Travelog for: Ahonui

Hello everyone!

My name is Ahonui [a ho noo ee]. I'm original from Barcelona although my name is from Hawaii and means "patience".

My mum called me Ahonui because patience is a word that I have to learn as I'm very adventurous,and I try to walk so fast despite I'm a turtle to investigate something I've never seen before,but you know...We aren't gazelles hahahaha!! Sometimes I feel frustrated lol. I want to run!!! Lucky me I can swim so fast!

I'm a very reliable little and super soft turtle who likes music and Iiterally sing 75% of the day! I specially like pop songs...from Miley Cyrus to Michael Jackson!

I'm calm, patient, friendly and a good listener. My brothers often say that I'm funny and a little bit crazy as well.I really enjoy discovering new things.am interested also in musicals,I love dancing, watching funny movies and MTV realities.

One day, a National Geographic magazine reached me...well, you know,I'm very curious and I just walk to investigate what it was!hihi

Well, when I just open it,I discover life outside is so different!!!!!! And since then I'm dreaming of travel all day long.So, I've insisted a lot my mum for being a TV...And although she thinks I'm very young and little for it, she told me I can follow Airi's steps!!!!

I want to learn new cultures and meeting people and turtles from the rest of the world!

I enjoy nature and I'm very happy seeing wildlife,mountains or just grass; also I'm very curious and I spend lots of hours everyday in my home's balcony looking outside and trying to guess where people are going,what they do...And I enjoy touching plants. Also swim a lot in my mini swimming pool,and even sometimes in the Sea!

Also I'm looking for caring hosts that can show me new and different flora and fauna as well as different places,landscapes and buildings.I want to learn sooo many things and having so much fun!

Hope to hearing from someone and start my adventure very soon!

Have a nice day!

P.S.1 I'm not to be released in the wild please as one day I want to be reunited with my family and explained them all my adventures!!

P.S.2 My first destination is going to be GERMANY!!! I'm soooo sooo excited!!
On Monday I'll start my adventure!!!!!! Vielen dank @fam-united,Bis bald!
See you soon in Germany!!!!

Hello everyone,

I just arrived at my first host, Petra. She took me out of my envelope and also some sweets. She really wondered, what I had eaten on my travel, because there was nothing left for her She found me eating the last big lolly!

Soon I will meet all the other toyvoyagers at this home and of course we will chat about our adventures. I'm really curious, what they will tell me.

Bye, Ahonui

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.

School started again. Did you know, that my host is a teacher? Today morning she took a trolley and set us in a backpack and went to school. We meet over 50 pupils and three more teachers there. At first we really didn't know, what happened around us, but then Petra told us, that we drive to a rural school hall of residence ( not really sure about the translation here) by bus.




On our way we drove through Baden-Baden.

After an one hour drive we arrived at the youth hostel of Herrenwies in the Black Forest.
Herrenwies is a small small village with about 60 - 100 inhabitants or so. It belongs to Forbach and is located abou 750m above sea level. You have to drive about 7 km to reach another settlement. It's an area for holidays: in summer you can hike and in winter do winter sports.
We had luck, that the weather was really nice. So we had been able to go outside at once. While the pupils played on the playground and in the water, Petra took some photos of me.












When Petra went to have dinner, we went straight to bed. We had been soooo tired.

It's really early in the morning. All pupils are still asleep in their beds. My host found the time to show us the beautiful landscape with some early morning mist above the water.

On our way home we passed by the Schwarzenbachtalsperre (river dam). To see more photos of it go to wikipedia. (Sorry, there's only text in German, but the photos are good) I'm also sorry, that you only see a little of the water. We had no better view.








Here we drove through Forbach, to which Herrenwies belongs.

Today the weather is so so beautiful, that we decided to go on a walk through Bruchsal. Bruchsal was first named in 976, so the city is rather old. Nevertheless there are only a few old houses, because during World War II. about 80 % of the city was destroyed.

At first we walked through the citizens' park. Here you see the medieval tower and a part of the community centre.




The tower was built in 1358 and is the oldest building of Bruchsal, which belonged to the old castle.




We walked through the Huttenstraße with its beautiful old houses.




Then we arrived at the baroque palace area. All these houses  - about 50 single buildings all together - belong to the "new" palace of Bruchsal. In the far you see the Damian Gate, the end of the palace area.




We're now standing in front of one of the three entrances to the palace church called St. Damian and Hugo. From here you can see the county court, the Damian Gate and the tower of the jailhouse. The building on the left side houses the chamber music hall.




Inside the church you can see these plates, which show the palace during the years. It was built in 1722, started by Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schoenborn and finished in 1760 by Cardinal Franz Christoph von Hutten. On the top photo you can see, how it looked like after World War II. In the last photo we were standing just in the corner, which you see in the middle of this top photo, between main building and church.




The church wasn't rebuilt in baroque style. It is really modern. Somehow that's sad, but the costs were just too high.




Here we are at the backside of the church. You see, that the tower isn't directly next to the church.




This is the backside of the palace. In summer there are weeks, when they play open air theatre and in winter there is a second Christmas market since 2 or 3 years.






This pond is a place for ducks. Children love to go there and feed them.




Next to the main way through the palace garden you find a lot of statues. At one crossing you see in each corner one statue of the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Here you see the statue fire.




In one side of the main garden you find a small rosegarden.




TV_TV, Mausi and I play in the arcades.






Back in the mainpart of the palace garden again we walked through a large chestnut-lined way. We found some chestnuts on the ground.






When we were in the mainway again, we came to another crossing. The statues in the corners show the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn. Here you see summer.




We walked through a small gate, which you can see on the right side of the next photo. Here you see the mainbuilding of the palace.




At last we read something about the palace history. It is a bit small, I'm not sure, if you can read it here, too.




This is the county court with the Amalienbrunnen (fountain).






The Amalienbrunnen is called Schnecklesbrunnen ( in Bruchsal dialect), which means snail fountain.






A last view back to the palace with the part, that houses the chamber music hall on the right side.




In the Damian Gate you can visit art exhibitions.




Here's the jailhouse of Bruchsal. It is a very interesting building, at least from outside. There were and are some "famous" prisoners in it.




I also read something about it here:




Then we walked to the hospital with its beautiful old part with the small tower. In the far you maybe see the statue of a nun. We will go there at next. There is the entrance to the small hospital chapel.








Here's the back side of the hospital.




The hospital is next to the prison, which you can see here again from the back side.




There are some beautiful old houses next to the Stadtgarten, another park. This house is one of them.




In the park I saw this beautiful lime tree.




This fountain is called Ferdinand Keller Brunnen. Behind the fountain you can see a part of a grammer school called Schönborn-Gymnasium.




The Belvedere is situated at the other end of the park. It was a former hunting lodge. Nowadays it is used for open air theatre during summer, too.




From this point on top of the Andreasstaffel you have a wonderful view over Bruchsal. You already have seen the medieval tower. The next tower belongs to the City Church Our Holy Lady and the next belongs to the Lutherkirche. The houses, which are in one line right in front of us, belong to the Huttenstraße. We had some difficulties to take these photos, because the sun was shining so brightly.




Here you see the baroque church St. Peter in the far. If you take a look at the middle part of the photo right to the edge to the wood, you can see a big house. This house is called Sancta Maria. It is school for social education and it is still home for Franciscan nuns.




The buildings right in front of us and the white building in the far are all part of the old people's home. The big grey building behind the white is another grammer school called St. Paulusheim.




I read something about this place too. The weather wasn't good enough or maybe it was too good, so we had no chance to see the Palatinate Mountains today.




Once more we saw a beautiful house next to the Stadtgarten.




Here's the St. Paulusheim. It is a private grammar school, founded by patres of the Pallotti order.




The wall to our right side still belongs to St. Paulusheim. In the far we see St. Peter again, where we will go at next.




The church St. Peter is located at the edge of the graveyard. It is the only church, which survided the bombing on 1rst March 1945.




We took a view back to St. Paulusheim.




Then we went to read about a memorial stone and about the baroque church.






The view into the Petersgasse is our last photo of the walk through Bruchsal. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Today we drove to Rülzheim to visit the Straußenfarm Mhou, it is a farm with ostrichs.

I've seen many ostrichs, very young and really old and big ostrichs. It's a dangerous thing for us small toyvoyagers to walk between these big animals, but we all were safe, because they had double fences there, so the ostrichs had no chance to reach outside of there green fields and catch us.







Ostrichs can grow 2,60m high and weigh about 170kg. They can become 60/70 years old and lay eggs each second day.


There were also really nice autumn trees.







In the shop you can buy nice egg lamps,  but they are really expensive.





On our way back home we've seen some really nice houses.










It was a nice trip

Today is a special day for toyvoyagers.com. We've watched TV_TV from Galileo in German television. I've seen many famous other tvs at the beginning of the show and then there was TV_TV.

Today we sit in front of the computer to watch a flight from Berlin to New York, because our hosts's son sits in the plane. He will stay in New York for a week. It's a pity, that he only had space for two toyvoyagers and I had been the unlucky looser at this point, but I know, that I will travel with my host tomorrow - to Remscheid
I know, it's not New York, but I'm sure, I will have some fun too.

Here's I'm on the railway station in Mannheim. I'm just waiting for the ICE, which will bring me to Wuppertal. I'm a bit excited.

We had a short stop at Cologne. Petra said, that she had seen a part of the cathedral, but I only had been able to see this part of the railway station.

At Wuppertal we met olgamaus. We and our host will stay at her place until Wednesday.

In the afternoon we took a walk in the vicinity of the medieval castle in the neighbour city Solingen.
Before visiting the castle we took a walk in the surroundings. We started our trip in a rural area with lots of livery stables.







In the far between the hills you can see the city center of Remscheid.






We reached this beautiful outlook pavilion.




I like this overview to the valley of the river Wupper, which we had from there.




In the distance we saw Schloss Burg. There is another toyvoyager coming into my photo





We saw the castle which is situated high above the river Wupper several times before we finally reached it.




We saw a defence tower. It was built for protecting the outer line of defence, some  hundred meters apart from the castle.





Here you can see me and all the other ToyVoyagers who went with us today.











Soon we reached the castle. We went into the courtyard and found a lovely half-timbered part of the castle.




Schloss Burg was built in 1133 by Count Adolf I von Berg on a hill above the river Wupper.That's why this region is called "Bergisches Land". Many people believe that it's name refers to the landscape with hills and valleys. (For those who do not speak German: The German word for mountain or hill is "Berg", so many people think that the name "Bergisches Land" means "land with many hills" )

About a hundred years later it was enlarged by Count Engelberg II von Berg. This is the guy on the horse in the courtyard.






I saw these bird houses. I really would like a little house for myself too. (sorry for the blurry photo)




In Thirty Years War (17th century) large parts of the castle were destroyed. It was rebuilt then, but it was used for industrial purposes for many years. In the end of the 19th century they began to rebuild it as it appears today.
The round tower was the powder tower, it was restored about two years ago.

In the castle courtyard you can find souvenir shops and shops whose owners are doing an "old" handcraft, for example handmade brushes, brooms, soap, lovely yarns and wooden knitting needles, toys like swords and helmets and much more.








While olgamaus bought some wooden buttons for knitted cardigan, I tried to find some nice buttons for myself.




But maybe I should buy a wool cap?




or a wool pullover?

We were really tired, when we arrived at olgamaus' home again. So we first took care for our host's knee. She hurt it badly on the way back home. Then we had dinner and fell in our bed, actually Petra's bed, but she didn't want to go to bed as soon as we did - and you know: Who comes first