Saturday, November 26, 2005
Pronounced don-ka shern, meaning thank you. Since Kirk worked on Thanksgiving (not a NATO holiday) and Tiara had school, we postponed our Thanksgiving until today. Kirk got up to see our front door without a view, but covered in white. The wind had blown a layer of snow over it. The snow outside was deep and fluffy and everywhere. Almost every doorway had someone in it shovelling their walks. The cars were all being scraped. It was nice to see so many people out. People were walking their dogs too. Nothing phases them here. The snow was absolutely beautiful. Apparently, it is very unusual for GK to get so much snow and it was obvious by all the kids playing that they were
very happy. We had to head out and look at our house before we played. We met the landlord to sign the contract today at 10 and met her husband and her aunt who were also very nice and loved the kids. We looked at the house, planned rooms, and fell in love with it again. It is such a nice place. Frau Bemmelmans told us that she was born and grew up there... it still has a couple of the original light fixtures. Driving to and from our house was great. Fields of white were so peaceful with little houses and church spires in the distance. We still saw the bakery and dairy trucks making their daily deliveries to houses and people were out and about both by foot and on bicycle. A few cars sat in the ditch too, but the roads weren't bad... just snow, no ice. We came home and the kids played. Tiara built a wall. Arianna and Luci ran
around picking up big clumps of snow. Elise walked in it and touched it a little. She looked confused, but liked it. I started cooking and cleaning and did that most of the afternoon. Today was our Thanksgiving and I was really stressed about it because Kirk invited friends and I am operating in a kitchen with a horribly small, "easy bake" oven - not big enough for the turkey pan. The dinner ended up turning out amazing with one sad exception. While all the dinner was perfect, the dessert (usually my crowning glory) was a flop due to the inadequacy of German pumpkin. I will have to stock up on that at the American commissary next time someone goes there. Kirk brought back the only pumpkin that the grocery had locally... it was two jars of pumpkin in chunks floating in a sweet honied brine of some kind. It didn't smell anything like pumpkin and I was not thrilled, but it was all we had, so Kirk pureed it for me, I added all the other ingredients, and I baked it. The crust was excellent, the whipped cream for the top was great (Germans don't do cool whip), but the pie tasted like a bad hybrid of a lemon merangue pie and a pumpkin pie... tangy lemony pumpkin is not exactly appetizing. Not an experiment worth repeating. Luckily, we had Aachener Printen cookies, so we had those with coffee and they were great. Anyway... our friends had a good time and were very understanding about our experiment with German pumpkin... most Americans just eat Thanksgiving on base and don't do their own meals here for some odd reason. They stayed until 2330 and we all had a very nice evening. So... it's tired time now. Tomorrow we're going to the Christmas market in Gangelt and may be the one in Geilenkirchen too... should be fun. Thinking of you... hope you are enjoying a nice weekend.
p.s. Elise is talking up a storm... words like chicken, thank you, daddy, thirteen, hand, nigh-night, help me, up, down, all done, and many more
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Life In Germany
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