Travelog for: Ossa

We have rather bad weather here, so I only get the chance to look out of the window sometimes. Here you see a part of the garden behind my hosts house and a part of a garage of the neighbour's house. The house you see in the back is the music school of Bruchsal.

Because too much cold air came into the house, I had to close the window again and started to look around in the house. I found this four budgies in the kitchen: Fleckchen, Clowny, Wölkchen and Linus.

It is getting colder and colder here, but surely not so cold as it is at home My hosts heated the oven with wood and it was wonderful warm then.

It's St. Martinstag (Martin's Day) today and so we all thought, it would be a good idea to go to the procession, where little children walk with their beautiful lanterns. Unhappily the weather was still so bad, that we had to stay at home. Here you see another view out of the window. It shows along the street to the baroque church St. Peter.

Today we saw the first snow of winter 2007/2008. It looked more like a sugar icing, but nevertheless it was snow. Petra took me outside to take some photos early in the morning, while it was cold enough, because she knew, that the snow would melt away soon. On the first photo you see the back side of the music school and on the second photo you see a house with painting on it. This house is called Sancta Maria. You will see it later again.

Today we visited Bruchsal's baroque palace and garden.

1. In the palace garden you find several statues. Four of them show the four elements water, fire, earth and air and other four of them show the four seasons spring, summer, autumn, winter. Here you see me in front of the statue winter.


2. I wanted to run and not to be carried around, so Petra set me on the balustrade. Here you see the back side of the palace.

3. The tower, that you see here, belongs to the catholic church, but it is located next to the parish hall. The church is the building with the three dormer windows. It is the church, where my hosts go to the service on Sunday mornings.

4. This shows the front part of the palace.

5. And here you see me in front of the county court.

6. I wanted to see, what time we had and tried to find it out on the sun dial, but we had too few sun for it.

This building is called Belvedere. It was a former hunting lodge and is now used for several feast and open air theatre. Behind this building is a big grammar school. The garden around the Belvedere is also used as schoolyard.

This building is called St.Paulusheim and is a private catholic grammar school founded by patres of the Pallotti order. Until today only Christians can go in this school. Each morning they say a prayer together with the teacher and there is a lot of extra christian program.

We found this funny coloured snake and wanted to play on it. It is near by the baroque church St.Peter. It was kind of playing hide and seek with our hosts.

We all were sad, that the church was closed. It is also baroque inside.
This street with the statues is opposite to the church. In the far you see the school St.Paulusheim again.

Next to the baroque church is the graveyard of Bruchsal. For old people it isn't easy to walk there, because there the ways ascend steeply. But you have a beautiful view to the church and there are wonderful trees.

Here you see a little view over Bruchsal. The building on the left side is the house Sancta Maria, which we mentioned before. The left tower is the tower of the Stadtkirche (city church) and the tower in the middle is the tower of the church of the palace.
This is the front side of the house Sancta Maria. In the painting you see some more churches of Bruchsal.

Good bye, Ossa!

You are so cute and especially Sabrina really loves you. Have a nice journey.

I'm happy to report that I've safely arrived to Jerusalem, currently I'm resting from the trip!

And here I am, walking around the campus of the Hebrew University! This place is green and spacey and looks very much like a park.






Who could believe that there are still some flowers in December... not much though.


Walking around the National Library building.


A water pool! with what's supposed to be a fountain.





The weather is still warm, but it's obvious that the summer is over... the lawns are covered with the dry leaves, and nobody is sitting on the lawn anymore.



I found a big flower bush to enjoy!

Tried to say hello to the local wildlife, but the cat, seeing that I'm not her kin, says "Do. Not. Want."



The painted birds, though, are a lot of fun!



Cats definitely do not like to talk to me...



Here's an administrative building, most notable for containing the post office, to where I had arrived!


And another fountain, this one is working. But what's going on - it's starting to rain! must run back to the office!





And here I can safely admire the view from the window.

So far I'm patiently waiting for my host to take me to the center of the city and see some sights, but she's stuck between work and home... Here's our walk from work, of course it's dark already at the evening, so the photos are coming out very fuzzy, sorry for that!


The workplace from the outside.


The flash makes everything yellow...


Through the dark alley, back to the entrance...


Enjoying the night city lights on my way.


A busy road - luckily, we can cross it through the bridge.


And a look from another side of the bridge.


A small park...


and a playground (it's not that green really, even at night)


The streets are quite empty after dark.


Mysterious little paths lead further to the houses.


A typical house (do you see me on the foreground?)


A nursing home.


And we're already very close to home...

Today we decorated the New Year tree! it's a small plastic tree, as it's not possible to buy real fir trees in Israel - or maybe just not customary in the city, anyway it doesn't make sense to destroy so many trees to celebrate a human holiday... but it's fun anyway! here are some pictures, while the local cat hasn't ripped the tree to shreds



I'm small and light, so I can climb the tree too!


The "alternative" tree, a very small one, we put both of them.


I was nice, so what will you bring me, Santa?