Travelog for: Soeren

Hello Mum,

today it was still cold, frosty enough to skate on the ice of the garden pond.

And can You imagine, mum, this crazy people had ice-skaters for me

I discovered my newest talent: Being an ice-artist 
Even on the rain-tank we had some fun when I pulled the sleigh with Charlotte, Matcha and HelmutBluepant

We had a lot of fun together and in the afternoon we enjoyed our hot chocolate with marshmellows

See You soon, give You lots of hugs, kisses and oooohhhhmm
Yours Soeren

Hi Mum,

today we made a short trip trough Remscheid.

Here You can see the historic houses in the Clarenbachstr. near the tool-museum.

The next huge building is the town-hall and on the right hand, almost in the middle of the market-place, a high stone-statue of a Lion, our typical heraldic animal of the Bergisches Land.

The next stop we took at the famous Bridge of Müngsten.

It is the oldest ironbridge in Germany and almost 100 years old.
It connects the towns Remscheid and Solingen by railway and crosses the valley of the Wupper. Before the bridge was built, people had to go a far way by train. The bridge is still in use, can you see the train above me?

Under the bridge we visited the "Brückenpark" and went a footway along the Wupper.

The third station today was Schloss Burg in Solingen-Burg.

There we visited the old Mediveal Castle of the counts of Berg that was rebuilt in the late 19th. century. The statue you see shows Count Engelbert of Berg. By this noble family the region is named Bergisches Land, not because they have some small mountains and hills here

And there we got a typical souvenir: The Burger Bretzel, a sweet small backed Pretzel that is also part of the "Bergisch Coffee Table" as the "Dröppelminna" a huge oldfashioned pot for coffee.

In the late afternoon we went back.

And what a surprise: We had an almost traditional Bergisch Coffee Table, a  Bergische afternoon coffee spread (Kaffeetafel)

So Kaffeetafel is not just an ordinary coffee and cake, but also includes waffles, spread thickly with creamed sweet rice and sprinkled with cinnamon, raisin bread or black bread with butter, sugar beet syrup and Bergisch soft cheese, black bread with smoked jam, cheese, pretzel and zwieback to dip in the coffee. And even a Dröppelminna we had for our Coffee. And I spend Helmut some new coffee out of the Dröppelminna

Unfortenatuly we did not have the sweet raisin bread, but it was sooo much to eat fur us plushies, only Helmut was able to eat the most

MumMumMum,

I am soooo upset that I can tell You a small pre-easter-surprise:

I have fulfilled another life mission: I met a real elk    

Today, altough it is still very cold here, we went to the "Zoom Erlebniswelt (World of Experience)" in Gelsenkirchen and I enjoyed watching so much animals in near-by natural habitats very much.

They have three Areas there, an Asia, Africa and Alaska. Because it was so cold, we saw the most animals outside in the Alaska-Area.

So let´s start our roundtrip and look, what animals I was able to discover:

In Asia I saw the green wood partridge [Rollulus rouloul] and
orang-utans [Pongo pygmaeus]. And there we had a cup of coffee to warm up the freezy Matcha, HelmutBluepant and, of course, who was moaning the whole time about the terrible weather?...Yes, our "Princess of plushies", Charlotte

In the african area we had the chance to make a trip by boat, although unfortnately the most animals, only the suricats [Suricata suricatta] were not outside, we saw some other interesting animals inside the african warm-house:
(African) gray parrot [Psittacus erithacus],
common chimpanzee [Pan troglodytes],
hippopotamus [Hippopotamus amphibius]
and some cichlids from the Lake Malawi in a aquarium

And finally in Alaska we saw the most animals outside:
lynx [genus Lynx],
snow owl [Bubo scandiacus],
raccoons [Procyon lotor],
a wild living european redbreasted robin [Erithacus rubecula]
caribous [Rangifer tarandus],
brown bears [Ursus arctos],
Sealions [Otariinae],
polar bears [Ursus maritimus],
and last but not least: We found the moose [Alces] for me to complete another of my life mission

Hello Mum,

today we did something special for Easter:

We ornated some little Twigs with coloured eggs made of wood and paper.

and we coloured some boiled chicken eggs for the Easter breakfeast tomorrow

Happy Easter to all of you and especially for You, Mum


Charlotte played Easterbunny togehter with HelmutBluepant and invited Matcha and me to Strunkis Warmhouse where they had hided some easter suprises for us.

I found a green bag full with chocolate eggs and a huge paper-egg with a golden chocolate-bunny in it.

We had so much fun to look for the chocolate and had a opulent easter-breakfast alltogehter. 

And we hope, that spring will still come...

Hello Mum

The weather today was very nice, the sun did shine and it was not as cold as the days ago.

In Leverkusen, that´s at the Rhine between Cologne and Düsseldorf, we vistited the japanese Garden inbetween the Bayer-Area, because there the temperatures a few higher than in Bergisch Land and so the vegetation is a little bit more developed.

The japanese Garden there was founded by one of the owners from BAYER in the early 20th Century, who loved the japanese garden architecture and the bonsai very much. And he opened the garden for the public.

We saw very lovely early spring flowers, lots of violet and yellow crocus, liverleafs, tulip, iris, bluestars and some more. And even some kois we saw.

Our second visit today was Schloss Benrath in the south of Düsseldorf.

This lovely palais de plaisire was built in the 18th century and a lot of people love the park and its surrounding that is near to the rhine.

We went from the rhine though the park to the palais.

And we had a lot of fun playing on the stone-lions

Hi Mum

good news: I have an offer to visit Denmark, yipiiee

I got the news after our power-yoga hour with our newest balloons, not so easy to balance them between the legs and holding the yoga-lesson

I told my friends that i have to leave and although i am very happy to discover new shores, the good bye was not as easy for us all as it seemed to be

But we had a last tasty glass of mousse au chocolate together and they gave me a nice farewell-party and a few souvenirs and, of course, chocolates for my journey to Denmark

From Matcha i got a map from the Zoom in Gelsenkirchen to remeber, when we both completed one of our life missions each.

HelmutBluepant gave me some gum-bears he likes so much, them to share with me was his greatest, he said

Aaaand Charlotte, the sweetest plushie-princess
she gave me nice small bars of chocolates, my favourites for my journey and the rest for the nice new hosts And we both gave us a deeeeeep view into the eyes of each other, what a pity that she is engaged with Helmut, uuuhhh, she is my hidden fave, hihi

So I will go on now from the house with this lovely-crazy crowd of plushies and i will miss and kiss You, perhaps we see us again sometimes?

Bye bye Germany, i am sooo excited and look forward to Denmark
Denmark, i am coming

Dear Soeren

You are now on Your journey to Denmark and we all here think of You and wish You the Very Best

Look what I found between all the nice pictures we got from You: Some last ones where You are sitting between Your new made friends and have lot of fun.

Thank You very much for visiting us and, perhaps sometimes, we will meet again?

With all our love for You
Yours Charlotte, HelmutBluepant and Strunki 

I am finaly here, has spend few days on the post office....but now i am fine....

here is small town Tønder, we were on bike tur

...just adding longitude and latitude of Tonder...