Travelog for: BarryO

Hi Mum,

today I watched the Eurovision Song Contest. Here's Lena from Germany singing "Taken by a stranger". All my hosts like this song and we too.








IHere is the group from Iceland,






these men are from Ireland




and the one from Sweden - cute, isn't he?




Countdown for voting

Estonia




Greece




Russia




France




Italy - we liked them too




Switzerland - much too less points for her




United Kingdom




Moldavia - crazy hats




Germany




Romania




Austria




Azerbaijan - it belongs to the European radio community or something - not sure about the right word for it. They won the Contest this year.




Estonia




Iceland




Serbia - it reminded our host of the seventies




Georgia




The tv hosts Judith Rakers and Stefan Raab







Between the songs they showed little movies of people of the song contest countries, who live in Germany. On this photo they are all together.



The motto of the show was "Feel your heart beat"




Anke Engelke also was host of the show.




She did a good job - the other two also did really well.




Stefan Raab at his best - making music




12 points goes to Malta - we had such a fun hearing, that most people say goes to, even if there are more than one point - and you can't give one point.







It is so late now and we are so tired, that we will fall in our bed now - we only have one bed for the toyvoyagers here, although there are so many at this home.

Today is the Summerday parade through Bruchsal. Pupils of Grundschule (first to fourth grade) and children of kindergarten walk together with their teachers thought the streets and sing songs about winter leaving and summer coming now. It's something like throwing the winter out of the town now and welcoming summer. Therefore they created special flowers small and big or they wear special clothes - e.g. some were dressed like frogs. Petra and her class were among these people who carried the big blue flowers (the first in the row of blue flowers). At the end of the parade - in front of the palace of Bruchsal - they burn a snowman and all children and many other people watch the event there, too. Today they had been really lucky, that the weather was fine just for the right time, because a short time before and just after the snowman had been burning it started to rain and thunder heavily again. We don't have photos of the burning, because Ralf stayed at his mother, where he took all the other photos.







Look at the arrow, that's my host.

Hi Mum,

today many other tvs arrived at Petra's home. They came from another town in Germany and we all were very happy to welcome them at our place. Their first wish was to take a bath, so we all ran to the bathroom.

Here you see our new guests from left to right:

Louis the rat, Nippy, Percy, Bree and Polki







I didn't want to get too close to the water, so I hid myself between the others.

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. Just enjoy the photos.

Hi Mum,

today nothing really interesting happened, but this evening Petra's son called me to take a look out of the window and get some photos taken there. I'm sorry, but we had to zoom some views, so you can see more of the sky. We thought, we would get some rain, but nothing happened. It is still much too dry.

Hi Mum,

you know, that I'm a small guy, but a really really hungry one? Today seems to be my day. Petra and her husband will get spoiled by her children - it's mother and father day present. And of course we will get spoiled too
For breakfast we had bread rolls, jam, honey, chocolate plates and a special treat called Einäpfchen. It was made of ham cubes and egg. I also ate a croissant and drank some green tea and orange juice.

Let's see, what I will eat for lunch

Bye, BarryO

Later we had lunch. The kids made some special appetizer and then noodles, salad, pork loin in lemon sauce. As dessert we had banana and vanilla ice cream.







You see, that the dessert was my favourite

Hi Mum,

something exciting happened yesterday. We sat there and waited for our host to come home from school. When she arrived, she took us and --- everything got dark. Then we felt, that she carried us outside the house into the car. For a long time it was only dark. In the early early morning - it might have been short after midnight - we were carried away again. Still we didn't know, what had happened.
We were so tired from all this waggling in the car, that we fell asleep - we even didn't know, where we were.
But this morning we awoke in this bed - fresh and fit for the day. Our host told us, that we were on the way to Denmark and that we slept at a motel in Hannover. The bed was a bit hard, but nevertheless much better than a night on a resting place along the autobahn.

Here you see us all still sleeping and then playing after we woke up. We already had a lot of fun.






Our room was right above the entrance - a place, where everyone had been able to look on the bed from the outside and a place, where you could smell the smoke of all cigaretts the other guests smoked in front of the entrance



Bye, BarryO

On our drive we passed the Kiel-Canal.




After hours on German autobahn we finally reached the Danish autobahn.

After about 10 hours and 30 minutes driving without rests - you know, we had some rests of course - everyone is happy to be here in: Nørre Vorupør. We were so hungry, that the first wish was to have dinner. The second wish was to see the North Sea, of course.






After we finished dinner our hosts had some time to eat. In the meantime we enjoyed the light of the candles on the table.






The most important part of today was to go to the beach, of course. We went to the landing site with small fishing dinghies and larger coastal boats. The last occupationally operated coastal boat stopped by 2010, but boats being operated for fishing tourists remain.




The waves were rather flat today.




In the far you see the pier of Nørre Vorupør. It was built in 1908 to protect the landing site. The end of the pier is the most remote point from Copenhagen within Denmark, if you don't count the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Good morning Mum,

today is a special day, because we celebrate our host's son Martin's 18th birthday.
At first we took a look out of the window of our living / dining room.



Then we sat down on one of our two patios for a group photo.




In the meantime our hosts bought some Danish bread rolls for breakfast. When they were at home, we sat down at the table.












Petra baked two cakes and in the afternoon we met our hosts' friends for the first time to have caffee and cakes on their patio.

Today we had rainy weather, so we only went outside to sit in the car and drive to go shopping at Aldi in Hanstholm.





We bought some pepper sauce there for dinner. Ralf cooked some red cabbage, meatballs and (not selfmade) spaetzle.

Hi Mum,

after a rainy day inside, it seems to be fine today. We sat in the car for about one hour to drive to Thyborøn. There is a nice house decorated with millions of shells and snail shells. It is called sneglehuset in Danish - I love this word.






At next we drove to the coast centre exploratorium called Kystcentret. We had a lot of fun there and learnt many new things about the element water.

Here I am in a bare foot way starting in a "galley". I'm sorry for the quality of the photo, but it was dark inside.




Here they show how a twister builts up.




I also saw many furniture and other ship related things, which they found after a ship sunk many many years ago.

Here some more information: Since 1868 the Alexander Nevsky has been lying at the bottom of the sea. A couple of Russian diving vessels arrived and removed the cannons, a contractor bought the sea bed side and salvaged metals - first a lot of dynamite and the copper bolts, copper pipes and gunpowder boxes appeared in the wreck. This continued far into the 20th century. The metal was valuable.
The majority of the 724 men on board were brought safely to landin the frigate's own longboat, which could hold 25 - 30 men at a time.It's what you can read on the signs next to the ring.




Here I show you a view to the activity part - of course you can't see it good enough to imagine, how it looked like.




Then we drove to the aquarium of Thyborøn. I tried to tough a Starfish, crab or stroke a Plaice or shark, but I had no luck. So here you just can see me in front of one of the many bassins. At least I stayed safe.





For a part of our way home we took the ferry from Thyborøn. I think, that with this experience I fulfilled one mission: Travel on water, go to the beach.

On our way home we stopped at Vestervig Abbey, also known as Vestervig Church, which was established in about 1059 making it one of Denmark's most ancient religious houses. The abbey is located at Vestervig, Thisted, in extreme northern Jutland.

After dinner at our house in Nørre Vorupør we drove to Klitmøller to see another sort of sunset there. Our hosts had been at this place three years ago and they really liked it. It was a bit windy today and the waves were a bit higher.