Travelog for: Luddie

We're back in the archive again! Katrin is still working with photos, but now with older ones. They are from the 1920es and show photos taken from a zeppelin.


Me and a photo from Manhattan, New York City.


It's lunch time and we are waiting for Katrin's boyfriend. It's his birthday today and in the bag is his present. Katrin also organised a pot of coffee for him.

Back home in Kellinghusen Katrin decided to learn a bit English for her trip to California in January.
Good for her that she has two American guests, we wanted to help her, but she didn't had any questions...

Today is baking time! Katrin wanted to try to create a cake without using wheat flour. She is using flour made of     buckwheat instead.
Here we have prapared the baking tray.


We put some mandarines on the dough and sprinkled them with almonds.


Waiting...


...but we were interrupted by the postman. He brought a little surprise letter for Christmas from Australia!


Half an hour later a tasty smell filled the kitchen. The cake looked great and it tasted very good.

Today Katrin wanted to discovers some streets of Kellinghusen where she hasn't been for quite a long time. We ended on the edge of this field...It looks very strange having this field in the middle of the city. Then Katrin remembered that she has been here to visit a circus when she was in primary school.


This is the entrance of her kindergarten, it looks more colorful than she had it in mind. Well, it's been nearly 15 years when she has entered the house the last time...


We had a nice walk through the town, but unfortunately the batteries of Katrin's camera didn't want to work anymore. Nice reason to spend some time around Kellinghusen again.

Here we are preparing Katrin's breakfast for tomorrow. She has decided to eat kind of buckwheat flakes.
This is her flour mill...


...and this are her "flakes".


Well, it doesn't look very tasty and we mixed it with some  pumpkinseeds. Tomorrow we'll add some cream and some fruits and then it's ready to be eaten.

When I woke up today, I was alone: Katrin took Lady Sirina with her to Hamburg. And me? I got a bit angry and when Katrin came back home this afternoon, I told her that I want updates for my travelog, too.
This wasn't a problem since Katrin had to finish some things for swaps on swap-bot. She is a bit addicted to these things right know... 

Here she let me help her stitch her swap-partner's name on a bookmark.


Then we wrote some postcards for another swap.


While Katrin was packing her suitcase for the weekend, I discovered ink and a quill. What is she going to do?


I'm very curious and I jumped into the suitcase and made me as small as possible. There was just enough space left for an elephant like me.

Here we are in the kitchen in Schwerin, where Katrin's boyfriend lives. Katrin did some very strange things this morning. She put peppermint leaves and black tea in a bowl of hot water and put a piece of paper in it.


In the afternoon, the paper got a brown color and Katrin let it dry.


Now I know what she's doing: Katrin is working on a letter for a swap on swap-bot! She used ink and a quill to let it look like a very old letter.

Today the weather was nice (at least when we left the house), but very windy. We had a nice walk around the beautiful castle of Schwerin. The gouvernment of the "Bundesland" Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is situated here.


The castle is on an island, this is the view back to the city: you can see the tower of the cathedral on the left, the white building in the middle is the state theater and the building on the right is the state museum.


We met some ducks, they came right next to us before we scared them away...



The church of the castle.


This is the view over the lake of Schwerin.


One of the old lantern at the back of the castle


Me with the goddess Victoria


It's showtime: Lady Sirina and I wanted to show our talent as actors.
She got cought by a puma and I am going to rescue her.



We did a great job, right?

When we arrived in Hamburg central station with the train from Schwerin, Katrin got excited when we came to the platform where the train back to Kellinghusen leaves: It's the first time that she goes home with a two-storeyed train.


Katrin chose this single seat because there is enough place for her suitcase.


Back home there were many letters and postcards waiting for Katrin.


We could also welcome a new guest: It's Sportie, who has just arrived from the US. Unfortunately her trip to Germany was really bumpy and she lost one eye.


I hugged Sportie and Lady Sirina took a needle and a yarn and started to fix the eye which Katrin discovered in the envelope.


And here we are with a smiling Sportie

Today Katrin went to Hamburg to work. She came home later than she had planned - and her parents had already decorated the Christmas tree. This year it's classical in red with some wooden stars.  Can you see me?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Here is Germany the people are so lucky since they get their presents already on Christmas Eve! But let me tell you about my Christmas with Katrin's family:

In the morning Katrin got her last Christmas cards, but she was a bit disappointed because she was waiting for another TV but it hasn't arrived in time. 
But looking at the great cards let her smile again.


Then we had to wait and wait and wait... We decided to visit the small "Weihnachtsmann" in the living room. He was happy to see us and told us some Christmas stories and poems.


In the evening Katrin's mum finished the Christmas dinner - goose with potatoes, green beans and red cabbage. It smelled fantastic!


And finally - the presents! These are all the presents from all family members for all family members mixed up. They looked great under the Christmas tree.


Katrin's family plays a kind of game when they get the presents to make it more exciting. They roll the dice and everytime when a 1 appeared, one of the presents is chosen from the cluster. It's turned round and there is a name on it. This lucky one can open his or her present.


It took more than an hour to open all the presents but we had a lot of fun.

Today is the first Christmas day, this is how the German call December 25. Katrin and her family went to visit her grandparents where they also meet some other relatives.
They were talking a lot and Katrin nearly forgot to take some photos, but here we are with the rest of the cakes.

While Katrin and Sportie spent the weekend Schwerin, Lady Sirina and I opened one of Katrin's letters which arrived today. She had told us, that she is waiting for another guest coming from Austria and hey, there was a letter from Austria in the right size. But when we opened the letter, there wasn't a TV in it but bag! It was a little Christmas surprise from Greycat!

Today Katrin and her brother decided to bring all their "small" money, just 1, 2 and 5 cents, to the bank.
This is the "money-bag"...


... and here we are with all the coins!


At the bank they got more than 7 Euros for  they coins and now they start to collect them again.

It's the last day of the year and it started with some bad news: Katrin got this broken envelope in a plastic bag. On the plastic bag it says that the German Post put the envelope into this bag because it was damaged. The really sad thing is, that in this envelope where some postcards and some brochures, but there should have been another TV, Leo Lion. He is now somewhere lost in the mail. 


Here it's dinner time and on "Silvester", that's how New Year's Eve is called in German, Katrin's family usually eats Raclette. Everybody gets a little pan and can choose from all this great food and heat it and     scalloped it with cheese. Yummi!


Later in the evening Katrin's boyfriend mixed some cocktails for us. We all ended up a little bit drunk because we wanted to try everything. Katrin stopped us and told her boyfriend to mix just some juices together. So he did, but I saw, that he always added a little bit of wodka...


After midnight we went outside to welcome the new year with some fireworks. Katrin had bought some rockets and a lot of beautiful fountains. We tried to take some photos, but it didn't really work...