Travelog for: Sofia

Hi Mum,

once again smaug suddenly disappeared and left us alone for almost two weeks . What was very disappointing is that he didn’t leave us very well supplied .



Anyway, by somehow rationing the chocolate , we made it. And when today he eventually reappeared, he even had a surprise for us: a parcel, maybe holding inside a new friend .



And, yes, it was a new guest: Cherry Lola , a nice Zebra from the US. And she brought to us a lovely card and some delicious sweets ....which got all the attention of our starving stomachs .

Hi Mum,

Guess what? Today smaug showed up with another TV-suspicious parcel. Of course we all gathered to see who was going to come out of it.



It was Cassiopeia, a nice turtle from Germany . She is one of the most experienced TV ever, so we didn’t really give her the chance to rest and we pinned her down all night to hear everything about her travelling .

Hi Mum,

It sure looked like being at the airport arrival lounge here this week . For the third time smaug came back with a parcel holding a new guest inside .



This time it was Sweetsy, a nice gingerbread man from Germany ! And he brought over some great gifts for us: a lovely “self-themed” card and some delicious German Christmas sweets ...which, of course, fuelled a long night of chatting .

Hi Mum,

Temperatures were in the freaking minus twenties over the week end , but sammino explained that it was a great chance for us to get acclimatised to the proper Canadian winter weather and he convinced smaug to take us for a short walk in the foothills . At least the sun was shining .



The trail was covered in snow, but just a couple of cm.



We stopped at this sign to check where we were: luckily we were not lost .



Eventually we reached the highest spot of our walk, where we had a great view of the mountains around us .





At this point we stopped to recover and sammino made appear a cup of boiling tea along with a well deserved bar of chocolate ....the best part of the day .

Hi Mum,

Today I said goodbye to all my friends here in Calgary and got ready to travel to Germany .



Before I jumped in my envelope sammino gave me a big hug and wished me a safe journey .



See you soon !

I finally arrived at my new place in Bruchsal. I took a rest and met many other toyvoyagers and a very busy host. She is so sorry, that right now she can't write updates, but she promissed to do as soon as possible.

I will keep you posted.

Bye, Sofia

Today we helped Petra to bake two large apple cakes, because tomorrow is the last day of her son's alternative service.
We prepared the dough and cut apples into pieces, added cinnamon, raisins and sliced almonds to the apples and cooked them. Then we made a part of the dough in the plate and filled it with the warm apples and covered it with dough again. I would so love to make this internet able to give you a hint of the smell in the kitchen, yummy.

While we all worked really hard, one of us sat around and only listened to music of the cd-played. Of course one whose name is Priscilla can only listen to music of Elvis, especially when it is Christmas time and it is a Christmas album.






The first of us, who discovered the new cd was Henry the Adventure Hound.








We needed a lot of flour for the cake.

This weekend there is a special event in Bruchsal. There is a second Christmas market for three days around the palace. The weather wasn't that great - no snow, but it was cold enough and the place was full of people.

At first we listend to the trombone choir playing Christmas songs. We also took a look into all the tents, but it was too crowded to take photos there.






We left the Christmas market and took a photo of the front of the palace by night before we drove home again.

While our host was teaching at school, it started to snow. We asked her to go out with us, but she said, that the snow is rather wet and that it isn't nice outside. Nevertheless she took some photos with me to show the roofs covered with some snow.




Here you see the two towers of the church St. Peter.

Petra has time to do some more baking. At first we all sat down at our place, where Petra wanted us to sit.




We took the book and searched for some nice recipes. You can see, which recipes we picked out for baking today.












We also baked some other sorts of cookies.

Today is a very special day. We all were allowed to help packing the presents for Christmas.




Later we helped to cook chicken fricassee in the clay pot and some corn salad and of course we helped to eat everything




Later we ate some of our selfmade cookies.

Merry Christmas to you!




In the morning we watched a movie, which Petra got as present yesterday evening: Elvis: That's the way it is.
I must say, that he was a really cute guy and I also like some of his songs.




Our sheep waited in the stable with the sheep.



Then we all went to the crib with the newborn Jesus.

Today we helped to cook again. We had lamb, dumplings, vegetables (carrots, onions, oranges and dates) with red pepper pearls. It tasted very very fine, although it was a diet recipe - without the dumplings.




Then everyone went away and we were alone at home. We prepared everything for dinner: raclette. Look at this amount of black olives.

Today we went to Petra's parents in law to celebrate Christmas with them and her husbands' sisters families. We saw some nice angels and another beautiful Christmas tree.

The weather was a bit better, so we decided to go on a short walk over the graveyard, which is close to where I live right now. There is a beautiful baroque church next to the graveyard. It's called St. Peter.




We also visited to Jewish graveyard.




Next to the newapostolic church on the left we had a good view over a part of Bruchsal. The big house on the right is the backside of Sancta Maria.




Next to Sancta Maria we had another good view over the city. I hope, that I will come closer to those towers to see exactly, what these buildings look like. Petra told me, that from left to right you can see the tower of the city church Our holy lady, church St. Damian and Hugo, which belongs to the palace and the old tower of the ancient castle.




Here is the front of Sancta Maria. It is a school for soon to be kindergardeners and also home for some Franciscan nuns.