Travelog for: Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
now we finished lunch and we will go to work.

We had toast with cheese, tomato and onion and for dessert I had .... a "Schaumkuss". There seem to be no correct translation, maybe "chocolate marshmallow", with some wine gums. It was wonderful. And I had a spoon full of honey.







In  the office I will meet a little mouse with spots, she would like to be the next TV of my host. She looks like those dalmatian mice in "The Royal Tenenbaums", a movie with Ben Stiller and Anjelica Huston and  Gene Hackman.

My host told me that yesterday there still was a lot of snow. It melted and there are only some little remains of it.



We must go now!

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi  Mummy,
we returned from the office and I'm starving again. My host Katja is also starving, so we show you only a few pics.

Here you can see a statue of Lady Justice, the Roman Goddess of Justice. It's a bit abstract, usually the figure is wearing a blindfold, a sword and scales.



Here I'm talking with the spotted mouse who wants to become a ToyVoyager. She's quite small, the travel tag will be larger,



Here I'm watching over the stamps.



Then I wanted to make a photocopy of my backside, but Katja said, only members of english christmas parties would do such things (that's not a good idea because they often break the glass of the photocopier and then they have glass splinters in their behind). I really don't like glass splinters there...

I'm so tired that I will go to bed very early. Katja will take a walk with a friend. She asked me if I wanted to go with her but I'm so tired that I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
today we made a long walk in an old district of Remscheid. Katja said that today was the first day without rain or snowfall within the last two weeks. So we went outside after lunch (we had pancakes with caramel syrup).

First we took a photo of the house where Katja is living. She lives in the attic storey of the house on the left.



This part of the town has a lot of old houses.

We walked through a small park in front of the police station. Here is a pillar with the crest of the town. On the other sides  the names of the partner towns are engraved.



We then walked along the "Trasse des Werkzeugs" (route of tools). It is a lane for pedestrians and cyclists through the town, made on a closed railway route. It was financed by many local industrial firms, most of them they produce tools. Along the lane you can find signs of those producers.





Here I'm sitting on a bench made of a huge screw clamp.



And here is a bench made of glass.





Now you can see some houses that are typical for this region:









It's very exhausting to walk here because almost all roads are going uphill and downhill really steep, rarely straight.







We went uphill for a while and came to the muncipal park. Here you can see me in front of the observatory. It was restored last year.



In the evening our new neighbours visited us. We had beer and coke and potatoe chips. Now Katja has to feed the rats - yes, she is keeping pet rats. They are really funny. The whole day you can't see them because they are asleep, but in the evening they want to play and eat.

I'm very tired now, Mummy. We wanted to visit the tool museum, but it is closed on Friday afternoon. We'll do it later.

I will go to sleep now with three large plush rats.

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
today we made a beautiful excursion. We visited Schloss Burg, a medieval castle, and the Müngstener Brücke, Germany's highest railway bridge.

The castle belongs to Solingen, a neighbour town of Remscheid, the bridge belongs on one side to Remscheid and on the other side to Solingen. It's running across the river Wupper which marks the border between these towns.

Here we're on our way.



On the parking lot we saw this funny coloured car.



We made our way to the bridge along the river Wupper. The river is carrying a lot of water after the snowfall last week.



This is the workshop of a blacksmith who makes pieces of art.



Now you can see the bridge. It was completed in March 1897. It is 107 meters high and 465 meters long. It was built with about 5.000 tons of steel (5.000.000 kg). The bridge is overstretching the valley of the river Wupper. Two years ago a theme park was established. There are beautiful playgrounds for children, takeaways, lawns for relaxing, a miniature golf and souvenir shops. Katja told me that every year in summer a big festival is held underneath the bridge with fireworks. Last year she was there with her kids and it must have been beautiful.



Here I am relaxing in the sun.



Here is a memorial tablet to remind of the visit of the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II. He visited the bride in August 1899.



Then we made it along some souvenir shops. Hey, what is this? I've seen this before in Hameln! (Katja's son likes this stuff very much).



These are gingerbread hearts. You can buy them on a fun fair and at places like this with a lot of tourists.



Then we walked to the castle. The path went uphill and downhill like everything here. Maybe you can see how steep it is.



Along the path you can find artworks. This for example is a group of rock, placed like table and chairs. On the tabletop these impressions of hands are engraved (Katja didn't find another word for that kind of work a chiseler is doing and I didn't know any word for it either). On other rocks poems are engraved or riddles. Most of them are not so easy to discover because they are partly covered with leafes and dirt from winter.



Then I had to rest on a stump for a little while.



We walked through the forrest to the district in which we wanted to visit the castle. We had to cross the Wupper.
Katja and her friend decided to take the chairlift that's running from the street across the Wupper to the castle. I believe the two women were too lazy to walk uphill again. But when I saw the hill we would have had to climb the chairlift was ok.

Hi Mummy,
Katja had to cook tea before updating more. Now she has her tea and she can go on.
(I think she also is exhausted by walkung uphill for hours  ) But she says "No, I am used to this".)

We arrived at the chairlift. I was impressed how steep this hill was. I was a little bit scared to go with this chairlift, but Katja said that it is ok. There had never happend any accident with it so it would not happen just today.









We arrived savely on top, directly close to the castle. We made some pictures.









In the castle courtyard you can find souvenir shops and shops whose owners are doing an "old" handcraft. For example someone makes soap, another makes brushes, then you can buy things that were used by knights for the kids, like swords and helmets. I found this machine that makes an embossing picture of a small German coin. Katja allowed me to make such a thing for you.



I had to put in the coin and turn a wheel. I found a board with some facts about the castle. You can see that the first parts were built in 1133 A.D., then it was enlarged in 1225 A.D. and often in the following centuries. In Thirty Years War (17th century) many parts of the castle were destroyed. It was rebuilt then, but it was used for industrial purposes for many years. In the end of the 19th century they began to rebuild it as it appears today.



I also found a histric carousel.



Before leaving the castle Katja and her fried had a cup of coffee. They bought zwieback with nuts on top. Do you know zwieback? It is a sort of pastry that is baken two times. It is very crispy and with the nuts on top it was delicious.



Then we walked downhill. Yes, we walked  . Here you can see how steep this path is.



Katja found some nice little flowers on the forest soil and made this  photo. I was glad that I could sit a moment.



When we came to the bridge again, we crossed the river Wupper on a transporter bridge. You have to help the ferrymen to pull this ferry from bank to bank.



Another exhaustiing activity 

Then we drove home. Today in the evening I would like to meet the rats. I'm curious if they are afraid of me. Katja sais they are afraid of nothing. As long as I bring a piece of cheese for every rat with me they would like me.

We close now,
bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
today Katja showed me a little bit around the town.

Here you can see the town hall. It would look much better without the scaffold. The tower has to be restored.

On Wednesday and Saturday the farmer's market takes place on the square in front of the town hall.





Around the square a shopping mall is built. In the glass dome you can find an ice cream parlour.



This large sculpture of two forceps marks the entrance to the pedestrian area. This again is a symbol for the tool industry Remscheid and its region is famous for.



This is really typical for Germany: Waste separation. You have to carry your paper waste to such containers, also glass in several colours, as long as you don't want to put a fourth or fifth garbage bin in front of your house. When you come to these containers with a large basket full of paper and glass they are usually full.



This is the entrance of the local court. Above the door you can see the crest of Nordrhein-Westfalen, one of 16 states.



Katja wanted to take a photo of the complete building that was restored and enlarged a few years ago. The crossway in front of the building was crowded with busses and cars, so that we will take a photo when there will be less traffic.

Here you can see two more pictures of streets in the neighborhood of Katja's home. Large parts of the town were destroyed in World War II, especially the town centre where the pedestrian area is today. Though you have to walk only a few minutes to get to the town town centre here most buildings remained intact.



.

The sun is going down and there is not enough daylight for good photos any more. I hope the weather will be as fine as today the next days.

I wrote a postcard for you, Mummy. The post office clerk was grumbling because Katja asked him to put real stamps onto the envelope, not only a postage label. He put a cute Keith-Haring-stamp on it.

In the evening I'm going to feed the rats with pasta. They like it. Yesterday I petted Isabel, a dear albino rat. She was not afraid of me.

Bye, Mummy, You will see more of me soon.

Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
today all my dreams came true:

We visited Katja's sister. She has more teddy bears I have ever seen. Teddy bears made of plush, made of glass, made of ceramics, made of wood, bears on boxes and so on. We made a lot of pictures:







Before we went into town to visit the Roentgen-Museum we had coffee and cake.



Katja had knitted a pig-suit for one of the bears.



I tried this suit on - look, it fits perfectly 



We then went to the museum.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German physicist, who, in November  1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as x-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. He was born on March 27, 1845 in Remscheid-Lennep. He died in 1923.

First we visited his birthplace. This is not a museum, but there is a memorial tablet on the wall. It is the house on the right side.





Here is the museum. First you can see the original old part, than the new annex.







We made a tour of the museum. First you could see facts of W. C. Roentgen's life, about his home, family and personal interests. Here is a bust of him.



Following the tour we went through a cellar. The atmosphere was a little bit spooky, it was dark with only few light, sometimes with red or blue light. You could see prints of announcments, sort of comics or implements of Roentgen's early work.





Here you can see me sitting on a skeleton, it is made of plastic, otherwise I would not have dared to sit on it.



We went through a long and dark tunnel with radiograms of all sorts of animals, several people, DIY-tools, kitchen equipment and more on both sides. Can you see what this is?



We then saw an Egypt mummy. It is the body of a woman, about 24 years old, who lived approximated 300 B.C. The mummy was found in the twenties of 20th century in Achmim, Egypt. It was almost dark in this room, so you cannot see the mummy exactly. On the left side there is the mummy, on the right side the upper side of the wooden coffin.



We saw a lot of fluoroscopes of various ages. Here you can see an apparat of 1908.



Here is the first apparat for tuberculosis screening.



This must be an apparat of the fifties.



This is a DNS-model.



X-rays are also used in  space exploration. Here you can see my constellation: The little bear.



On our way back home we went on a tour through the old town on Lennep. They have beautiful old houses, narrow lanes and wonderful front doors.















This sign is written in Old German Type:



It means "Bocksgasse 5", in english "buck vennel 5".

We also found this funny sign on the wall of an old house:
It means "God bless this house (or protect) of storm and fire, of municipality and the local tax office."



We then went to Katja's sister's home to start the teddy bear party.

Hi Mummy,
in the evening it was party-time 

We were a lot of teddy bears and we had wine gums, potatoe chips, peanut puffs, something delicious with coconut and chocolate, orange juice and sparkling applejuice. We were many bears of all sizes and we had a lot of fun. We played games with those two tiny bears, but they liked it.

We really had a lot of fun.















I have a lot of new friends now and they did not want to let me go, but I was very tired.

I'm now in bed with the three large rats and I will fall asleep soon.



Bye, Mummy
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
yesterday in the evening I played with the rats. I would better say they played with me. Katja gave me pasta to feed them.

Katja has two cages with rats. In the larger cage six rats are living. They are Claire, Jordan, their Mum Batida, her sister Corona, Ida and her sister Betty. In the second cage Isabel, Hella and Kessi are living. Katja is calling Isabel and Hella a pain in the neck, because they are really intrusive.

The rats have some toys, for example a large cardboard box filled with smaller boxes where Katja hides some treats. The rats also like to rummage in the basket with the collected newspapers and paper packings for the waste separation. I told you about this yet.

In the late evening the rats go outside their cage for playing with Katja and running around. Hella and Isabel are either sitting on Katja's lap or they are following her every step she takes. When she tries to read they are sitting on her book. When she walks through the room where the rats are playing, both are running after her. All the time they want to be stroked and cuddled.

But they are cute although.

Here I'm feeding Isabel and Hella. Isabel is the albino rat and Hella is the mink capped rat.









Hella was looking for more pasta but it was all eaten up.

Look what she has done to me!



Later I visited the other six rats when they hat dinner.

Here you can see that Corona is interested in me. The brown and white backside belongs to Claire.







Somehow I like the rats, they are really funny and hoggy. Every night I sleep with those three guys I showed you on Wednesday.

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy.
today we took a walk along some places of the town where there can be no doubt that Remscheid is an industrial town.

Katja wanted to show me the central station, but there you can only see a large building site. They are building a new central station.

At the moment it is looking like this:



It is supposed to look like this in future.



At least the bus stop in front of the central staion is looking more friendly with all those blooming trees.



I've seen nicer parts of the town .... Katja says that these production plants would belong to Remscheid as well as the nice forrests and historic districts I have seen so far.





Can you see where I'm sitting here?



I'm sitting on a St. Andrew's cross (sorry, I don't know if you have these danger signs, placed at railroad crossings, also in Australia).

On the next picture I'm sitting on the counterweight of a gate.



We decided to buy some food on our way back home. Katja had to carry me, I was a little bit tired.



Back home Katja showed me everything that we bought.

We bought serveral sorts of cheese, Italian cookies with lemon filling and cappucchino filling, bread, dough for bread rolls and croissants, chocolate with rum, raisins and nuts (I hope she bought this for me  ), sausages, a cabbage, a cucumber for the rats and some packs of cream.



Katja is planning to cook a soup with potatoes and cabbage. Actually it is a vegetarian receipe, but Katja's kids like it more with meatballs. So she will cook this soup with and without meatballs. The soup has to be flavoured with two sorts of paprika, salt, thyme and pepper and should be completed with some sour cream, stirred with flour.

Here she is preparing onions and garlic. She also has to cut potatoes and cabbage. She also will cook a few potatoes for the rats. They seem to love potatoes. I don't know if there's anything that they do not like at all.





Katja made little balls from the uncooked sausage. Here I'm watching over the soup for the kids with meatballs.



Now both soups are ready.



We will taste the vegetarian version now. Tomorrow I will tell you if it was good. I hope we have this chocolat with rum, raisins and nuts for dessert!

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
the soup was good and I had chocolate for dessert.



Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
Katja made caipirinhas for us. For a glass you need a lime, 2 - 3 tablespoons of cane sugar, cachaça and ice.

First you wash the lime and cut it into 8 pieces. Put the lime into a large glass and add sugar. Then you have to mash lime and sugar, then put some ice cubes into the glass and add 5 cl  cachaça. Enjoy it through a thick straw.













Cheers  !

Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
you won't believe what's happening in Remscheid. It's snowing!
Katja gave me a scarf and we mad some pictures out of the roof-light.

It is really cold. Look!





I need a hot tea now.

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
today I helped Katja writing some postcards. She had to write three postcards to other postcrossing members and a thank-you-card to a lady in Brazil. It is already the second thank-you-card because every postcard sent by Katja another postcard from Brazil is following.



I was permitted to chose some Rattatouille-stickers for the postcards. Katja says that a real rat lover could hardly send a postcard without a rat sticker on it.


We wrote one card to Lithuania, one card to the USA and a card to Finland.

Katja received this beautiful postcard from Estonia today.



Yesterday's snow had melted until afternoon. Today it is cold indeed, but there is no more snow.

You will hear from me soon, Mummy.

Bye
Shaggy Bear

Hi Mummy,
today the sun was shining. In Katja's lunch break we took a little walk, only because the weather was so nice.

Spring is coming!





This park is going to look really nice in a few weeks.



In front of the Allee-Center, the shopping mall, such granite posts with the crest of all 16 states of Germany are arranged. At each post a different tree is planted. Here, behind the crest of Nordrhein-Westfalen, the state to which Remscheid belongs, a common beech is planted.



Here we are standing in front of another entrance to the shopping mall. In the background you can see the tower of the town-hall. Underneath the shopping mall busses and taxis are passing through.



Here we are inside the shopping mall. At the moment they have an exhibition about circus. Several times you can see performing artists and clowns, but obviously they also had lunch-break. We did not see any of them.



On the market place you can see a huge column with the "Bergischer Löwe" ("Bergischer" lion), the heraldic animal of Remscheid. It is at least 5 meters high.



In the evening I helped Katja cleaning the larger rat cage. Afterwards we prepared the rat's dinner. They had carrots, cucumber, banana, sweet corn and of course their regular food. Here you can see Claire and Corona.



Here you can see almost the whole cage.



Maybe Moony will arrive tomorrow. He is a cute little dog that will be hosted by Katja. We will see  .

Bye
Shaggy Bear