A Trip on Which I Met Aurian

Yesterday my owner and I went on a trip to meet Aurian.
She's going to a convention in Berlin and was sweet enough to agree to take some of our books with her to the convention to get them signed. So we planned to meet so we could give Aurian the books that we want to get signed.


We had to go to Utrecht, but because the trains weren't running like normal, it took some extra travelling to get there and we ended up in Amsterdam. We decided to make use of our stop in Amsterdam to visit the American Bookstore that's located in Amsterdam.


After some book shopping we went back to the station and caught a train to Utrecht.


In Utrecht I had to see the Dom tower of course.


And the canals.




After our sightseeing we took a bus to where Aurian lives and were greeted with a yummy cake!


I admired Aurian's collection of books, which was guarded by fairies and we talked about books and blogging of course. It was really cool to meet her and lots of fun as well.

After a fun afternoon and early evening we had to travel home again. This time we didn't make any stops along the way, but went straight home.


And look what Aurian gave me:
Lots of small packages containing small groceries. I had fun unpacking them all.


Look at all the cool groceries that were inside the packages.


And look at my book haul!
Apart from books that we bought we also got some books from Aurian.

Thanks Aurian for the fun visit and the groceries and books!



And look what was waiting for us when we got home.
A signed copy of Enemy Games by Marcella Burnard.


Thanks Marcella!

All in all I had a really fun day and I hope to meet Aurian again sometime soon.

Another Trip to Amsterdam

My owner and me had planned to go to Movie World in Germany yesterday, but on Wednesday we were told our trip got cancelled.

So instead we went to Amsterdam!
We were accompanied by a good friend of my owner and by Little Mole, but as little Mole doesn't like sun too much he stayed hidden in a bag most of the day.

Here I am at the monument on the Dam.
The Dam is the main square of Amsterdam.

We did some window shopping and I spotted this beautiful salamander who reminded me of my good friend Sparky.

A whole army of voodoo dolls!
I think some were related to Voodoo Bride, but they weren't the talkative types.

And we visited the Amsterdam Dungeon!
It's a kind of history museum, but instead of just looking at items you get taken on a tour with dressed-up actors who tell and enact stories and even make the visitors take part in those stories.

At the entrance there was a possibility to have your picture taken and my owner took the opportunity to pose as a brutish executioner.

That's the only picture we could take of the Amsterdam Dungeon as taking pictures wasn't allowed inside. But I managed to get hold of a brochure with pictures in it and I played around with one of those to give you an idea of what the Dungeon was like:

We didn't see these two particular people as I think these two are Sweeney Todd and his lady friend and they are from the London Dungeon, but we did meet lots of other cool characters who were dressed just as awesome. There were lots of cool stories and such and my owner even got dragged before a judge who found her guilty of witchcraft!!

We also did some sightseeing.
Here I am in front of a gate which has the Amsterdam heraldry on it.

A creepy stone lion.

One of Amsterdam's many canals.

On our way back home there was lots of hold up at the station because someone thought he'd smelled smoke in one of the train tunnels.

Little Mole and me passed the time by looking over the brochure of the Amsterdam Dungeon and reliving our awesome visit there.

A Special Trip - part 2

We had a great spot on the rear of the canal boat where we had a good view on everything around us.

We're being followed!!

Everytime the boat had to make a turn there were lots of waves.





Wow! That is a lot of water!

Is that chicken on the left?
What is it doing on a ship?



Me and my owner.

After the tour we all went for a drink.
I got hot chocolate and a cookie.

It was some kind of waffle.

We also visited a shop that had these colourful piggies.

And lucky cats and owls.

After that me and my owner had to go back to Groningen.
We said goodbye to Beanie, but not for long, because:

Today Beanie visited Groningen!
I'll tell you all about that tomorrow.

A Special Trip - part 1

Yesterday my owner and me made a trip to Amsterdam and look who I met there:

Beanie!

Beanie had come all the way from the UK for a short holiday and I was very happy to finally meet him in real life!

Here we are posing together with Andrea. My owner and Andrea also met for the first time outside of the internet, so it was a really cool meeting for us all!

After talking for a bit we ordered lunch.
Hmmm... I'm so not going to eat that! What was my owner thinking when ordering it?

This looks more like it:
onion soup and french bread.

After lunch Beanie let me pick out a present from the treasures he keeps in his backpack. I chose a green lucky coin.

Then we all went for a walk to a bookstore my owner likes to visit when she's in Amsterdam and on our way there we spotted an street organ.

And a mysterious alley!

At the bookstore Beanie got me another present.
Isn't it cool?!

We walked around some more and I almost ran into a tram. We don't have those in Groningen.

Beanie found some statues of lizards before meeting us and he showed them to me.



And next we went on a boat tour through the Amsterdam canals!