Owlin on his way to Bucharest!

Little Owlin is on his way to Adriana & Marius in Bucharest! He stayed with me a little longer than I planned to, but I guess it was hard to say goodbye ;). Today I deceided it really was time for him to leave.


So now he's on his way to Bucharest, Romania. I'm very curious about his adventures over there. To be honest, I only know Romania as the country where Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) lived. But I'm sure soon I'll learn a lot more about this country!

By the way, as far as I know Owlina still didn't arrive in Russia :(. Now there are two owls on the road, and I'm wondering who'll arrive first: Owlin or Owlina...
Please keep your fingers crossed! I think the both of them might need a little luck on their journey.

Owlin in Maastricht

Yesterday I had stuff to do in town and the weather was beautiful, so I thought I'd take Owlin along with me. I live close to Maastricht, in a little village called Borgharen. So everytime I want to go to town I have to cycle about 5 kms, most of it alongside the river the Meuse.

At first Owlin spotted some flowers and he wanted to show that he's just as cute in a flower patch as Owlina. Failure... The sun was a little bit too bright!

This is a nice place I always have to ride through when I leave the village. There are furry cows there (you can see one on the left, but it's not very clear) and often there are rabbits running around. I like the treehouse, especially when the tree blossoms (which unfortunately didn't yesterday).

When I leave the village I'm also crossing a lock.

At first we went to the library. Although it's a nice library, we didn't take any pictures there. Then we had to cross the Meuse, because I had to be somewhere in the center. We used the high bridge, it's only for bike riders an pedestrians. On top of it we took this pictures. You can see the St. Servaas bridge behind Owlin, it's the eldest bridge in Maastricht.

This is Owlin in front of the Our Lady church. This church is really old and I think it looks beautiful. It's almost like a huge castle.

I wanted to take some other pictures than the ones I took of Owlina in Maastricht. So I took Owlin to the market square, behind him you can see the old town hall.

On our way back home we did some shoppings at the supermarket.

Owlin really enjoyed his first trip, he especially loved the sunny weather.

Let me introduce to you: Owlin

Owlina has a twin brother, Owlin. He'd like to say 'hi' to all of you.

Today Owlin received a phonecall from Owlina. I didn't even know she had a phone, she must have hidden it somewhere underneath her feathers.
"Hi dear brother," Owlina said. "Right now I'm somewhere in Russia on my way to Anna. Yes, I'm okay, but my travelling is taking a bit longer than I expected. While I was in my envelope I checked out my twitter account, and I read our mom Ester found loads of new places to stay for me! There are so many of them that I'm afraid it would take ages to visit them all. Would you like to visit some places instead of me? You can use my weblog to report your stories."

Owlin of course couldn't say no. He is a dedicated follower of Owlina's blog and has actually always been a bit jealous.

He hopes he'll be as welcome as Owlina is anywhere across the world. Doesn't he look a lot like her?

So from now on if you e-mail me, please tell me if you would prefer to host Owlin or Owlina. If you don't like one better than the other, I'll make sure the one who is available soonest will come to you asap.

Tomorrow Owlin will go on a very adventurous adventure with me. Sunday he'll start his journey to a certain country on the other end of Europe.

Happy Easter!

Owlina and I like to wish you a happy Easter!

Goodbye

'Having found a new host, Owlina's last day had come. I offered her one of the friendship bracelets I have made. It was quite difficult for her to choose but in the end she managed to decide.'

'The little one got her things ready to roll: her new travelling bag and her Owls Union passport.'

'Here is Owlina with her new friendship bracelet - on the one hand a bit sad to leave but on the other hand very excited to go to her new host in Russia.'

'Owlina is savely packed in her comfortable bag, covered by an envelop with enough postage to get her to her new destination. And off she goes into the yellow mail box in Nienburg/Weser, Germany.

This is all I can say now: "Bye, bye little one. I hope you will have a save journey and arrive happily in a short while. I am looking forward to seeing you again here in your blog! All the best, Regina" '

This blog makes me feel a little bit sad. It's obvious Owlina and Regina had a great time together! I think it's very sweet of Regina that she gave Owlina a travelling bag and a friendship bracelet. And the passport, love it! Thanks, Regina! I hope all the future hosts will send it along with her.

At this very moment Owlina is in an envelope somewhere between Germany and Russia... Hard to imagine! I'm hoping to hear from Anna, her new host, soon that she arrived safe and sound. Let's keep our fingers crossed for a safe and quick journey!

Art Museum Wolfsburg

'Owlina again took the train today. She liked the moving stairs a lot and was excited to go on another trip.'

'Arriving at Wolfsburg Hauptbahnhof she had the choice of either visiting the Autostadt www.autostadt.de , the Phaenomenta www.phaeno.de or the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de . And guess what: Owlina decided to see the first art exhibition of her life!'

'She was impressed by the architecture of the museum and took a good flight around the building. Then she wanted to go inside and join the guided tour of "The Wolfsburg Project" by the American concept artist James Turrell which started at 3 p.m.'

'"The colours, look at the colours!!" Owlina was totally excited when she entered the huge installation. "This pink is the nicest colour ever! And look at the blue, and look at the green turning into yellow!" The little one was overwhelmed by the intense colours all around her. Owlina could very well be an art critic as she sensed the various aspects of this special event. It is the largest installation ever realized by the American concept artist and encompasses 70 square meters. The room-within-a-room structure extends up eleven meters. It is a hollow space of the "Ganzfield Pieces" type with two interlocking spaces - the so-called viewing space and the sensing space - which are both completely empty and entirely flooded with a diffuse, slowly shifting coloured light. The viewer can excess these spaces via a steep ramp. He immerses himself in the "sublime bath of light" and experiences how all architectural aspects of the space are cancelled out to the point of disorientation in the homgeneous field of vision. The artist himself calls this experience: "feeling with your eyes". One thing is for sure: Owlina will be an art lover for the rest of her life!"'

Liebenau

"This Saturday we joined a group of Ukrainian students and visited a former gun powder fabrication nearby. 'We' - this is Owlina, my family and a group of American university students with their German teacher, who came for their spring break to Nienburg (sister city of Las Cruces in New Mexico). There were two contemporary witnesses from the Ukraine (82 and 84 years old) with the group. That allowed them to visited large parts of the otherwise locked up area. We drove through the large production areal of 12 sq kilometers. Starting in 1939 the production plant was erected (by 3 to 4.000 workers) which was planned by Hitler to produce a large amount of powder for military use. From 1941 to 1945 more than 41.000 tons of gun-powder were produced there. Owlina was very impressed to see some of the old buildings."

"We learned that there were not many German workers at that time. The majority were prisoner's of war from the Soviet Union and forced labourers from many other nations. They lived under very poor conditions. Most of them already arrived in Liebenau under-nourished and sick. About 2.500 people died of mal-nutrition, illnesses, beatings or killings by the German Nazi regime. A group of young people nowadays research the history of the powder production plant, the "Pulverfabrik" http://www.japl.de/ . They found about 11.000 registration cards of the former work force."

"The man who initiated all this, Martin Guse, talked about the tragical fate of some individuals. See here (in German only) his website: http://www.martinguse.de/pulverfabrik/bio.htm There was this young man from the Netherlands, Pieter Koop. He was arrested for conterfeiting coupons for food rations. In February 1943 he was deported to Liebenau. It was hard for him to produced the gun powder and he flew. He was arrested and brought to the KZ Neuengamme. There he died in January 1944 of "tuberculosis" (as the papers said)."
"Owlina was very sad when she heared about all this. She could imagine the hard working conditions because she felt the cold and wet climate in the buildings.After the war the area was used by the British, the machines went to Czechowslovakia and France. In 1959 production of rockets and explosives started in Liebenau. In the early 1960s atomic weapons were stationed there (until 1992), guarded by German, Dutch and American troups. Military and chemical production continued until 1994 when the last company, the Dutch "Eurometaal" left the area. It was only until 1998 when one of the former forcest labourer came to Liebenau that the public began to take an interest in the history of the "Pulverfabrik". One goal of the non-profit group "Documentationsstelle Pulverfabrik" is to install a permament memorial. Owlina (and me) believes it is a very good idea!"