Nighttime routine - Die Drei Fragezeichen.

Hallo meine Lieben,

I hope you guys had a wonderful weekend and got lots of sleep. Do you  have a nighttime routine? I can't just go to bed, close my eyes and fall asleep. Not possible, I don't know why. Even when I go to bed at 3 am. I need my nighttime routine.

Sure, the first thing I do is to brush my teeth, wash my face (with the fabulous Herbalism from Lush. I love the product, my skin feels so fresh and clean. Plus you look like the Hulk when you use it) and use some night cream. 

When I am in bed I usually read first (Before I start to read I get a good-night-kiss from David, that's the most important part of my routine.). I can't sleep without reading at least a couple of pages. I got a Kindle last  year for Christmas (Thanks so much to my wonderful parents-in-law!) and it is perfect to read in bed. I don't need a lamp and I don't make loud noises when I have to turn the page. I also have a pile of books next to my bed. I love my Kindle but I could never live without real books. I think it's  the collector in me. I love to a bookshelves full of books, I love to go to bookstores and smell all the wonderful books....my Kindle doesn't smell. They should invent a Kindle with the smell of books. That would be awesome.

When I feel that I get really tired I stop reading and grab my iPod. It is full of episodes of Die Drei Fragezeichen, The Three Investigators in English.

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It is a juvenile detective book series and I started to read them when I was a child. There is also a taped radio drama of every single book and that's what I listen to every night.  Again, it is the collector in me: I own a lot of books of the series, a lot of tapes (oldschool) and every episode as a mp3. Every time I go to a flea market and I see a book or a tape that I don't own yet, I have to buy it. I just have to. I love to see the whole series in my bookshelf. There are more than 150 episodes so far. It is the most popular radio play production in the world.

And yet, it is made for kids but I don't really feel like it's made for kids. I know so many adults who love to read the books or listen to the plays. Especially it's very famous in Germany. I think every kid grew up listening to Die Drei Fragezeichen, Benjamin Blümchen (an elephant) and Bibi Blocksberg (a teenage witch). 

I was fascinating by Die Drei Fragezeichen from the beginning and it never stopped. 
It was first published as "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" and created by Robert  Arthur Jr. who believed that  using the name of movie director Alfred Hitchcock would attract a lot of attention. The first book was published in the early 60s and a lot of people believed that they were written by Hitchcock but he only allowed Arthur to use his famous name and face. 


In the first couple of books Die Drei Fragezeichen even meet Alfred Hitchcock as their client and mentor. Die Drei Fragezeichen are: Justus Jonas (in English Jupiter Jones, I don't know why they changed that. Germans....), Peter Shaw  (Peter Crenshaw) and Bob Andrews (surprisingly, he has the same name in German and in English). An important role plays their nemesis Skinny Norris. 

Die Drei Fragezeichen live in Rocky Beach, California and their headquarter is an old trailer. The investigators were typically introduced to a mystery through a client or by accidentally stumbling upon something unusual in their scrapyard of Uncle Titus Jones and Aunt Mathilda, who run a salvage business. The boys encountered baffling, sometimes misleading clues and danger before finally solving the mystery. 

Justus, Peter and Bob were able to solve their mysteries with relatively few resources: they generally could get by with little more than a telephone, bicycles, access to a library and - in a nod to the peripheral Hollywood setting of the series - a chauffeur-driven vehicle.

There are also several movies and even live plays. I have been to one in Saarbrücken a couple of years ago and it was unbelievable. A very unique experience. When the radio actors, who have been narrating the plays since 1979, toured the country, entire stadiums in major cities like Hamburg were packed. As you can see, Die Drei Fragezeichen are a big phenomenon in Germany. Die Drei Fragezeichen are a cult and the early books and tapes are collector items. 

Have you ever heard of  Die Drei Fragezeichen? Do you listen to plays like that? What's your nighttime routine?