GRAVEYARD IN THE NEXT TOWN
The day was very nice and warm so we walked to the next town for a stroll before starting in on making food for Thanksgiving.  This is a really beautiful graveyard in the next town.  So well kept and very well loved by everyone. 

THANKSGIVING
We have so much to be thankful for this year.  We love our family and friends and our new friends and being in this wonderful place full of new adventures.  We made our big meal on Saturday for Thanksgiving.  
I found a small (4200 kg = 9.2 lbs) frozen turkey last Wed so it was thawed and ready to cook on Saturday.  It had a lot of ice in it so I think they add water to increase the weight.  It wasn't the best turkey I've made, it was a little dry, but the couple we invited over had never tasted one so they didn't have anything to compare it to anyway.   All the other side dishes where good too.  Even tho I didn't make all the usual dishes we have a lot of leftovers.  So today we have the missionaries (both are from Texas) coming over for dinner and to use up some of the leftovers.
I forgot to take photos once our friends arrived.  But you have all seen turkey dinners before anyway.  I just wished I had taken photos of our friends.  I will at another time.

This is our outdoor refrigerator.

We move the table into the living room and put the leaf into it so we can have 4 people comfortably.

The pumpkin pie and gourds I found on the walk to the Vet the day before.

WALKING TO THE VETERINARIAN (TIERARZTPRAXIS)
Today was a beautiful clear day so I decided I should walk to the next town to introduce myself to the Veterinarian.  Just in case the cats need to go there when we are gone, I wanted the vet to know who I am and that it would be OK for someone who is taking care of the cats to take them there and I could pay when we get back.  It went really well.  It took me about an hour to walk there.  On the way, I found some small gourds on the road so they will look nice on the table for a Fall decoration.  You can see them in the photo with the pumpkin pie I made today.

On the walk I go through some farming crops.  I see these strange root things.  I have no idea what they are.
Found out these are sugar beets.

These root things are really big.  At a distance I thought they where potatoes but they are much bigger ,  as you can see from the size comparison with my shoe.

I am almost to the town where the Vet is located.  In that small town there with the water tower.

Pumpkin pie I made today and the gourds I found on the walk to the Vet.

SHOPPING
November 15th, 2012 - The Real (like Walmart) store that is a 35 minute walk from here had a grand opening today.  They had a lot of free samples of food and drink and to buy on the way into the store and on almost every isle inside the store someone was giving free samples.  I didn't try the alcohol drinks offered but there were plenty of people there to try them and the store was very crowded.  The samples I tried where all good but I didn't buy any except the fresh bread.  I'm still finding small things that would be nice to have in the apartment and if I know the item won't be coming on the boat with our "stuff" I might buy it.  I try not to buy more than I can lift if I decide to take the bus back home.  Today though I bought TOO much to lift so I walked home with my heavy cart.  Trouble is, when the cart is heavy, it tends to stop abruptly when it hits a rock on the path so I dumped the entire load once today when it jerked out of my hands and crashed.  I got warmed up and had a good workout putting it all back into the cart and pulling it home.  It was cold out, about 36 degrees F so I had to take off my gloves, scarf and coat to cool down after that spill.  You might find some of the photos of the vendors interesting.

This is the hall entrance to the Real store.  Usually it is empty.   Later more stores will be going into the areas on both side of the hall.

Guy on stilts and carrying a shopping basket.

Giving free ice cream cones and being a comedian and magician at the same time.

Free champagne samples. 

Free alcohol samples of many kinds, and of course you can buy them if you want them.

Leergutannahme means "returned empties".   This is where you can take your empty plastic, and glass bottles and put them into here, get a receipt and get cash at the register in the store.

This guy had a LOT of empties to return.

There was live music, sounded pretty good, both American popular songs like Beach Boys as well as German songs.

There where a LOT of guys in line for Tattoos.  Pretty girl doing them,   SOO...      

Sandwich stand outside.

Serving rotisserie beef, I THINK?

My heavy cart, 95 euros (~120 dollars) worth of stuff.

SUNSETS
We have not seen many nice sunsets here, but here is one.  At this time of year, Nov. 13th, the sun is setting about 4:15.  We sure have short days.  I woke up this morning at 7:30am to see that the sun was going to be coming out.  YEAH!  I thought I am going out while it is sunny.  Then I checked the temperature.  What !  33 Degrees F.  I checked the hourly forecast and since the sun was going to be around today, I waited until it warmed up a bit more to about 44 degrees F and then went out for my walk around the lakes.  It was nice then with my coat scarf and gloves.

These two sunset photos are from our guest room deck.

That tower is in Luisen Park in downtown Mannheim.  It has a restaurant that goes around like the one in Seattle. 

JOB SEARCH / PAPER WORK / DOCUMENTS
We had our meeting in the Ausländerbehörde / Immigration Office with the Aufenthaltstitel / Residence Permit people last Thursday.  We where very worried about the meeting and how it would turn out.  We have heard stories and read on-line about how the officials will turn people down and make them leave the country if they don't like the answers to the questions they may ask you.  It all turned out just fine though.  We had Andy and Peter from the office go with us and that must have helped our results.  I had to fill out an additional 4 page questionnaire in which they only had one complaint that I had to correct and that was because I put my height down in feet/inches (automatic for me, not thinking metric).  I happened to have a metric measuring tape in my purse so I whipped that out and had Steve measure me in cm and correct the form.   We had to do finger prints of both hands, index fingers and paying a large fee of I think 250 euros.   At the end of the meeting and some sit time in the waiting area we where approved for a residence permit and Steve was approved for a work permit (he now has a temporary one) both which should arrive in the mail in a few weeks.  I can't leave the country until my residence permit arrives.  Or at least they said if I wanted to leave I'd have to tell them and pay them some euros for a temporary form of paperwork.  

I have not applied for my work permit yet as I think the best order of the process is to get an offer and have the company help sponsor me.  I think getting my residence permit will help in my job possibilities.  But not knowing the language is going to make getting a job very difficult.  A non German has the lowest priority in getting a job.  The job has to be open and offered to Germans and with no person found to fill it it can then be offered to a European citizen, then if no one fills the position, it can be offered to me.  Also I have to be offered a salary about about 45K euros or they won't consider it and I can't get the permit.  I am looking into taking a German language class as soon as I can get into one.

CHURCH
We finally got to the church when there were people there.  Third time's a charm.  We tried two weekends in a row but there wasn't anyone there.  They were at the stake conference in Frankfurt and  there wasn't service here for those two weeks.  We had a wonderful time and met so many nice people.  It was great to be there.

Saturday Nov 10
Manuella drove a couple of us to the Relief Society event in Heidelberg.  She translated for me so I got the idea of what everyone was talking about.  Having her translate makes it so much easier to enjoy.  The topic was how to get going with the Christmas season but not burn yourself out or get too stressed out.  I met a lot of nice people.  There where a lot of women there, maybe 100?  I came back with some German cookie recipes that I would like to try and make soon.

Sunday Nov 11
We had another nice Sunday meeting at Church.  Everyone is so friendly and helpful.  Manuella sat behind me and Steve and translated so we got a lot out of the service too.  After church we spent the afternoon at the home of the Bishop Jurgen Broo and his wife Day-Ji and their family and the Elders.  What a lovely visit and meal we had.  All the food was wonderful but Bishop Jurgen makes his own ice cream which was probably the best ice cream I have ever had.  I'll need to walk around the lake about 10 times to walk off all that I had.  We had several flavors. Chocolate, raspberry, olive oil with pine nuts, chocolate chip and amazing cinnamon.  

REM MUSEUM (Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen)
Today it was rainy and cold so we went to one of the museums.  This museum has 4 museums in the group.  We went to one of them.  We saw the porcelain exhibit, antiquities and the history of Mannheim, and some religious history in this museum.  I like the porcelain the best today because it was so over the top detailed.  All the hours and work put into objects that mostly just sit on display for people to look at.   It would mean a lot more to see this museum if we could read the German signs better.  Still working on that and will be for awhile.

One of the buildings of the REM Museum group.

COOKING
I have enjoyed the time here without working, to do a little cooking.  I've made a few desserts and dinners.  It is a challenge to figure out what is on packages, how to find things in the stores, and things just end up tasting a little different than it did in the U.S.    I'm making my own vanilla extract, it will only take 3 months!  Vanilla beans are available and something else called vanilla sugar but it isn't the same as vanilla extract.  I made this pumpkin cheesecake with fresh pumpkins.  So far I had no luck in finding any canned pumpkin.  It wasn't hard to cook the fresh ones but without a food processor or blender or mixer, it was a lot of work to try to get it smooth like a puree.   If you want to know how I got the design on the top, let me know, I'll show you, it is easy.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

How to do the design on top:

I used paper doilies this time.  I used a big one that I cut out the center section.  Gently press it down to the frosting so it touches the cake.  You don't want it to stick too hard but also not let the cinnamon sneak up under it.

I added a smaller doily that I cut out a heart.  You can do whatever design you want.

Sprinkle cinnamon all over it and gently push it around with your finger to fill the cutouts.  Blow off the extra into the sink or outdoors.  

Gently pull off the doilies or wax paper template.

Eat big pieces and enjoy.

Here are the two I made last year using waxed paper and cut out the design I created.

CARAMEL SAUCE

I tried 3 different recipes today for caramel sauce.  None of which I had all the exact ingredients that the recipe called for but I used what I had.  For instance, I have not found "light corn syrup" yet so I used Pancake syrup.  I have not found plain cornstarch so I used a starch that the box says is for making white gravy.  It looks kinda like corn starch to me.  The brown sugar here in Germany is not as moist as I am used to in the states but it has a nice dark color.   I think the one of the creams I used was like half n half but they don't call it half n half like we do.  Anyway they all taste great and all have a lightly different texture and color.  We will enjoy having them over ice cream.

VANILLA EXTRACT

I looked all over for vanilla extract and could not find it so I found out how to make it by searching on the internet.  I started this little bottle about a week ago.  It only takes about 3 months to make.  So I should be able to use this around January.  It is pretty easy to make.  When it is done, you can replace the amount of liquid you use with some more and keep the bottle going.  Since I started it I did find a bottle at one of the big stores called Real (like a Walmart) it is a seasonal thing here so I got a bottle of it because it won't be there all the time and I can use it now in my baking.  

PUMPKIN PIE
I made a pie out of the pumpkins that I cooked and made puree from a couple of weeks ago and had in the freezer.
Well, the crust tastes good but since I didn't have pie weights or a real pie pan with sloped sides, I improvised like I do,  used a cake pan and all our spare coins on top of baking paper for pie crust weights.  It would have worked great but I didn't have enough coins so the crust shrank down along the edges that didn't have enough weight next to those edges.  I'll try to find some weights and keep looking for a regular pie dish too.  I'll add pie dish and pie weights if I can't find them to our "bring back list".  But now I have some HOT cash!  My pumpkin pie tastes pretty good even it it doesn't look great.  I covered up the edges with leaves I made from the extra dough.

Pie crust leaves.  I ordered pie cutters but they didn't arrive yet so I'll just make some myself.

These will be decoration for the pie

Finished Pumpkin Pie

LUISEN PARK
Today, November 1st,  is All Saints Day Holiday so no work!  We went to the Mannheim Luisen Park.  This was a wonderful park in downtown that we will want to visit many times.  We didn't see the entire thing and spent most of the day there.  The weather was a bit cold and the plants are going into winter.  There will be a lot of times in the year that the plants will be interesting to see.  Also there is a lake with boats, Chinese garden, many playgrounds for kids, open areas for picnics, a zoo, an aquarium, outdoor concert area, restaurants (we had a scrumptious lunch), artwork areas, greenhouses, kids water park, and more.

A beautiful willow tree and the gondola boats

This guy clearly wants me to feed him.  There are many signs that tell us not to feed any of the animals.

One of the many beautiful ducks.  This one is a Calico.  I like the water reflections in this photo.

These are those pretty wood ducks, so colorful.

Whoops!

You can't see me, I'm a camouflaged gator

This Iguana is dreaming about Steve, like I do.

This was my favorite bird.  This owl posed so nicely and is so BEAUTIFUL.

I am a SNOW owl, can you tell?

I am so beautiful.

These are Giant Peach colored Pelicans.  That big one was about 4 feet tall.   They were very tame.

The wing span of these guys must have been about 7 feet long.  I loved these Pelicans so I took a lot of pictures.

They have black feathers on the edges that only show when they open their wings.

This looks like a pelican pretzel.

The pelicans where real clowns, providing a lot of entertainment.

I don't know what this plant was but it was all over the park and such a pretty color.

I love this brilliant color

In several places we saw these wood carving like trees or mushrooms

Another plant I don't know of but had really interesting blossoms

One of the many great playgrounds.  This one was like a castle with a mote too (no water).

This skink had a blue tongue but he wouldn't stick it out again.

The tower has a spinning restaurant in it like the one in Seattle.  We'll try it sometime.