Travelog for: Queenie

This day is my first day of life! I arrived at my parents home in a small plastic bag. Before that, I was in a sewing room getting my new T-Shirts with my parents on it Cute, isn't it?

My first day was really cool! I went to the garden and was bathing in Lavender - the smell is so fantastic!!

And before I'll go to bed, I was allowed to play a bit with the paddle of my dad

I will tell you more about my activities soon!

Kind regards,
Queenie

I'm sooo excited! Today is my first day I'm getting out of this house!
My first trip will go to Frankfurt and with my host I'm going to visit Leipzig! What a trip man…

I'll also bring a calendar of my hometown to my new host


This day was the last day enjoying the garden of my mum before my trip…


My parents will miss me, but I'll be home soon having some wonderful honeymoon-pictures in my pocket!

Kind regards, hope I'm having a safe trip!
Queenie

Hi Mom, hi Dad

Can't say where I landed, but I didn't move for some hours... Its dark, but warm inside my envelope and I will now go to sleep....

[usr]Hello,...
this morning I wake up early.. and I recognized thats a bit brighter outside than yesterday... did I have moved?

I heared some voices and suddenly the envelope gets opened ... by another rabbit. How wonderful. I'm safely arrived at JellyBelly 's home and because she is a rabbit like me we didn't have communication problems...

I gave her and her family the calendar and the Postcards and I think they liked them very much.
I'm happy to have a new friend by my side and hope we will have a lot of fun together!

Greetings to you....
Queenie

Today there was a new envelope adressed to JellyBelly in the postbox...

She and I were really excited to open it... first we just see something grey inside. Suddenly this "thing" does a skip and we recognized it was Hippy... and behind her we saw also Bobi

... how funny, they traveled together from another host...

After we introduce ourself, we eat the gum which were inside the envelope and enjoy the nice evening.

Hi Mommy and Daddy,

today afternoon we went outside in the garden. Hostmom's children loan us their sandtoys, so we could build a small sandcastle....

First we put all the sand in the mold and then we hammered it out, but Hippy, she was jumping on it 

JellyBelly and I turned the mold very fast around and Hippy and Bobi, looked under the mold if everything go the right way...

After lifting we saw a really nice castle. Bobi wants to jump on the balustrade, but unfortunatly he slides down... but nothing happened, just the castle gets an old touch by this. 

Later we all laying down in the grass and enjoy the sun...

Yesterday hostmum told us about a surprise visit... but didn't tell more details...

We all were really excited and waked up very early. After breakfast we walked (ok, we had the luck to sit on the top of the buggy) to the S-Bahn Station and waited. We thought over what it could be and were so bemused, that we didn't recognized we were still there... in the ZOO of Frankfurt....

We saw a lot of animals and here are some special pictures I want to show you...
- the apes, which had a lot of little baby-apes hanging on their belly (I think his works different with rabbits, or?)
- flamingos, which had their first babys since 13 years in Frankfurt
- an animal named "Double-wattled Cassowary", that looks really strange
- and the giraffes... also with a baby. Just 1 Month old but sooooo tall...

We had so much luck with the nice weather and enjoyed also all the other animals, like hippopotamus, okapis, meerkats, african wild dogs, tigers and lions...

After we went home from Zoo, we saw the post-box full with 2 big envelopes. We were really excited and wondering what could be inside.

First we opened the envelope with special stamps on it, because it comes from Czech Republic. And inside--- there was Michel. Originally he comes from Hamburg, but he is already a really expert at Travelling and has done one around the world tour till now.  We hugged him all together and then he shows us the postcard he brings… very nice pictures on it.

Some seconds later we heard a noise out of the second envelope.  We opened it all together and, which surprise, its Robbi … a Toyvoyager-newbie.

This day we go to bed very early. It was a really long day and also our new friends need to relax after their journey. I’m proud of so much new friends and soon I will try my first trip out of home.

Hi Mum,

today I arrived at Bruchsal. My host welcomed me as a very special guest for Christmas. She is so happy to have me with her for the holidays. And I met many other toyvoyagers already. We had some fun exchanging our stories. I will post some photos of it soon.

Bye, Queenie

It is Sunday, the fourth of advent. So nobody did think, that the doorbell would ring and the postman would come and bring a package. But suddenly we heard a bell ringing and we were shaken back and forth. Of course we were very excited, especially because it was the day before Holy Eve. So we all sat in our package and waited. In the meantime this happened outside the package:




What a big surprise for us! There were so many new toyvoyagers outside the package: Kari, Robby, Fiona, Hömpfmömpf, Madam Miff, Chalon, Kara and Mysterio. So the house got crowded








They told us to walk out of the package, so we could introduce each other and exchange adventures. We had a nice chat.

Our hosts received a present: An Anastatica. Anastatica is found in arid areas in the Middle East and Sahara Desert, including parts of North Africa and regions of Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan .

After the rainy season, the plant dries up, dropping leaves and curling branches into a tight ball, and "hibernates". Within the ball, the fruits remain attached and closed, protecting the seeds and preventing them from being dispersed prematurely. The seeds are very hardy and can remain dormant for years. Wetted again in a later rainy season, the ball uncurls and the plant wakes up from its dormant state, which causes the capsular fruits open (dehisce) to disperse the seeds.




Then we finished some other cookies called Staenglein. They are very yummy.




On Holy Eve we had the family's traditional dinner: chicken fricassee in pasty with lamb's lettuce.




Later we sat around the plate with cookies and sang Christmas carols under the Christmas tree.
sorry, it was so dark, so the photos aren't that good and somehow the flashlight didn't work.

It's the last day of the year and it's not raining. So we decided to go out on a sightseeing tour in Bruchsal.

At first we walked through the so called Bürgerpark, citizens' park. It was created in end of 1980something. There are two memorials of National Socialism victims and a third memorial as sign for understanding between different people of the world.




Here you see the medieval tower and a part of the community centre. The tower was built in 1358 and is the oldest building of Bruchsal. It belonged to the old castle.




Bruchsal has about 42 000 inhabitants, if you also count those in the five suburbs, which are Heidelsheim, Helmsheim, Untergrombach, Obergrombach and Büchenau. It was first mentioned in 796 A.D., but there had been an older settlement. 80 % of Bruchsal had been destroyed during World War II. on 1rst of March 1945. So you hardly find really old places.

Schloss Bruchsal is one of the most beautiful Baroque palaces in Germany and the only episcopal Baroque residence on the Upper Rhine. The foundation stone was laid in 1722 by Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schönborn, Prince Bishop of Speyer, who made the palace the centre of his absolutist dominion.
After being almost completely destroyed in the final days of World War II, the main tract was painstakingly reconstructed according to the original design and work was completed in 1975, including the magnificent dome, Marble Hall and Prince's Hall. The staircase designed by Balthasar Neumann is considered to be an architectural tour-de-force and has been described as the "finest staircase in the world".

We're now standing in front of one of the three entrances to the palace church called St. Damian and Hugo. From here you can see the county court, the Damian Gate and the tower of the jailhouse. The building on the left side,m which of course is the right part of the building,  houses the chamber music hall.




Inside the church you can see these plates, which show the palace during the years. In the top photo you can see, how it looked like after World War II. In the last photo we were standing just in the corner, which you see in the middle of this top photo, between main building and church.




The church wasn't rebuilt in baroque style. It is really modern. Somehow that's sad, but the costs were just too high. Here we are at the backside of the church. You see, that the tower isn't directly next to the church.




This is the backside of the palace. In summer there are weeks, when they play open air theatre and in winter there is a second Christmas market since a few years.




Next to the main way through the palace garden you find a lot of statues. At one crossing you see in each corner one statue of the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Here you see the statue earth.




The statues in the next crossing's corners show the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn. Here you see winter.






At one small gate you come to this street with really old houses.




Here you see the mainbuilding of the palace.




Just turning around on our heels we saw the county court building and the Amalie fountain.






The Amalienbrunnen is called Schnecklesbrunnen ( in Bruchsal dialect), which means snail fountain.




This is the gate called Damianstor. It is the entrance to the palace area. In the Damian Gate you can visit art exhibitions.




We walked to the Stadtgarten, another park. This fountain is called Ferdinand Keller Brunnen. Behind the fountain you can see a part of a grammer school called Schönborn-Gymnasium.




The Belvedere on the edge of the "Stadtgarten" was built by Leonhard Stahl in 1756 as a hunting lodge for Prince Bishop Franz Christoph von Hutten. The location was chosen so that the lodge would command an unspoiled view of the palace, town and Rhine rift valley beyond.

Especially worthy of note are the two towers, each of which has a viewing platform topped with a Chinese-style baldachin – an example of the fashion for chinoiserie prevalent at that time. Today, the Belvedere is used as a venue for concerts and theatre productions.




At top of the Andreasstaffel, high stairs, you have a great view over Bruchsal. The houses below belong to the oldest part of Bruchsal. You also can see the tower of the ancient castle and of two churches (from left). The houses, which are in one line right in front of us, belong to the Huttenstraße.








Here you see the baroque church St. Peter in the far. If you take a look right to the edge to the wood, you can see a big house. This house is called Sancta Maria. It is a school for social education and it is still home for Franciscan nuns.




The buildings right in front of us and the white building in the far on the left side are all part of the old people's home. The big grey building behind the white is another grammer school called St. Paulusheim.




We also walked a bit down the Andreasstaffel and had a few to the top from there. You see that small house. It is called Wingerthäusle. Maybe you can read about it in the next photo, it might be a bit small.






We saw a beautiful house next to the Stadtgarten. If you plan to stay in Bruchsal for a holiday, you can rent this house for a while. It belongs to a hotel and restaurant.




Finally we walked back home again. We came to the baroque church St. Peter, which is only a few hundred feet from our host's place. THe church is still baroque inside. It is located at the edge to the graveyard.[img]null[/img]

We have our Silvester Dinner now. It's fondue with minced meat and different sauces and some other little food like cornichons and more. It way yummy.

Finally it is time to welcome the New Year 2013. We watched the fireworks and our host's children made a special firework with sparklers for us. Then we went to bed, really tired.

On January 6th is Epiphany. Children go out as the three kings and collect money for church and special needs. Many people offer them sweets. That's why they also carry bags with them to put the sweets, chocolate and other things like apricots and appels in it. Here you see some of the sweets the sons and daughter of our host brought home on 5th January. (This year they went on 4th and 5th). Maybe they will share them with us, who knows.