Holiday timeout - The twenty-sixth door

I'm aware that not everyone has the chance to take a holiday timeout. I am lucky and do have it.
Of course timeout doesn't mean that I won't have to do my chores, but I'm off work and I'll take a little break from the blog, too. Maybe we'll see each other again next year (doesn't that sound so far away although it's only a few days?), maybe the mood will strike me before that. We'll see.
Enjoy the silence while it lasts! ;-)

Vacation time

Yeah, well, that's no one I know, but the picture could give you a hint of where I'll disappear to for a week.

You need more? This guy is "punting along the Cam in academic dress after a graduation ceremony" as it says in Wikimedia. Right. I'm going to Cambridge. I guess not even on my vacation I can live without a university *eyeroll*

Now I could say I didn't blog much to get you used to no posts for a week, but it wouldn't be true. True is that there won't be any posts, but I hope I can take a lot of pictures and learn exciting new things to share with you once I'm back.

See you then!

P.S. Don't worry, the kitties won't be alone, they are cared for in the best possible way! ;-)

Cardiff - Day Five and Six

I know that today is Quote of the Week Sunday, but I thought I'd skip that for the last vacation report, you'll forgive me.

When we had been to the city the first time, we went to the Tourist Centre and asked about the best way to see some landscape. Seriously, guys, I had seen more water and cows then the famous Welsh hills and sheeps, so I thought a little field trip would be nice.
We had been recommended a small picturesque village called Llantwit Major with a beach nearby that we could reach by bus line X91. It was a nice, warm day. Perfect.
Arriving at the Central Station we started looking for X91. Hm, there was a sign, but the fence around it was not very encouraging. We checked the bus schedule and found two other buses would go there ... one of which drove by us, just as we looked for the point we had to go. Ah, no problem, right? One of the others would be due soon.
Or maybe not.
We found we would have to wait an hour. We are flexible however, so we went to check if there was a train going there as well. We got our tickets, two each, and were told we had two minutes. Ruuuuun!
We wanted to, but it's not easy to run through when you try to put in the wrong ticket. "This ticket is to Cardiff, Ma'am (oh, how I hate to be called Ma'am), you are in Cardiff." Oh yeah? Did this sound familiar? Like on the airport in Amsterdam when I fished the wrong boarding card out of my purse and was told that I WAS in Amsterdam already? I hate to be in a rush, it blocks my brain cells. I wasn't the only one, but I sure felt I was marked as a tourist.
Yes, people, for those who don't know that, the system is different in Germany. We don't have to go through a turnstile.
It figures that we wouldn't have had to run after all, the train was late. But finally we sat on there, listening to a little old lady who kept telling us all that her pension check went up and interesting facts about toothpaste and when she got off the train she said: "Driver, I'm sure you are glad that you also have more quiet passengers."

Llantwit Major, last stop before Bridgend. Ok, the train station obviously wasn't the picturesque part of the village. We walked downhill. And walked. And walked some more. Ah, there! A sign directing to the Beach! The street was a little narrow. Was this really the right way? Maybe we had to walk up there where it said "Reserve"?
Have I mentioned that it was warm? Uphill, uphill and when I had almost made it, I heard the words "Nope. There's a closed gate there. That's probably why the other guys came back down." Downhill, downhill. "Let's walk on that footpath where the other people walked before." Across the fields, yes, what a good idea. I bet they had been locals, knowing exactly what they were doing with their big beach ball and the sandals on.

We walked. I got a little suspicious about all the cow pats lying around and then we saw them, a herd of huge, vicious looking cows. With a whimper I asked if we had to walk through there. I hadn't been close to lots of cows since I had been a child and I wasn't sure if I could outrun them. It was warm after all, you know, and my purse kept falling off my shoulder. And I'm a wimp around some animals, especially if they come in herds. Maybe they didn't look very vicious after all, but they still looked big.
We turned around and gave up on seeing the beach that day, so all you get is this picture that I just as well could have taken in our neighborhood. At least I'm honest about it.


Back uphill it went, taking a closer look at the beautiful little houses with names like "Rose Cottage" and finally ending up in Elaine's Tearooms where I had a delicious three cheese salad before we took the train back to Cardiff. There's always a silver lining.
Maybe we should have taken the other advice we got, to visit the beach in Barry. Oh, well.
Unfortunately I didn't feel well when we were back in town, I tend to have a problem with warm weather, so we took the rest of the day very easy with a little walk and a quite early dinner at Mermaid Quay.
And a last picture of the view from the balcony.


There is not that much to say about Sunday as we couldn't do much more than packing our stuff, having breakfast and waiting for our ride to the airport.
I took another last picture of the window in the hall.


Our flights were on time and there was only a tiny little problem.
We were back in Stuttgart in the evening. Our luggage wasn't. For those who have been following this blog for some time, this might sound familiar. Just like last year our luggage hadn't made it during check through.
Who cares. It felt good to be home and be welcomed by nagging cats, even if it just had been a short vacation.

Cardiff - Day Four

Knowing we would meet Eddy, one of my guild members (take a look at her ArtFire studio, so fun) and online friends, in the early afternoon, we didn't plan much for the morning of day four.
We walked over to Mermaid Quay, heading to the Norwegian Church. The church which is an arts center now was built in the 19th century when Cardiff was one of Britain's most important ports. At that time the Norwegian merchant fleet was the third largest in the world, so this church as a place of worship for the Norwegian seamen was established.
Roald Dahl, the famous writer, was baptized in this church which originally had stood on the grounds of our hotel!


Right next to the church is the Scott Antarctic Memorial, reminding of Captian Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition which aim it was to reach the geographical South Pole first. Cardiff was one of the biggest donors for this expedition.


We walked on through the docklands before then reaching Cardiff Bay Barrage, constructed in the 1990s to help regenerate the docklands and created a vast freshwater lake, separated from the sea.


There is even a sea angling zone and of course we had to stop there. No, not I am the fishing member in this house and I have to admit my interest was somewhat limited, especially since I was the only woman there which felt a little strange. I also have to admit that I wasn't keen on staying there until someone would catch a fish. On the other hand it was funny when one guy thought he had hooked a fish and found it was another guy's fishing line.
I have no idea what exactly this hut is used for, but a pink building in an area where very manly men pursued a very manly and serious activity made me giggle.


Remember the buildings I had been so fascinated with? An abandoned structure and a restaurant built in 18something. I guess I'm just attracted to old buildings.


We thought it would be fun to take the waterbus back to the other side of the bay and were lucky that we didn't have to wait for long.
From there we went down to the wetlands for a sandwich until it was time to meet Eddy. We didn't sit there for long before a swan decided to keep us company (although the sandwiches hadn't been unpacked yet) and called over a friend after a while. We didn't feed them, don't worry. It didn't seem to make them happy however, so they finally came out and went to the other side. I took a video of them slowly swimming down the water until they disappeared in the reed. Quote: "Who comes to Wales to film swimming swans?" Well, I do! ;-)


Now it was time to go to Cardiff Bay Station. As someone having commuted by train since 1983, this station was a little surprising to me. Seriously, I have never seen anything like it. Even the smallest station I know has two tracks.
You can tell my surprise from the fact that I took a photo of this single track which looks as if it leads straight to the skyscraper in the back.


We had a fun afternoon. Unfortunately the pictures are personal and not for blog use, you know the rules. We took a bus ride (how many tourists get to see Cardiff hospital?), we looked at the shops and the new library, we had lunch, we went by the castle on to see the Animal Wall (that we had missed on Day Two) and then to Bute Park.


It was a lovely day, it was lovely company - thank you, Eddy! - and although I did NOT get a green balloon (private joke), I really enjoyed the afternoon.
We took the Aquabus back to Mermaid Quay where we had some icecream first and finally said goodbye.

Stay tuned for tomorrow if you dare losing any respect that you ever might have had for me before ;-)

Cardiff - Day Two

Seems I forgot to take a picture of the breakfast buffet. Think I am kidding? I do know people are doing this, but you'll just have to believe me when I say it was a mix of continental and English breakfast. People were piling up those sausages and strips of bacon on their plates! Even I was lured into the scheme (of hot breakfast, not sausages and bacon).

Strengthened for the day that way we took off on our walk to the city center. Somehow we had expected it to be a little nearer. We could have taken a bus, but instead we walked and walked and walked. It was a warm day, but thanks to the steady wind it wasn't too much. The wind was there all the time and even forced me to put my hair in a braid, so I wouldn't have it in my mouth constantly. Bad enough that I had problems looking through my too long bangs that kept flying in my eyes!

Finally we made it to the city center. First we headed for the National Museum. We already thought we had found it.


But then I spied with my little eye ... this sign, in both English and Welsh of course, that told us it was City Hall. The National Museum was right next to it and boy, did we enjoy it.



First we looked at the photography exhibition which made me hide my little camera in shame. It was the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 exhibition and we were deeply impressed. We had a nice talk with a museum warden about it, too.
I enjoyed the whole museum a lot, especially the impressionists - and a little girl who told her grandmother "Listen, these people are speaking French!" Hm, not quite, but who cares. The direction was not that bad.

Next we went to Cardiff Castle. We saw the Castle Apartments and I chose my new workplace! Unfortunately it didn't seem they wanted to choose me! ;-)


We walked up the Norman Keep, with the Welsh flag proudly flying on top, almost all the way up, but then I decided my feet were really too big for the tiny stairs (and mine are not the biggest ones in the family!) and anyway I am not too keen on looking down from open spaces. The pictures were made through small loopholes that made me feel safe ...



By then we had been walking for a few hours and our feet (and the back) began to hurt, so we slowly made our way back to the hotel. Even though it was so far from city center, it was nice to come back to the quietude of the area, only disturbed by the "laughing" of the seagulls.

Cardiff - Day One

I warned you, didn't I? Here we go.
Listen to a tale of sorrow, love, emotion, pain, wind and seagulls - lots of seagulls.
Did that get your attention? Let's start then.

Tuesday morning we left for the airport, early enough to be relaxed and in a good mood. That changed a little when we waited in the Cityhopper for late passengers. Late, late, late passengers. When they finally arrived, they brought their whole household with them. Of course they did, it had been too late to check in the luggage. The flight attendant was not amused, you could tell by his face.
Since we didn't have that big a time window between flights, our faces took on a slightly worried look, but although we almost hadn't hoped for it anymore, we did take off eventually.
Schiphol Airport at Amsterdam saw us running from one gate to the other. Except for the embarrassing moment in the scanner when they had to call me out because I got lost in reading the explanation on the wall.

And then we landed in Cardiff. I swear this is the cutest little airport I have ever seen. Although I have no orientation whatsoever - I need a GPS to guide me from the bedroom to the living room - not even I could get lost here. Amazing!
A cab took us to our hotel, The St. David's Hotel and Spa. We received a fair warning by the driver not to say that we were in England. We were in Wales now! ;-)
The last two years we had had hotel rooms in the Victorian and Edwardian style, but this year we stood in front of a top modern looking hotel with a hole in the middle, so-to-speak. From the hall you could see all the way up and the rooms were built around this space.
This is a view through the window in the hall standing on the third floor.


The room itself was not exciting. Maybe I'm too much of a romantic, but it looked a little cold to me, not special at all. Nice was the floor to ceiling window, so you could see the bay when lying in bed. And the view from the little balcony was even better.

This is Cardiff Bay to the left, the middle and the right.

To the left you can see the barrage whose introduction turned the bay into a freshwater lake.


The buildings in the middle fascinated me. Not so much the church on top, but the long one you can see on the left side of the picture, so we decided to go there one day.



To the right you see part of the Wetlands Reserve.


It was a little too early however to just stand on the balcony and look around, so we went over to Mermaid Quay on the other side of the hotel. Funny enough I have taken no picture of it and I can't even tell you the reason. The only pictures I've got is of the Pierhead Building which hosts the Visitor and Education Centre for the National Assembly of Wales.
As you can see, I was particularly fond of the demonic looking creatures guarding the building from the top.


Due to a back problem we knew the days would be shorter than expected, so after a little stroll we had some delicious Indian food and then soon headed back to the hotel to make plans for Day Two.

Tomorrow

Ever since watching the movie "Dave" I have Sigourney Weaver on my mind, singing "Tomorrow (Annie's song)" with a thin little voice, when I hear or read the word "tomorrow". Talk about Pavlov's dog.

Tomorrow IS only a day away and that day away is the day we will go to Wales. Ah, I can see your frightened little faces. You know what it means, don't you? Pictures!
I will be back on Sunday, so you have a few days to take a real good breath and mentally prepare for my return.

In a desperate attempt to keep up, catch up, whatever, I listed a few things in the last days, mainly in my poor neglected DaWanda shop. Only to put it on vacation in a while. That probably wasn't very smart. I could have done more exciting things like folding socks.
Why is it that always one sock is missing? Where did all my socks go? Is there a parallel universe inhabited by single socks? Maybe there is a deeper meaning behind all this?

Oops, back to the subject.
Behave yourselves and play nice together or you will all be banned from the sandbox.
And please have a great time!

P.S. Look at the picture. Three single socks!!

"Blue pot" and IKEA. Not! ;-)

Now my vacation time has been over for a week already, but still I am working on pictures taken in the last week when I mostly hung around with my brother and sister. Like that one day when he wanted to drive to Ulm to check out IKEA. It was hot, really hot, and I didn't feel like IKEA, I really didn't. I admit it, I don't like it. My sister promised me we would get to play in the ball room, but I knew she was just trying to hook me. Actually I told them I wasn't coming, but they voted me down and said they'd be right over.
So we sat in this burning hot car and I wondered what I had done to be caught in this hell with an AC. And we didn't go fast because we had to do this and that in Göppingen first. It was close to noon when we finally made our way to Ulm. Ulm is a beautiful old town which has the tallest church in the world, and they tried to comfort me with saying we'd go there after IKEA.

First we had to make our usual stop at the WMF Fischhalle, though. Not new to my blog, huh? I am addicted to this place and so is my little brother.
After buying something (for him, I was good this time) we headed to Ulm, but were surprised to see it crossed out on the road sign. Had it been moved? Had it been swallowed by IKEA?? I had the worst thoughts about it.
While driving on I kept nagging and making different suggestions where we could instead. What did I care if he needed a new armoire? I don't know if I was convincing or if he just couldn't stand my nagging anymore, but finally he gave in and we went to see the Blautopf. Translated that is Blue Pot (or Pot of the Blau, but not Bowl of the Blau as in English Wikipedia). The Blautopf is a karst spring with an intensive blue color that is the result of limestone distributed in water.


There exist many legends around this spring which is the second largest spring in Germany, for example that everyday somebody poured ink into it to keep up the beautiful color. Really this picture doesn't do justice to the spring's real look.
Also the "Schöne Lau", the beautiful Lau, the daughter of a human and a nix, is said to live in the spring.
Take a closer look, maybe you can see her?


Fascinating is also the rich cave environment underneath and around the spring. Diving is only allowed to experienced divers of certain organisations and still there have been fatal accidents. One dream is to be able to find a dry way to those caves who bear romantic and beautiful names like for example the Castle of Clouds, the Dome of Eons and the Realm of the Beautiful Lau.
After having something to eat we strolled around the Blautopf and then slowly walked back to the car.


We could have visited the monastery's church and the high altar, but I had seen it the year before and I have to admit the hot weather made us a little lazy, especially because we knew we wanted to head to Metzingen afterwards to check out outlet stores. Oh yes, I know. Outlet stores over culture? We were not ashamed at that moment. Both things have their time ;-)



The monastery is a school nowadays by the way. I wonder if you can really concentrate in these surroundings?



So off we went. I'll spare you the description of how I tried on 150 pairs of sneakers only to not buy any of them because they were never the right size. I'll spare you the description of how we soaked the car seats on the way back. Aren't you grateful I didn't take a picture of that?
It was a long day and I came home absolutely beaten, but I had enjoyed every minute with my whole heart.
And I even bought some tumbled stones and turned them into pendants!
Unfortunately my memory card is having a problem, so the first pictures I took of them have disappeared again and I have to take new ones to show them.
Cliffhanger!! ;-)

Edinburgh Day 6 - This is the end, my only friend, the end

What am I saying? Guess I drifted off a little. Go away, Jim Morrison!

It might have not been my only friend, not even my friend at all, but the truth is, this was the end. The end of our trip.
I am always torn, on one hand I don't want to go and I think of what I wasn't able to do. I wanted to do the haunted graveyard tour and I wanted to see the Museum of Scotland. I wanted to lie in the grass with my book and look at the sky. I wanted to meet Taz' kitties.
On the other hand I missed my kitties so much. And my stash and tools. These are the ones I can't talk to on the phone. I tried, but a rubber mallet doesn't give good answers on the phone.

I didn't have a choice anyway. In the morning Mr. Organised himself packed our stuff (he's good if he wants to, I wish he'd organise my stash like that!), we had breakfast, paid our hotel bill and waited for our ride to the airport.
This is what I hate most about a trip. Into the queue to check in the bags, into the queue to go through security (I still wonder who that policeman in uniform and the three other guys were that cut in line in front of me, but I love to hear an official "Excuse me, Ma'am, may we?" in a bass voice. As if I had a choice, right. At least they could have told me if the two that didn't look like police were important witnesses or convicts to satisfy my curiousness), then waiting in the airport. Buying a bar of chocolate, something to drink. Sitting around, sitting around, sitting around until the gate is open.
Edinburgh is a cute little airport. I like the big posters on the walls with famous quotes about the town and pictures, but I liked it more when we could board the plane. I liked when the captain announced there would be served a snack soon "Chicken or cheese. Or vegetarian. Which is - eh - um - cheese." I liked that I had the book from Oxfam that I actually enjoyed reading. I liked it when we could see London. We circled above it a few times and I pointed out places to the tall guy (had I mentioned I got the window seat because the girl in the aisle seat didn't want to trade hers with Wolfgang. For him window or middle doesn't make a difference, his long legs are in the way everywhere and we hadn't got an exit row seat), longing to go down and spend some more time there. Instead we were spat out at Heathrow and waited some more, even longer now. This place is crowded, man! It was hard enough to find two seats. It's seemed ages to me until our gate was finally open and then we had to wait there some more.
When we finally had settled, the purser came and told the tall guy there was a seat in the exit row if he wanted to. My brave man - after hearing it was just one seat he decided to live with his seat (at least aisle this time) and not leave me. Maybe it would have been better if he had taken it. We were delayed, not much, but long enough to drive him crazy which drives me crazy. I'll cut it short from here. We made it to Stuttgart, yay!
But our luggage didn't. When there was only one last case making its rounds, ours were still missing. Like a god of revenge the tall guy stormed the information counter. We were first in the line this time. There were about 10 or 12 other victims behind us. Our lugguage had been left in London. I knew we should have stayed there! ;-) I get to a point easily when I start giggling about small, not life-threatening catastrophes.
As soon as we arrived at home - it was 7.30 pm now - the phone rang. They told me our luggage had been left in London. Ehm, ah, ok? Didn't I already know that? It will come with the last machine arriving 11 pm. Yes, we will deliver it to the door the next morning. Is the address right? Yes, ok. Tomorrow morning. We'll give you a call beforehand. It's always good to get the same information twice, I guess.
The next morning, I should really call it Göppingen Day 1. We are waiting, we are waiting. The phone is ringing. Ah, now they tell us they will be here any minute and I can start working on the pendant bail. Of course my hooks, pliers etc. had to go into the cases because they are sharp. I am a ninja, I can kill with my crochet hooks, didn't you know? Hello, your luggage has been found. Ehm, ah, ok? We already really, really know that by now, don't we? We will deliver it in the afternoon. Stop!! What do you mean, afternoon?? When? I don't know, we will give you a call beforehand.
Mister, the giggling times are over. You are holding my hooks and fine silver wire hostage, not even mentioning my malt liqueur and my dirty laundry!
I didn't say that. I thought it.
Really we had had other plans for this day instead of waiting. Of course they said they give us a call before they would set out to deliver, we knew they wouldn't. There would be no chance to get back from wherever when they called. 5 pm. The phone is ringing. Hello? I am driving around here in Göppingen looking for you. Is your house number 13? Aaaaaaah. 3 (!) people had asked for our address. 3 people confirmed the house number we told them. It is NOT 13.
But now we have our luggage back and the bottle didn't even break.
Time for laundry. This is the end, the true end.

Edinburgh Day 5 - Feathers and fur

We do have a very small local zoo as you may already know. We also have a big and quite famous zoo in Stuttgart, the town where I work and where we used to live for five years. I have blogged about it before, it's the Wilhelma, a mixture of botanical and zoological garden. Still we like to see other zoos as well. Often friends don't understand us. They wonder why we don't care for the nightlife, why we don't visit more museums, drive around or flop down on some beach to get baked in the sun. Let them wonder :-) We had picked the last day of our stay for the zoo. We thought Monday might be a good day for it. When our taxi arrived (none of us was able at that moment to deal with the hassles of a bus schedule), it had started raining already. The receptionist sounded worried about our day, the taxi driver asked where we were going and shook his head gravely. Really the tall guy hadn't been too sure, either. He had watched the weather forecast on TV, but I said I didn't care. There would be houses you could go into and it would be ok. Of course I was right. The rain stopped exactly the moment we got out at Edinburgh Zoo. The first fellow to greet us was this elephant. The only elephant in the zoo, by the way. That is one thing I liked a lot. It didn't seem like they just had the typical collection of the usual suspects. No elephant, no giraffe, no big apes as far as I could see except for the chimpanzees at Budongo Trail that we didn't see because of the crowds of children which was probably a terrible shame as it is the largest chimpanzee enclosure in the world. Here we also got a first glimpse at Mansion House. The building has a restaurant inside and the other wing is occupied by the Zoological Society. Mmh, I would to love a house like that in the middle of the zoo! Almost the first enclosure we came to was the one with the African wild dogs. I am a big fan of them and have been ever since I read the book by Jane Goodall and her first husband Hugo van Lawick when I was still a child. Unfortunately they were no fan of mine and were not to be seen at first. After a while I spotted them hiding at the other end, probably they hadn't liked the rain very much. Some others were not too happy with the rain although it was already over, like me when I tried to take a picture of the dikdiks and some birds that could have been kingfishers. Raindrops were hanging in the fine mesh of the cage, making all pictures blurry. It was also impossible to take a good picture of the large group of penguins. I would have loved to show you how a keeper tried to convince a group of king penguins to have a fish. She offered it to every single one, but no chance, they refused. All the while behind her a desperate penguin of another kind tried to get to that fish and when she left, he followed her until he had to face the cruel fact he wasn't going to get it. Unfortunately we missed the daily penguin walk and we also don't know if we got to see the VIP penguin, Sir Nils Olav. We just couldn't tell them from each other, sorry. Nevertheless I got my penguin photo ;-) This guy has a lot of little friends! Up to now we had not thought about where the zoo was situated. Does the word "hill" ring a bell? Yes, we started climbing uphill again, by the rhino enclosure where we only saw the keeper mucking out. It's ok, we always have rhinos at Stuttgart, but never before had I seen pudus. They were a little shocked when their keeper "threw" them out of their cage, it was wet out there! I also couldn't resist this turkey. Many say it's ugly, but look at the beautiful colors! It's hard if not impossible for me not to see something beautiful in all creatures, no matter how many legs they have (yes, even spiders and do you remember Bruno, the swimming slug?) Until then we had not really seen very many people and let me tell you ahead I heard nothing but English that day. It seemed as if quite a few people had taken their kids to the zoo, but that was it. No foreign tourists, except for us. We felt very special ;-) Now when we came to the wild cats there were more people and we pointed out to each other where they were hiding, were showing each other the spots from where you get the best pictures, it was a really nice atmosphere (except for the guy in the green shirt who managed to walk by the glass every time I had a chance to catch the Amur leopard - I have no picture of him now that I could show, the only ones that were not all blurry showed green reflections, but I guess I can't have everything). I almost got the black panther. Almost ... The jaguar didn't do me the favor of holding still, either. Maybe I am just too slow? Here is the tiger and here is a cat I hadn't heard of before, a Pallas cat. The girl was hiding so well, I didn't see her, but the guy was doing us the favor of showing us his beautiful face. By the way, his intense look we owe to a nice, plump pigeon that sat on the roof. Now we went up to see the Asian lions. Here we made a big mistake. We climbed up the hill that clearly led us to the lions with these footprints (there were also prints of plants on the ground, it looked really neat). We didn't see the lions in their big enclosure and around the corner it looked like it was the end of the way, so we turned around. Mistake, keep it in mind. We had a good look at the European wolves, great animals! No pictures, sorry, but I didn't like the way it looked with the mesh. From time to time I had to take a picture of a flower instead. Maybe I was still inspired from the day before. It rained a little again, just a tiny drizzle, but I loved the effect of the drops on this flower. At the same time it was so hot that the ground started steaming. I hoped for a rainbow, but I wasn't lucky. Next was the zebra and antilope enclosure. Look at that space! From a wooden bridge going out into the enclosure ending in a hut we could see the town. From there we walked to Hillpoint View, the highest point in the zoo. We were sitting there looking at the reindeer when the safari bus arrived. What do you mean, you could get a ride up there without having to walk?? I wish that had that in Stuttgart, whenever I have made it to the polar bears, I am dead. The reindeer enjoyed the sun, there was also a baby hiding underneath a bush and refusing to come out for me to take a good photo. When we walked down the hill, we noticed a sign that pointed to the lions and the maned wolves. Huh? How could we miss them? I have only seen one once at the Wilhelma, they seem to avoid me. We found out we shouldn't have turned around when we thought it was the end of the way. We just had to walk around the corner. It is hard to choose pictures of the maned wolves, I have quite a few and even two short videos. Aren't they gorgeous? I have no idea how young the cubs were, they definitely looked younger and smaller than the big ones, but not at all like babies, more like silly teenagers. They were playing and hunting (mice?) and seemed to have fun. Meet Mercedes now, the polar bear. When we first saw here, she was in her crate. We didn't know why, but we were told (just follow the link) she would go to a big wildlife park as soon as possible. When we passed her by a second time, she had fun playing with a branch. We just got to the Scottish wildcat in time for listening to its keeper and his daily talk. He told us the cat was in a "food coma" and it really looked like it. This is the best my macro could do. Also sleeping was this guy. The outside enclosure had been closed down, so he and his friends had to stay inside and dream of better days. They are the only koalas in the whole UK. I had never seen a koala in a zoo before. I think it was then we decided to have a little snack. Sandwiches. I was getting tired of sandwiches, but we didn't want to waste much time. That's what Mansion House looks from the front. I couldn't find a place where they would take my application to move in :-( After being fed we started to make our way back. I'll make it shorter for you now as I don't want to lose you before you have seen these fellows. We met Ellen and her two month old baby girl ... ... gibbons in love ... ... many more flowers ... ... a crazy bunch of lemurs that held a conference ... ... and the sea lions ... ... and yes, we also went to the gift shop, what did you expect?? I am sorry if I missed to talk about one or the other animal, like the goral, the flamingoes, the red river hogs or the eagles or the tapirs, the baboon in the tree and many more I'm sure. I want to make clear I enjoyed seeing them just as much as the ones shown here. I am still disappointed I couldn't see the bush baby, another one of my favorites :-( When we came back to the hotel, we rested our feet for a little while and then it was already time to meet Taz from my cat forum. I had really been looking forward to that. We decided to stay at the hotel and eat there and I think I am safe to say we had a fabulous time. It was the perfect ending to a great vacation because the next day we would return to Germany. Much too early really and with the feeling there was so much more to see, but we didn't think about it that evening. Enjoy the moment, right? Back at the room I still didn't feel tired and while the tall guy was dreaming along, I finished another pendant with a smaller fossilized coral, for me this time. I don't even have a picture of it, but I think you get the idea. Thanks for making it through this long post with me, I promise the one tomorrow will be shorter. Why I'll have one at all if it was only travelling back? Wait and see ;-)