floors which show video art of the artist Adolf Winkelmann. Mostly there are animals shown, people, nature, abstract art or other things.
On this picture you can see the back of it

 

And that's the view of the front




There are many flyers in the foyer, and even a tree!! Well, I guess it's an expressionism of something 





In front of the building there's the city ring road



Near the Dortmunder U is the "Freizeitzentrum West", short: FZW. There are many concerts from popular groups and solo artists as well as parties for diverse youth subcultures and underground musical scenes. Many well known international bands played their concerts here. It doesn't look that special from the outside, does it?



Love,
Josie