Randy bunch you've got there Walter, your reindeer has the hots for my moose and your squirrel is swooning for rocky.
Hi there on the web!
When I arrived here, a nice postwoman transported me on her bicycle to Walter's. There, I stayed at first a bit in the letter box, then a lady transported me upstairs to Walter's door.
He arrived some time later and opened the letter.
I was quite surprised that he didn't speak the funny language of the postwoman and the lady but could talk to me in English! (Later, I noticed that he could speak German like the other people here as well.)
He introduced me then to one of his stuffed animals, a German squirrel named Hörni - which is short for the German word for squirrel ("Eichhörnchen"), I learnt.
After some time of acclimatisation, the two showed me around the place.
At first, a had a look out of the window ...
... and could already see a part of the park which we would visit shortly afterwards.
This place is called Bad Waldliesborn - "Bad" means 'spa', and they have thermal, salty sources here. People come for for rehabilitation after they had to undergo operations or just for healthy vacancies.
It's a more a village, with 4,000 inhabitants and part of the town of Lippstadt - which has more than 70,000 inhabitants ...
http://www.lippstadt.de/english/discovering/index.htm
... and is situated in the district Soest ...
http://english.kreis-soest.de/
... in the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia
http://www.nrw-tourism.com/
(Oh. Bad Waldliesborn has a website, too, but it's in German only:
http://www.bad-waldliesborn.com/)
Just 50 yards outside of Walter's house are these signs (pointing to various hotels, guesthouse, a sanatorium, tourism points etc) and those nice houses, formerly "posh guesthouses"
More than 100 years ago, when they had found coal in the Ruhr district, they thought, there might be some "black gold" here as well.
This part of a pit head is to remember that:
But they didn't and found those salty (more than 3% salt) , warm (about more than 90°F) sources.
The water is pumped to the surface in pump houses, like the one we saw
Next, Walter showed me the spa, pool and therapy building: that's the one to the left. On the right side is one of the sanatoriums and behind Hörni and me one of the more than 30 plastics which are in the park.
We had a look inside ...
... the next photo will give you a better idea about the two outdoor and three indoor pools there
Later, Hörni and Walter insisted that I posed infront of one of the pools
Did I already tell you that it is winter here? It is: today, it was 24°F when we walked around. So, I asked, if we could go back. Which we did.
They had had a terrible stormy day last week (25 million trees were destroyed in that state, they told me).
There were a lot of damages around here as well. But by now, the gardeners and foresters had cleaned up nearly everything.
Well done, as I could notice
Usually, when visiting an unknown place, you go at first to the local tourist office. Since I had to private local guides, there was no need to do such.
But we went there - it was on our way
They nice young lady there (she didn't want to be pictured, which I respected) asked me a lot about everything. And since she thought, I was such a nice guy, I got a sticker and she gave Walter some brochure to send to the school.
Okay, so I'm back here and ready to get shipped to ... I mean POSTED, but some misunderstood that, it seems
Bye for now. Later more from somewhere else,
Rocky
...and his squirrel's name is "Horni" -- that'll keep the kids tittering for sure.
