Travelog for: Louis the Rat

Today we drove to Münzesheim to visit the Japanese Garden, which belongs to the therapy centre against alcohol and other dependencies. All buildings and works of art are made by patients of the therapy center based on antique models. The garden is about 5.000 m² large, it is open for patients and visitors. You will see a roof made of blue bottles, put into the concrete with there bottom to the outside - it's an interesting room, fascinating. Wall and floor are covered with blue tiles.
So now just enjoy the photos.












I hope, you like the group photos













Two more group photos in the blue room.















More group photos in the pavillon.

A thunderstorm is coming.

Today we visited our host's aunt and uncle in Mannheim. From the balcony in the fifth floor we saw these high buildings.




We saw some rather old houses.




We also saw the tv-tower.

My host and her daughter and son had the idea to walk around the Mummelsee. The Mummelsee is a 17-metre-deep lake at the western mountainside of the Hornisgrinde in the northern Black Forest of Germany. It is very popular with tourists travelling along the Schwarzwaldhochstraße. According to legends, the lake is inhabited by a Nix and the King of the Mummelsee.

Today we went on a short trip to Bad Wildbad. We first thought, that we maybe could walk through a spa garden, but then the weather was so bad, that we decided to only have lunch and then go home again. Oh no, we didn't walk from Bruchsal to Bad Wildbad, we took the city railway.


For lunch we had Swabian pockets with fresh flowers on it. It looked and tasted really good.

Today we bake a cake for a birthday party, where we will go later. It is an apple cake, bottom and cover with the same dough. It is really yummy, but we had to work a lot to get all these apples cut into small pieces.

I like this Christmas decoration on the window. It's on the same place each year. If you like it too and want the originals to cut them out for yourself, please send a note to Petra.
It's a nice place for us toyvoyagers, too. It is warm and you can see everything that's going on on the street






The first photo is without flash, just to show you, how dark it is outside although it is early midday. If Petra hasn't done a mistake, then there are 26 toyvoyagers sitting together. Some are her toyvoyagers, some her daughters and some are rescued toyvoyagers, which still are at her place and of course some are guests, who will move on again.

After the big group photo session the guests finished the stars.




Of course we other toyvoyagers were really curious and came to take a look at the beautiful stars.







Later a group of starsingers visited our house, but we just had been too slow, so we aren't on this photo. Nevertheless we thougth, that it is a good idea to show you, how starsingers can look like. They don't carry one of our stars, though. They belong to the church region, were our hosts live, but our hosts go to another church, where they lived before. It's a bit complicated




In the afternoon we all helped our Petra to bake two cakes. She told us, that tomorrow isn't only Epiphany, but also her husbands 50th birthday and that we will go to the parish hall and carry cakes with us. At first we baked a Hermann cake. It is a cake like a round robin, that's how it seems for me. Petra told us, that she received a part of the cake a few days ago and that she had to stir it and to feed it and that now it is ready to get baken. Of course we added some more stuff like flour, sugar, almonds, cinnamon, chocolate pieces.

We read the recipe.




Then we had to get some more dishes for the "kids" of this cake.




We had been really busy.



























We also added some apple pieces.






We wondered, if this dish would be big enough and decided, that it wasn't. So we took a star for the dough of Hermann.

Petra has created the German Rescue, so she keeps an overview over all the toyvoyagers at her place. The German Rescue is for toys, who were stuck at a place and then send on to fam-united.

I'm sure, I will travel home as soon as you write to my host.

Finally I found time to read these two pages of two different newspapers of the week. The one is about Bruchsal asparagus. Bruchsal is famous for its asparagus fields and auctions.





The other newspaper page is about the baroque palace of Bruchsal. I think, you have a good view to many different parts of the main building with the church tower, but still many houses are missing.

We have typical April weather in Bruchsal. There is sunshine and the next moment there is hail and thunder and rain.

Wow! We have another sunny day! I really had no chance to see the flowers in the garden behind the house until now, because the weather was that bad. I can't remember, that we had springweather like this before. All flowers are blooming at the same time and the trees got leaves within minutes it seems.

Today we decided to bake a rhubarb cake. Our host allowed us to do it all alone without her help. So please take a look at the recipe. We explain it step by step:

At first we had to find a place - we are quite a few



Of course we aren't all traveling. Some of us are here as active toyvoyagers, but many of us are guests, who decided to stay here as long as the owners don't find time to get in contact with our host. And of course some of us live here, but we all have one thing in common - we are toyvoyagers.
At next we had to get the eggs. We need six eggs for the cake.




It was Sausi Karl's job to beat the eggs.






Then one of us - don't know who - added 50g sugar for each egg, so it was 300 g sugar. It's quite a lot, we know.




Madam Miff added one packet of vanilla sugar to the dough.






Of course we had to beat the dough again, but we couldn't handle the camera while beating the dough.
Matcha and Ted added 300g flour and one packet of baking powder.






Then we had to stir the dough again until it was fluffy.




Melek helped




and Nathalie




Then Matcha prepared the dish for the dough. We baked without bottom on a foil.




Nathalie was still busy stiring the dough.




And the she filled it in the dish.




Then we all were sitting there and waiting for the cake to get baken in the oven. Man it was boring at first. But we didn't expect, that half an hour can be such a short time, when so many tvs are together.






After this break we had to prepare the rhubarb, because we wanted to fill the cake with rhubarb cream.






Little Dragon helped to skin it.








And Matcha helped to cut it in pieces.




Billy helped Matcha to stay on the pot during cutting the rhubarb pieces.










Then we had to prepare some ingrediences for the cream. We needed two packets of vanilly pudding powder, one egg white and one yolk. We had to stir the egg white.




Before adding the stirred egg white, we had to add the pudding powder. We had added a little bit of water to it and shook it until it was smooth. Then we added the pudding powder to the cooked rhubarb. We also added the yolk.




Then I added the stirred egg white and gently folded it in.






Finally we cut the cake in two layers and filled the cream on the first and then on the second layer and put the last layer on top of it.