Travelog for: Angus

Hi Mommy,
today it's my host's birthday. She is now fourty-something years old. In the morning she had to go to work and in the afternoon her family arrived for coffee and cake. They were her parents, her aunt, her sister with her son, her nephew and her own kids.

We all had cake. Katja made an applecake with amaretto and she bought a strawberry-torte. Too late she realised  that the torte was a really low-fat-thing. It tasted really like there was missing some cream. But the torte was eaten up either.

Later we opened a bottle of sparkling wine and the presents were opened. From her children she got a funny candle that looks like a glass of beer. It is a real beer glass with a jelly candle in it.

From her sister she got a nice heart made of metal to hang at the ceiling and to light a candle into it.

Here you can see us celebrating.





For dinner Katja ordered asian food. Everyone could choose what he liked among four different dishes. We had one completely vegetarian, one with baked fisch, one with beef and another with chicken. It was really delicious.







Later, when all guests were gone, we tided up the kitchen a little bit, but only a really little bit.

Bye,
Angus

Hi Mummy,

My host told me that she is a member in Germany's biggest association for pet rat keepers. She is an active member who is working for the association's magazine. She also adopts pet rats that are given into an animal rescue or those who has been found when some irresponsible people released them into the wild or left them alone in the apartment when they  moved out like a thiefe in the night.

On Friday two young rat girls will arrive here that has been brought pregnant  into the animal rescue. One of has given birth to the babies on April, 20th and the other one on Katja's birthday. Katja told me that it is better for the rat babies to be raised within a family, so they can get used to be handled. In an animal rescue they have not enough time to handle the rats and to play with them. The rats are crepuscular animals, so they like playing and eating in the late evening. At his time  every animal rescue is closed.

Of course the rat moms need a cage for themselves. Katja has an extra cage for them, but is only has one little door. So it would not be easy to clean the cage and to handle the rats. She cut a larger hole into the grid and made a larger door of an old hamster cage. She also built in a larger door into the cage top.

We helped her .... ähhm.... we played with her tools.



Here you can see us sitting in the cage with the now large doors.



I'm looking foreward to meet even more rats!

Bye
Angus

Hi Mommy,

today nobody has to go to work. So we had a very late and very long breakfast.

First we baked some bread rolls.



We had bread rolls with pork sausage and with cheese.



Katja's son had rat girl Greta sitting on his lap, I accompanied her. Greta is really cute and cuddly.



Now Katja has to do updates for the other TVs.

Bye
Angus

Hi Mummy,
today the weather was really nice. In the afternoon Katja, her daughter Alex,Chompers, Galaxy Bear and me took a walk. First we went into a little park in front of the police station. We sat on a rocking horse.





Then we went into the muncipal park. This is the observatory.



Here you can see more of the park.



We went through an old district called „Hasten“. Here you can see a famous company, Keiper. They are building bucket seats and racing-style seats for mainstream manufacturers.



We came to a district called “Morsbachtal”. Here the creek Morsbach is running. In this district the first industrial settlements took place long ago. Along the creek tools were made, in the early centuries of industrial settlement the fabrics were run by water wheels.

Here we are all sitting on the balustrade of a bridge running across the creek.



From here you can walk into forrest and follow the route along the historical “Gelpetal”. The river Gelpe is flowing through the valley, coming from Wuppertal. Here you can find an old sledgehammer which is now a museum. Around the hammer some beautiful old houses remained.





We were sitting on the edge of a little standpipe. On the picture you cannot see the water flowing, but we all got a little bit wet. But that doesn’t matter because it was so warm.



On this plate the history of the company that you can see in the background, is explained. This plate belongs to a serie of such plates along a special trail along the creek and its industrial culture.



We rested on a bench in the sun.



We found a rock that was worked into the shape of an easy chair. Alex enjoyed the sun again and we did also.



On our way back home we walked along the “Werkzeugtrasse”, the route of tools. This is a lane built on an abandoned railway track. Along this route you can find many signs of local industrial companys who sponsored this lane. This is a bench made of a huge screw clamp.



We went through the muncipal park again, along a pond with ducks. You can also find goldfish and several sorts of turtels who were released into the wild by their former owners.



It was a very nice day and we all are very tired now. We will help Katja and Alex doing our updates and then we will go to sleep. Of course I will take a look at the rat babies before. We have 17 babies with two mums. Unfortunately one of the moms does not care about her kids, so the other one has to feed all babies. We hope that all babies will survive.

Bye
Angus

Hi Mummy,
today Katja took us with her when she went to the post office.

She showed us the town centre with the shops. She also took Galaxy Bear with her because Alex has to learn for school.

Here you can see some pictures of the pedestrian area.





These large forcepses are marking the entrance to the pedestrian area.



Here you can see the town hall. Unfortunately the tower has a scaffold, but it will be taken away soon.



When we were back at home we relaxed in the midday sun in the kitchen window.



In the meantime Katja made coffee. She wanted to read today's newspaper and eat a doghnut. It's called "Berliner Ballen" here, it is the same dough but it does not have a hole but it is filled with jam.





These are some of the older rat babies. They are 15 day old today.



I was not allowed to get closer because I had icing sugar at my nose. I think the babies wouldn't have cared about that.

Bye
Angus

Hi Mummy,
today I played with one of the rat babies. Seven of them are 17 day old now.

This is one of the little rat girls, the coat pattern is called "Husky".





She already tasted the infant cereal that was meant for her mum.



I have a lot of fun with them. They are absolutely cute. Did I look the same when I was a baby?

Bye
Angus

Hi Mummy,
today we visited the flea market, that is held every year on Pentecost here, on Sunday and Monday.

Katja wanted to buy a few things. She wanted to look for a "Rumtopf", that is a pot for fruit in rum. Here the name "Rumtopf" means as well the pot as the result in it. She really found one. She also bought a bowl made of ceramics with a large sunflower painted inside. She also bought two dvd's. One of it is "L.A. confidental". Katjas likes Kevin Spacey very much and she did not see this movie yet.

Her daughter wanted to buy shoes, she found a nice pair.

Here you can watch us walking along the flea market:









Look, I suddenly felt like being at home:

A Dutch chip shop called "The flying Dutchman". You could buy french fries and frikandels there, also the other stuff I know from the Netherlands.



I like these gingerbread hearts very much. I bought this one, but I don't tell you what I'm going to do with it.



Here you can see what we bought today:





In the evening we will watch one of the new movies.

Bye
Angus

Hi Mummy,
yesterday Katja and I went to a friend to  talk and to have a beer or two. While the two ladies talked I looked around. They talked and talked and did not recognize that I climbed onto the lamp and onto the espresso machine.







Katja's friend Karin has a little cupboard standing on the window sill with two dolls and a rat sitting on it.





Tomorrow I will leave Remscheid. I will travel to Finland than.

Bye
Angus

Hi Mummy,

yesterday in the evening it started raining like hell. We are living in the attic storey here and enormous raindrops fell onto the windows in the ramp. Today in the morning there was still a little bit rain but at noon the sun was shining again.

Katja met her friend Kerstin to take a long walk. Of course Chompers and me went with them. We drove to Solingen-Höhrath to walk around the "Sengbach-Talsperre". This is a water reservoir dam and you are not allowed to walk close to the water. The walking path goes uphill and downhill around the lake and from some points you have a stunning view onto the dam.

We parked the car close to some stables. On many paddocks we saw horses.





On our way to the dam we came along  this funny fence. The owner had fastened small wooden boards to the fence. On these boards he put real shoes in which plants are growing. Katja told us that these shoes are standing there for years already.





We went into the forrest. In the background you can see "Schloss Burg", a medieval castle built in 12th century.



We reached the dam. The sign explains to you that the dam contains drinking water and what you are allowed to do here, better what you are forbidden to do.



This is the concrete dam.



The dam is one of the oldes dams in Germany. It was built from 1900 until 1903.



These turrets are built on the concrete dam. I think that they contain a staircase into or out of the dam.



To the water front the dam is barred.



We made our way around the lake. The path went uphill and downhill. Sometimes we could not see the lake, but then the view was beautiful.



This is a motorway bridge.



We walked for almost three hours! Back home we tried to measure the walked distance with google earth. It must have been about 10 - 12 km.

We are all tired now,

good night
Angus

(Tomorrow I will travel to Finland - I'm already excited!)

Hi Mom,
today I start traveling to Finland for new adventures.

Katja made a new red sign for me that should be read and obeyed in case I should get lost again.

We also wrote a postcard to my next host and we also sent something to you, Mommy.

I hope I will arrive in Finland soon.



Bye
Angus

Here I am in Finland! First thing when I crawled out of the package was to see my host smiling at me. She said that she had been waiting for me and that I would meet another toyvoyager called Pien. But she warned me that Pien (being an elphant) had a fear of mouses (and perhaps rats too) and so I would have to be very clever to win his friendship.

So I put my friendliest expression on my face and approached Pien from a distance. The poor thing got so surprised that he jumped on top of a lamp. I tried to explain to him that I wasn't a mouse, I was a rat and that he had no reason to be scared. After some long and witful discussion Pien finally seemed to warm up to me and now we are good friends as you can see.

P.S  My host wanted me to thank olgamaus for sending the nice card!

Hi again! We have been busy today. When I had won Piens trust we went biking and visited The Church of St. Lawrence (Pyhän Laurin kirkko, in Finnish) which is situated between Vantaa and Helsinki. The church dates back to 1460 A.D. Here is some text my host found as an info for me:

"Helsinge, or Helsinki Parish, is known to have been populated by Swedish-speaking people by the 14th century. Documentary evidence shows that a wooden church stood here as early as 1401. The patron saint of the wooden church was Sankt Lars, better known as Saint Lawrence or Laurentius, a deacon martyred in Rome in the year 258.

The parish village with its church was favourably located on the coastal road between Turku and Viipuri. A branch of the salmon-rich River Vantaa ran through the village as well. A traveller approaching the village on the great coastal road, known as the King’s Road, could see the Church of St. Lawrence from afar, since the village was surrounded by fields, and there were no other big buildings to block the view. Helsinge was an established centre of population by the time Helsinki was founded in parish territory in 1550.

In medieval times, the interior of the Church of St. Lawrence was dark. The windows were smaller than at present, and candles were the only alternative sources of light. There were no pews. The outer walls were whitewashed. Lack of heating made the church cold and damp in wintertime. For the common people the church’s massive stone walls were both a reminder of man’s smallness before God and a visible expression of the combined power of the Roman Catholic Church and her loyal supporter, the secular government."

Anyway, here in the first two pics we are sitting on a beautiful bench in the surrounding cemetery.

Then there is three pics of the church itself. Quite pretty stone church, huh?

And in the last image Pien and I are sitting at the foot of a stone statue that was raised on someones grave.

Today we were quite bored as Minna, our host, had no time for us. She said she was busy writing an essay on History of Chemistry. So we took a look at one of her books, which was in Finnish. I have to say I didn't understand the text at all! Pien was so excited that he tried to read a cartoon in Finnish.

Afterwards Minna teached us some Finnish words and phrases. Here is a few:

Hei = Hi
Kiitos = Thank you
Kyllä = Yes
Ei = No
Hyvää päivää = Good day
Hyvää huomenta = Good morning
Hyvää yötä = Good night
Näkemiin = Goodbye
Mitä kuuluu? = How have you been?
Miten voit? = How are you feeling?
Voin hyvin = I'm fine
Voisitko auttaa minua? = Could you help me , please?
Hyvää päivänjatkoa! = Have a nice day!

Hi again!

Today we went to Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and Minna showed some places to us. First we visited the Botanic garden. There were some pretty flowers and plants. Here is a pic of me in front of one of the glasshouses. It's called the Palm House. We didn't go inside though.

In the second pic I'm watching at one shallow pool in the garden.
Third pic is of the museum building and some hillside plants.
There is also a few pics of some pretty flowers, don't remember their names anymore.

After the Botanic Garden we saw the Finnish National Theatre. The statue in front of the theatre shows Aleksis Kivi, Finnish national author and poet. His major novel, Seitsemän veljestä "The seven brothers" (1870), the classic of Finnish culture, has been translated into several languages.

In the last image you can see Pien and me and behind us is the Helsinki Central Railway Station and its clocktower.

Today I said goodbye to Pien and hugged him. He will continue his journey to Austria. I'm still going to stay with my host Minna awhile.