Travelog for: Stutz

I was at a biker party! There were fireworks and after them one group of bikers left through the small alley we were standing in. The roar was amazing and a bit scary because they were so big and fast and in the dark I could only see the headlights and the outlines of the bikes and the leather people. I hid in the bag until it was over. Then I came out and admires the torches along the way and those the fireworks people used.

Today was the first day of three different trade fairs in the 'Messe Düsseldorf. (Messe = the fair but also the building for it) They are called InterCool, InterMeat, InterMopro and hogatec. They are about gastronomy, hotels, foods, etc.
You can see me looking at different chair decorations and at a display of meats for Halloween. 
The area is so big that the shuttle bus had several stops before we came to our parking place and we'd been there early. The LTU Arena is also in that area. The soccer club Fortuna Düsseldorf plays there.

Today I am going to travel to northern Germany. It's a good day to crawl into a warm and cosy envelope, because it's raining and windy and generally uncomfortable outside.

I safely arrived in northern Germany - but nobody was there! I decided to have a quick look around my new home and discovered Kamie's cup.


Finally Katrin and Cloudy came back home from their trip to Schwerin. Cloudy was a tired but I wanted to hear everything about Schwerin. Probably I'm going to go there next weekend, too!

This evening Cloudy and I helped Katrin to pack some packages. She has sold some books and cassettes on Ebay and now the money has arrived on her bank account. Here I am closing the first envelope and Cloudy is filling the second one. The work is done much faster when we help Katrin because she is very tired after her long working day and now we are going to bed quickly.

Today I was the lucky one who was going to see were Katrin is working. This is the museum where she is working in the library but this week she is working with a project team on the new exhibition.


This is one of the cars the exhibition is about. It's actually pretty small compared to normal cars but I'm so much smaller!


This is the yard of the museum with the object which are too big to be inside.


The work for today was putting the old ads into drawers and put glasses on it.


Me and the "Tempo Matador"

Post has arrived! Since Katrin has started with postcrossing, every few days a postcard arrives. Today she was very happy, there was a postcard from Hungary and letters from her penpals.


And there was another bigger letter from England. When we opened it, we could welcome another guest: it's Mousy Mouse from Taiwan!


The sun was shining outside and Katrin showed us the neighbourhood.

What a weekend! Mousy Mouse and I were travelling with Katrin to Hamburg on Friday. She is working there in an office a few hours per week to earn some money.


In the evening we met Katrin's boyfriend at the station and took the train to Schwerin. Many people wanted to go home with that train and we had to sit next to the bagguage rack.


On Saturday the weather was great and we had a walk trough Schwerin. See the colourful trees and the fancy houses!




The cathedral:


In the mall we met a blind mole


Today we went back home. In the train to Hamburg Katrin wrote a few postcards for postcrossing.


Hamburg central station! It was very busy and there were soooo many people walking around. Our train back home left on time and now we are looking for Cloudy to tell her about our weekend.

Katrin was too busy to take us with her today, so we decided to play cards until she is coming back home.


Finally we had great dinner. There was lasagne and a good book.  Katrin loves to read, even when she is eating!


After dinner Katrin took us outside. There was a full moon and after playing a bit with the camera Katrin managed to take this photo:


Then she told us good and bad news. The good news are that we are going to Hamburg again tomorrow. The bad news are that we have to say goodbye to Cloudy tomorrow, too. She will leave for England to visit her next host.

Katrin took the three of us to the library in the museum where she is working right now. This is the working place of the librarian.


The library is not very big but it's a nice place to be, specially when the sun is shining because there are so many windows.


These books are very old, they are from 1870 and older. They are about tabacco and cigarettes, you can smell it! They belonged to the cigarette company Reemtsma which is very known in Germany.


The old manuel catalogue. Luckily today you can find all the books online on the internet.


Encyclopedia Britannica


Doing librarian things. I'm pressing a sign into the card! Katrin promised to send it to you, mum, then you can see how hard I worked!


In the afternoon it was time to say goodbye to Cloudy. She is now on her way to her next host in England.

This weekend Katrin showed us her hometown. It's a small town, but there are some nice places to discover.

This is the harbour of Kellinghusen. It pretty small, it's mainly for canoes.


One of the grocery stores:


This is the church seen from the parking lot. We've been there later.


Kellinghusen is known for it's pottery, that's why there are these dishes on the market place. We climbed on it but it was to tall to go to the top. In the background is a great ice café.



The small street behind the ice café leads to the church. We saw some of the old colorful houses of Kellinghusen.




Here it is, the St. Cyriacus Church of Kellinghusen. We wanted to enter, but the door was closed.



The letters on the stones mean "peace".


The townhall, it's opposite of the church.


This is the building where Katrin's dad works.

Today the weather was fine and Katrin took us on a walk through the local park. We discovered this funny grown tree.


The leaves were making funny sounds when we walked over them and Mousy Mouse and I played with them for a while.


This is the small pond in the park. There were also some ducks but they ran away when they heard us.

Here were are again, but Katrin has changed her working place this week. Now she spending three months in the archives of the museum. The work is very intresting, there are old documents she is working with. She even has to wear gloves when she has to touch them to protect them. This is her working place where Katrin is scanning the documents.


The view out of the window: The "Zinnschmelze" is a restaurant / pub, a nice place to go after work or in the evening.


Finally we met this teddy. He's been living in the archivist's bureau for a long time and knows a lot about what's going on here. His storys were very exciting and Katrin decided that we should stay here and she takes us home tomorrow.

Katrin found me and Mousy Mouse this morning sleeping on her desk. The teddy told us stories all night long and we didn't sleep much...
These are the papers Katrin is working with. This are the documents of a woman who died a few years ago. Her letters and passports and working papers are now in the archives of the museum. The handwritten text on the left is from 1882!


Homer's Odyssee, printed in the 1920's


During lunch time Katrin and Mousy Mouse spend some time at the yard. I made another tour around the archivist's office. This is his private coffee machine, just big enough for one pot of coffee.


Me and the telephone. I tried to call my mum at home but it didn't work. 


Then I found this thing in the shelf but I don't really know, what it is. It looks like a watch but at the bottom it looks like a stamp for dates. Very strange...


This is one of the passports and the working pass of the documents Katrin is working with. It's from the 1930's, can you see all this Nazi stamps in it? Katrin said later that working in the archives is great for learning a lot about the history of the country. Sometimes it's so much different from what you learn at school because it is real.

Katrin spent the weekend with her boyfriend, but Stutz and I had to stay at home. We got a great job from Katrin's mom: take care of the letters which arrived on Friday and Saturday. Katrin has started to order the first presents for Christmas on the internet and now the first ones arrived. As a little surprise there was also a postcard from London from postcrossing. Katrin was happy when she came back home and said, that we did a great job!