NYC, USA - 17th March 2009
By: wepesq
Such a wild city... but so many wild geese in the Hudson River... my friends... I feel like flying now to visit them! Wheeeeee!
My hosts think I will meet more of them in New York City tomorrow.
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Posted Mar 19, 2009, 10:12 pm
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NYC, USA - 18th March 2009
By: wepesq
Wow... another busy day. My hosts bring me into New York City every day. I spend a lot of time in a briefcase, but to be honest, that's a great way to travel. I feel safe in there when we are on the subway.
What did I do today?
Well, first, we had a nice breakfast at my hosts' home. They live in a New Jersey suburb of New York City, where we can see the NYC skyline from the apartment window.
Next, we drove into New York City itself, through the Lincoln Tunnel. We parked in a multi-story parking lot near Time Square. Time Square is great! I cannot believe how bright it is all of the time. And it is so crowded!
From here, we jumped into a subway ("S") and went to Grand Central Terminal. My hosts told me that Grand Central is one of the most beautiful architectural wonders in America. But I had to see it to believe for myself. It's wonderful... especially the facade.
Downstairs, we changed subways to the 4-5-6 and headed uptown. We got off at 86th Street & Lexington Avenue, and began walking towards Central Park.
My hosts took me into Central Park, which is itself very impressive. We walked past the Egyptian Oblisk and through the Great Lawn until we reached the pond. There, I saw many more wild geese. It was great to see my feathered friends enjoying themselves in an urban jungle!
Below, you can see a photo of me in Central Park.
Just outside the park, on 5th Avenue, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Inside, we spent hours and hours enjoying works of art from many different ages and cultures. I enjoyed the Japanese garden and the Asian tapestries. One host of mine was particularly fond of the medieval period armor. His wife saved most of her compliments for the impressionist paintings. I liked them too.
Below, you can see a photo of me admiring a painting by Claude Monet, called "Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lillies" (1899).
After the museum, we walked down 5th Avenue for quite a while, enjoying the sunshine. Much warmer than usual for this time of year. Then, we jumped back into an extremely crowded subway and made our way back to Grand Central Terminal, and then again back to Time Square, and into the car to go home.
It was a long day, but I really had fun exploring the city with my hosts. You see, all this week they have had a guest from Eastern Europe visiting them, so they were taking her out to New York City every day. I was glad to also come along for the excitement.
Tonight we're going out for gelato in my hosts' neighborhood ...
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Posted Mar 21, 2009, 11:46 pm Last edited Mar 21, 2009, 11:51 pm by wepesq
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Bruchsal, Germany - 18th December 2009
By: fam-united
I just arrived at home and because today we have beautiful, but cold weather and we asked, if we would have time to take a look at some places in Bruchsal. So we were packed in a rucksack. We still had about -12°C, what is rather cold in this region.
Bruchsal (orig. Bruohselle, Bruaselle) is a city at the western edge of the Kraichgau, approximately 20 km Northeast of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on Bertha Benz Memorial Route.
Bruchsal is the largest city in the district of Karlsruhe and is known for being Europe's largest asparagus producer and one of the economic centers of the region of Karlsruhe
Bruchsal is located at the edge of the Upper Rhine River Plains and the Kraichgau along the Saalbach, which is a small tributary of the Rhine that joins it between Philippsburg and Oberhausen.
Ancient era and early Middle Ages
Excavations and artifacts that were discovered evidence a settlement existing on the Michelsberg (Untergrombach) as early as 4000 BC during the Neolithic. In the core of Bruchsal the oldest settlement discovered was dated back to 640 AD. It is located near the present Peterskirche, where I stay right now. The first mention of Bruchsal in official documents occurred in 976 when the King came to town. And during October of the year 980, Otto II and his Court stayed at the King's palace in Bruchsal for several days
1248 was the first time Bruchsal was referred to as a city and in 1278 St. Peters Church is mentioned for the first time. After extensive damage to both, the Palace and the Peterskirch were reconstructed in 1320. The Bergfried (an outlook and defensive tower bastion) was erected in 1358 and the city wall was completed in 1452. In 1460 the first coin was pressed in Bruchsal.
By April 24, 1711 Bruchsal had recovered sufficiently to play host to Prince Eugene of Savoy of the Habsburg Court in Vienna. Then in 1716 the Bishop of Speyer, Heinrich von Rollingen, moved his residence into the Bruchsal Palace. This move elevated the city's status to that of an official residence of the Diocese of Speyer. At the same time, Bruchsal became the seat of the "Vizedomamt", the most important office held by the Diocese on the West bank of the Rhine. In 1719 Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schönborn became the new Bishop and after settling in he commissioned in (1722), among others, the new baroque château and the new Peters Church (from 1742). Both were built and, in part, designed by Balthasar Neumann. In the Bishop's honor, the Southern gate out of the château grounds is referred to as Damian's Gate to this day.
In the afternoon of March 1, 1945, Bruchsal was bombed. In addition to the 1,000 lives that perished that day, the entire inner city and the baroque château were destroyed. The baroque palace was rebuilt in the 70th.
That's enough of history now. I'm not sure, whether you want to read everything, but I thought, Petra should write a bit about Bruchsal's history. She used wikipedia and you will find more history and information there.
We went to see the palace. You see some small houses in front of the palace, which belong to the soon opened Christmas market. It is the back side of the palace.
The tower on the right side belongs to the catholic church St. Damian and Hugo.
There's a nice pond in the park, which is frozen right now.
There are some of the most beautiful and oldest houses of Bruchsal in Franz-Bläsi-Straße.
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Posted Jan 2, 2010, 5:27 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 18th December 2009
By: fam-united
The Belvedere (Bruchsal) was originally designed as a Manor for fun and games, to which a shooting house was added for use in the shooting competitions often held by the Court. As time went by, the Manor was nicknamed Belvedere by the city's residents, as it enjoyed the best view of the city. The Belvedere is part of the City Gardens.
view out of a window:
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Posted Jan 2, 2010, 5:28 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 19th December 2009
By: fam-united
My host said, that now it would be more than urgent to bake some more cookies or we only would have four sorts. You see, that Sweetsy arrived at our home today and also Princess Sarah. Sweetsy brought some wonderful gingerbread cookies with him. But four sorts of cookies aren't enough for all of us, so we told her, that we all would help together and get some more done.
Here we read the recipe for our host's favorite gingerbread recipe. Sweetsy was so happy, that at his first day he had the chance to try another gingerbread recipe: Zigeunerschnitten. The recipe is handwritten in our host's book, because it is a family recipe from her grandparents. She said, that she never found this recipe somewhere else, but maybe someone knows this recipe too?
At first Pinkz helped to weigh the butter.
Then I helped to add the sugar for the dough.
Galo said, that if it comes to eggs, it would be his turn. We all were a bit nervous, because we didn't know, if he could stand it.
Hey, Galo! What's the matter!
Wake up! We knew it! It was too hard for him!
After a while Galo felt better and we all went back to our places.
Now Jennifer added almonds.
Sweetsy added raisins.
We had to have a break in preparing the dough for Zigeunerschnitten, because we forgot to buy some necessary ingredients. So we went on with preparing other cookies.
Jimmy_D helped to prick out the Spitzbuben cookies.
Smooch and Scotty helped to roll the dough for Zimtsterne (star-shaped cinnamon cookies).
Ceryni tried to help to form Nougatkipfert.
Finally one other family member bought the missing ingredients for Zigeunerschnitten and we had been able to finish the dough.
Scotty added candied lemon peel and candied orange peel to the dough.
Spooky used the spoon to add cacao powder to the dough.
Then it was time to add the cinnamon.
At last it was time to add the flour.
Pinkz stirred the dough.
The result is a really heavy brown dough.
Smooch and Galo rolled the dough on the baking plate. It is hard work.
After baking the air smelled of gingerbread, yummy. Nevertheless we still had to decorate the Zigeunerschnitten.
After the Zigeunerschnitten were cold enough we cut them into smaller pieces and put them in a box.
We also decorated the Nougatkipferl
and Husarenkrapferl
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Posted Jan 2, 2010, 5:32 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 20th December 2009
By: fam-united
Here you have another view out of a window in the attic. It shows the view to the church St. Peter, which is next to the graveyard.
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Posted Jan 2, 2010, 5:33 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 24th December 2009
By: fam-united
Merry Christmas to everyone at home.
For Holy Eve we have chicken fricassee for dinner. This is a traditional food in my hosts' family.
Later after singing Christmas songs and unwrapping presents we had time to eat some Christmas cookies.
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Posted Jan 2, 2010, 5:36 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 31st December 2009
By: fam-united
I wish you all a happy new year. There is no big party at my family's home, so you only see a photo with me and a part of the Christmas tree.
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Posted Jan 3, 2010, 2:49 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 9th January 2010
By: fam-united
We thought we could go out today, but our host is ill. So she only took another photo out of an attic window.
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Posted Apr 29, 2010, 1:31 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 10th January 2010
By: fam-united
The next day I helped my hosts' daughter to write her vocabulary cards in Latin.
After that work my host took me for a very short walk to the church, which we've seen, when we looked out of the attic window. It is the baroque church St. Peter. Here you have a view to a narrow street with some of the oldest houses of Bruchsal just on the other side of the street.
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Posted Apr 29, 2010, 1:34 pm
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Bruchsal, Germany - 31st January 2010
By: fam-united
What do you think, that we saw, when we looked out of the window today?
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Posted Apr 29, 2010, 1:38 pm
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