Travelog for: Germanya

Hey Mummy,

we've been to Recklinghausen this evening. It's a city near Dortmund and Bochum, about 15 or 20 minutes by car. There's a special event these days, it's called "Recklinghausen leuchtet", in english it's something like "Recklinghausen shines". There are many light installations in the inner city which illuminate 46 houses. Everything looks so lovely! I absolutely loved being there and I could've spent many hours there. I couldn't take pictures with all of them, it was way too much!! So, some pictures are with me, some are just with my shape (haha) and some are just private photos that my host took, but we wanted to show you how lovely everything looked

This is the town hall of Recklinghausen. The illumination changed every few seconds, I think this one was the nicest It shows a very old map of a part of Germany (and a bit of Great Britain on the left, the reddish thing).



This is an old pharmacy



I think this was a law office, but I'm not quite sure Besides of the nice lights, there was a ghost that flew along the building (also an illumination), it was so cute!! Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture of the ghost



Here you can see the entrance of a hotel. It looked much nicer than in this picture and it was a huge building, but there were so many people in front of the hotel and I didn't want them to be seen in the pictures.



I don't know exactly what this building is for... Anyhow, it shows a scene of the bible, the feeding of the five thousand and the multiplication of the loaves (well, and the fishes, that's why you see so many fishes there). Haha, it's hard to recognize my shape, it was so dark!!



This is the house of a jeweller. It's one of my favourite buildings here in Recklinghausen, it's so colourful Haha, can you find me or my shape?



Well, there were maaaaany installations, maybe I'll go back to Recklinghausen at the end of the week and take some other pictures for you, mummy
It's late now and I need some sleep. Have a nice evening!!

Love,
Germanya

Hello Mummy,

long time no speak, I'm so sorry!! It didn't happen very much the last days... The other TV's and me helped Kate to bake a huge biscuit today!! A friend of my host has birthday on saturday and one of his presents is this huge biscuit. It's a special one, but you'll see it later



Well, first we had to mix the ingredients.



Afterwards we had to wrap the batter in saran wrap and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.



Aaaand here it is!!! It's a huge guitar and a record. Isn't it great??



Well, we had way too much batter so we made some small biscuits out of the remains.



This is the guitar after it came out of the oven. Well, it looked a bit bleakly and boring so we had to posh it up with some colours (with chocolate and so on)




And this is the result, but it doesn't look as nice as we thought it would.



Love,
Germanya

Hey Mummy,

my host is very busy at the moment so I stayed at home the last days. It's very rainy, cold and gloomy outdoors so I just cuddled up on the sofa with a blanket and a hot-water bottle. The others joined me Ooooh the joy of a cosy spot and the pleasant feeling of warmth...




Germanya

Hey Mum,

I spent some time in the city this evening, there's so much to see at night RedSwan joined us with the TV's that she's hosting, Leif E and her own TV Collenferð.
There's a metro station called "Lohring" with some pretty nice light installations The floor is made of glass with lamps under it and there's a big yellow "x" on the enamel wall. I think it looks quite nice
Here you can see the metro station and a group photo:




This is at the metro station at the city hall, it's a guy named Carl Arnold Kortum who lived from 1745 - 1824.




Well, this is the german mining museum by night, I've already been here on the 12th of October so I won't tell you anything about it again The TV which is on the picture with me is Leif E




Our last stop was at the Bermuda3Eck, the "Bermuda triangle". It's a very popular bar district in the inner city of Bochum with heaps of bars, it's so nice!! There's a lot of activity every evening, hundreds of people come here every evening to have a fun night out, drinking alcohol and to wine and dine. On the following picture you can see the end of the Bermuda3Eck with a huge lettering on top of a building so people can see it from further afar. A special thing about this building is that there's a big outdoor skate park on top of the building. You can reach it by entering the store for skater on the ground floor. Pretty cool!! Maybe I'll be able to take another picture during the day.



That's it about my evening in Bochum so far

Love,
Germanya

Hey Mummy,

today I visited the university here in Dortmund. It's called TU Dortmund (TU = technical university). It exists since 1968 and has 2 campuses. The northern campus is bigger than the southern campus, but the southern one is more familiar.
At the northern campus are the natural sciences, the humane discipline and everything related to music. At the southern campus is the whole constructing stuff, like architecture, spatial planning and civil engineering.
I just visited the southern campus today, because my hosts studies spatial planning there.

Here you can see some of the buildings of the southern campus, the building on the right is the one of my host's faculty of spatial planning. Besides you can see the H-Bahn (Hochbahn or Hängebahn). The H-Bahn is an overhead track which connects the campuses.




Here you can see an information board with the names of the professors and the information where their offices are.



We had some free hours today so we spent some time in a lounge which is especially for the students of my hosts faculty. There are some old sofas and some coffee tables Well it's not very modern and the air isn't really fresh but it's comfortable 



Well, later that day we had to say goodbye to TezTez, he'll continue his journey I hope I'll meet him again someday!!



Germanya

Hey Mum,

my host bought some postcards for Postcrossing today There are some pretty nice cards, don't you think?



Germanya

Hey Mummy,

Sorry for being such a faithless friend in the past few days, things are very busy at the moment.
Well, it's a rainy day but Kate had something to do in the inner city, so she took me with her today. She showed me the townhall of Bochum. The architect Karl Roth started to build it in 1926, since then the building grew more and more and some buildings were added.



Love,
Germanya

Hey Mum

It's the 1st day of December and it's time for some christmas spirit!!
We visited the christmas market here in the inner city of Bochum this evening, it was lovely! There's not only the normal christmas market, there's even a medieval christmas market!!
The savings bank installed some lights in the form of a christmas tree



There are many stalls on the christmas market and you can buy everything you want there, it starts with food and drinks but there are also stalls for candles, jewellery, clothes, gifts in any shape or form, toys and much more.
There are many stalls where you can buy "Glühwein" (mulled claret / glogg), but there's one special stall. It's in the form of a christmas pyramid, it's so nice!!



As we moved on we noticed the first snow of the year here in Bochum



Everything was very wet so we decided to take cover from snow in a stall at the medieval market. There worked a woman, dressed in medieval clothes, and she produced a belt for a customer all by herself.




Well, as the weather wasn't so nice I couldn't take many pictures but I hope to visit the christmas market again to catch the atmosphere in some more and better pictures.

Love,
Germanya

Happy first sunday of advent!!!

Happy second sunday of advent

I just wanna show you some christmas decorations of my home here in Bochum








I really hope that you have a lovely christmas time with all your beloved ones!!

Love,
Germanya

Hey Mummy

We had some snow this morning Everything was covered with this white powder, it looks so nice!! Well, my host's car was covered as well so we came a little too late to university because we had to scrape away the snow^^
In the afternoon there was much more snow but I didn't take any pictures, it was so cold!!





Love you!!

Germanya

Hey Mummy,

today I helped Kate to wrap some Christmas gifts







Did you already wrap some Christmas gifts yet, Mum?
Oh I'm soo looking forward to Christmas, I love this season! But I wish I could be with you on Christmas... I'm thinking of you!!

Love,
Germanya

Merry Christmas, Mummy!

It's Christmas Eve and that means, that it was time for gifts and spending time with the family.
Well, in this family here it's kinda "tradition" that Kate decorates the Christmas tree in the morning of the 24th, so I helped her

This is how the tree looked before we started to decorate it:



Then we started to decorate the tree, it was so much fun





This is Kates favourite tree decoration, it's a golden ornament with illustrations of the irish history. Kate bought it in Ireland last year.


And this is our Christmas tree after we finished decorating. I think it looks nice



At evening we went to the church and afterwards it was time to hand out the presents. Afterwards it was time for Christmas dinner These are the presents that my host got.



Merry Christmas, Mum. I hope you'll spend some nice hours and days with your family and your lovelies.

Love,
Germanya

Hello Mummy,

it's raining cats and dogs today, but we took a long walk anyway. As we strolled through the park we ended up at the synagogue for the jewish community. It's relatively new, it opened in 2007.


Next to the synagogue is the planetarium. It's called "Zeiss Planetarium Bochum". It's one of the most modern planetariums worldwide at the moment, even though it doesn't really look like it'd be so modern. Well, it does look a bit gloomy on this picture because of the rain, but normally it's a quite nice place.


Afterwards we passed an old church. It's called "Lutherkirche" and was built in 1911/1912. You know, almost every building in Bochum got destroyed in World War II and this church is one of the few buildings that remained and reminds of the history before World War II. It looks nice, doesn't it?


On our way back home we passed the Bismarck tower. Bismarck towers (in german it means "Bismarcktürme") are a unique genre of German monuments, built to honour the ex-chancellor of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck. 240 towers were built between 1869 and 1934 across the German Empire, 173 of them still remain.


Well, even though the weather was bad and the pictures look very gloomy, it was a nice afternoon and I enjoyed to catch some fresh air.

Love,
Germanya

Hey Mummy,

it's New Year's Eve and the year 2013 is slowly getting closer. When I look back at the year 2012 it was a good year for me. I visited many new places and got to know many nice TVs and hosts here in Germany, that's exactly how I wanted to spend my year.
However, I didn't celebrate New Year's Eve at a big party as my host had to work and just came home about 11.25pm, nearly half an hour before midnight, so we didn't have the time to go out. But we had a nice evening anyways.





I hope you had a great New Year's Eve.

Love,
Germanya