Travelog for: Brinda

Today I were invited by my host's sister to join a barbeque together with my hosts' family. I had a nip of champagne at first.




Exploring the yard I found some hens and a cock.






Finally I had some egg salad, carrot salad and cheese salad and a torch- of pork belly - sounds strange, but it tasted fine.

I learnt how to bake a cake today. It is called lazy women cake "Faule Weiber-Kuchen". I will try to tell you the recipe:




200g flour


atishoo!


75g sugar




1egg




75g margarine




1 teaspoon baking powder




Then I had to knead the dough.




It had been such a hard work, that I needed a rest. I asked my host to switch the tv on, so I had been able to watch the Eurovision Song Contest.


Safura from Azerbaijan


Wow, there are many people watching the Contest  - and I'm alone




Oh, my host is calling. I have to help her searching for ingredients we need for the filling. I need: 500g curd, 2 eggs, 140g sugar, 1 sachet of vanilla pudding, 1/2 tub of sour cream, 1/2 cup of oil, 1 and 1/2 cup of milk, 1 small tin of mandarines - but we have to take ananas, because there is no mandarine tin to find in the house.




While my host stirred at first the curd, eggs and sugar and in another dish the vanilla powder, oil, sour cream and milk and gave both in one dish then, I had to hurry, because I wanted to be back and hear the Norwegian singer Didrik Solli-Tange - a cute guy  




Oh, this must be Milan Stanković from Serbia. At first I wondered, if this is a boy or a girl.




My host is calling again. The dough must be put in the dish and the filling had to be done in it. The filling is rather fluent, but my host told me, that this is ok.






We gave it in the oven, 180°c for 50 minutes and when it was done, we still let it in the oven for a while, but without heat. In the meantime we both watched the Contest. Niamh Kavanagh sang for Ireland and she did very well, although she only had a few votes at the end.




Ok, here come the missing photos. My host deleted all the photos with my other toyvoyager friends. We sat there with mini German flags from now on and kept our fingers or something crossed for the German singer Lena and 'Satellite'. Maybe we will do a reproduction sometime this week, because they recorded the show.

In the evening I went for a walk to the graveyard and saw the house Sancta Maria from the backside. We had to hurry home, because it started to rain and when we arrived at the house it rained heavily. We even took photos at home showing so many paintings of different artists - gone, but not forever

Finally it is early evening and we are on the way to Frankfurt a.M. airport to fetch my hosts' son, Umechan and Kari.
The weather was terrible. There was a thunderstorm and we hardly could see anything on the road.






















There must be a rainbow somewhere, because we could see the sun.






We are nearly there: Frankfurt airport

Finally we are there




Oh, here's the rainbow








We are waiting for the flight from Athens.

We had Maultaschen-Auflauf for lunch today, yummy.

There are some more flowers in my hosts' garden.


elderflowers




and lilies

Karlsruhe is the third largest city after Stuttgart and Mannheim of Baden-Württemberg. It is about 20km from Bruchsal and located near the French-German border.

Founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, the surrounding town became the seat of two of the highest courts in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) whose decisions have the force of a law, and the Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundesgerichtshof), the highest court of appeals in matters of civil law and criminal law. It therefore considers itself the home of justice in Germany, a role taken over from Leipzig after 1933.

It is said[weasel words] to be model city for the cityscape of Washington D.C., due to similarities to the US capital city. Both cities have a center—in Karlsruhe the palace and in D.C. the Capitol Building—from which the streets lead away like sunrays.

Karlsruhe Palace (German: Karlsruher Schloss) was erected in 1715 by Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach, after a dispute with the citizens of his previous capital, Durlach. The city of Karlsruhe has since grown around it.






We weren't allowed to take photos of the exhibition, but I can tell you, it was really interesting: Vom Minnesang zur Popakademie

But we took some photos of making music ourselves.















On this photo you can imagine the one street, that leads from the palace as center. There are many other streets built the same way around the palace as center.




Karl Friedrich, 1st Grand Duke of Baden (November 22, 1728 – June 10, 1811) was Margrave, elector and later Grand Duke of Baden (initially only margrave of Baden-Durlach) from 1731 until his death.




There's a big building site in the road, which we just saw from the far.







Now I want to show you some photos on our way home. We passed a church and a castle, where the brewery Höpfner is located.














Here we see the Michaelsberg with its nice chapel. I will go there soon, I promise.




The houses belong to Büchenau, one of Bruchsal's suburbs.

Today the weather was really warm and sunny. In the early evening we decided to go on a walk to the graveyard, which is only a few meters from our home, next to the church St. Peter. I had been here the other day, when my host deleted all the photos by accident. The graveyard is really large, with many trees and it isn't easy to walk there, if you are handicapped, because many ways are very steep.


I will tell you, what's written on the sign: A memorial stone in the cementery is a reminder of the citizens of Bruchsal, who were victims of the Baden Revolution. It was erected on the initiative Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and dedicated on 1 November 1900. Here next to the church you can see the grave of Johann Baptist Bekk. He was Minister of the Interior in Baden during the years of the revolution and, after his death, found his final resting place in Bruchsal.

I've seen his grave the other day (22 May) and got a photo taken with it already.









There are many old crosses.












Here are graves of those people, who died in World War I.





On this monument you can read many names of those men, who died.




This is the Jewish graveyard with many old gravestones.




This is the new building of the new apostolic parish next to the graveyard on the other side of the other entrance of the graveyard.




We walked out of Bruchsal now, so I had a chance to get a photo taken with the sign 'Bruchsal'. You see the letters Lkr. Karlsruhe on it, which means, that Bruchsal belongs to the administrative district Karlsruhe.








We walked to a nice playground, which belongs to Bruchsal again and had a lot of fun there.


































Finally we had to go home again. You know, that not far from our house is a house called Sancta Maria. Today I had been in front of it and I can tell, it is a really interesting building.



Here's what's written on the sign:
The institute Sancta Maria was opened in 1908 and was an evolution of an earlier church-social institution. In 1981 it became a private school for social pedagogy. Since 1988 it has also run the first German Kindergarten Museum, which is located in the neighbouring building.

There was thunder and lightning in the forecast and now we watch the clouds getting darker and darker.






Finally it started to rain heavily and what do you think our host did? She let us sit outside on the balcony in the rain. At first we were really angry, but the we enjoyed it. It was like a fresh bath for us.

This night we had a bad thunderstorm, it even had been a warning in the radio. Thank God, it wasn't that bad in Bruchsal. We tried to take a photo and you see me looking out of the window watching the water flowing down the street. The second photo is without me, but therefor you see a lightning over the church.





We have a net taped at the window frames now, because we want to avoid having insects in the rooms.

My host took us for a little walk around the small animal park in Forst, while her daughter sang at her musical project choir. I especially loved to see the storks in the nest and flying. But there were some other animals too like kangaroos and ostrichs and more.










Here's what I saw








Forst is a town in the Rhine valley, is only 5km from Bruchsal and shares a border with Bruchsal. It was first named in 1161 A.D., but there were finds dating back to Stone and Bronze Age and also finds of Romans in this area.

This evening we had a barbeque. You see me with Kari, Precious, Mustang Monkey, MuMu and Brinda sitting next to the grill and with a Paulaner wheat beer.

Today we went to the Bruchsal palace. It is colder again, but still we have sun. The weather phenomenon we have right now is called Schafskälte (sheeps cold). It is a cold spell around 11th June (between 4th and 20th June) in Middle Europe, which affects especially Germany. The Schafskälte doesn't occur each year. Due to cold and moist air from north west the temperature drops to 5 to 10 °C. So far about the weather


The palace of Bruchsal was residence of the prince bishop of Speyer. It was built on request of prince bishop Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn-Buchheim from 1720 on in baroque stile. It was destoyed on 1rst March 1945, when about 80% of Bruchsal was destroyed and many people lost their lives. It was reconstructed in the years around 1970, but the church part was created in modern stile

There are several interesting museums in the palace: City Museum, Stone Age Museum and the     
German Museum of Musical Automata


There are two long alleys with chestnut trees.





On the right side is the church part of the palace complex. You only see a small part of the shadow, but it looks like the opposite complex with the chamber music room.





I will read, what's written on the sign: This fountain was built in memory of Marchioness Amalie von Baden (1754 - 1832), spouse of margrave Karl Ludwig von Baden. She found her place in history as "mother-in-law of Europe", because she managed to marry five of her six daughters off to the most powerful prince's palaces of Europe. When she was widowedshe made Schloss Bruchsal one of her homes in the year 1806. She died there in 1832.
The fountain was planned by Prof. Dr. Fritz Hirsch (1871 - 1938) in 1912. He was in charge of the redecoration of the Schloss Bruchsal in the early days of the 20th century.








Here you see the plan of the palace area.




Here you see the county court and the fountain called Schneckenbrunnen (snails fountain).






Just turning around you see the main entrance of the palace.




At the same place we took a photo of the church part.





At the one entrance of the church you can see photos of the destroyed palace and church.




This is the backside of the church and the church tower. The other buildings also belong to the palace area.




Here we are at the backside of the palace. There are three nice fountains.




Just turning around we took the photo of this building.




Here's one of four guard statues with halberts.







There's a nice pond with many ducks




In the main way of the palace garden you find many statues. This one shows the element water. There are also the elements air, fire and earth.




There are also the statues of the four seasons winter, spring, summer and autumn. This one shows autumn.




We have to hurry now, because we have to fetch our host's daughter from her choir. I hope, you enjoyed the photos.

Hugs, Brinda

We're baking white bread today. It is a recipe, which my host's grandfather wrote down a long long time ago.




You need 1 kilogram flour.




one sachet dried or half fresh yeast.




25gr salt






25gr margarine or one cooked potatoe, shredded.




If you use dried yeast you add all ingredients together, so you add all the water at once: 600 ml water






Knead the dough.




Then we had to wait and wait and wait. After a while our host put the dough in the oven: preheat 220°C, water in a dish on the bottom of the oven. Oh yes, she did the dough in a dish and cut the middle of the bread and brushed salt water on the loaf, but we didn't see that. It was in the oven for about three quarters of an hour.

Today we had been in Forst again for a little walk. I saw the storks again (sorry, we took the photo with view to the sun, so we did miss the most important part of the storks) and I saw a young baby donkey and a horse 









There are some signs in the wood. This one says: Mind gate/bar (?) Free for forestry





Some ways in the forest have names. This one is called Heiden Richtweg.





On some trees there are signs.