Last Friday, the Americans at SAP celebrated Thanksgiving. This is an annual event. This year we had a record turnout with 60+ adults and 30+ kids. Given that many of us have no other family here, it is a great way to share the turkey. Cooking and eating such a huge meal by ourselves would mean a lot of work and a lot of leftovers.

Pictures from the Thanksgiving event.

Andrea and I successfully passed our belt tests in karate. I am now a white belt. Andrea did a double test and took a yellow belt. Pictures to follow.

Yesterday we had our first snowfall. It was just a dusting of snow. None of it stuck, melting as soon as it hit the ground.

Last weekend we celebrated Andrea's birthday. We were going to go to Fischbach near Dahn to walk a treetop trail. Unfortunately they were expecting high winds and rain. It does not make much sense to go walking in the tops of trees when they are swaying back and forth. So we went for plan B. Anke and Ralf came down and we spent the morning playing Tabu XXL.





For lunch we wanted to find a tavern with a traditional meal for St. Martin's Day, goose. Well we called two restaurants and one was closed and the other was only open in the evening. The third we could not find a telephone number for, so we walked there only to find it closed, too. The fourth restaurant we walked to only served hot meals after 5 o' clock. Now hungry and frustrated we drove to the Indian restaurant near SAP. There we got our birthday lunch. Ursula was so taken with the lentil soup that she actually debated whether to have more soup for dessert or to take the ice cream. The ice cream won out, but as we went to leave, the waiter brought out a plastic bag and put it down by Ursula. "What is that," we asked. "Lentil soup," said the smiling waiter.






On Sunday Ella and Eva came over for cake with their respective partners Sigi and Klaus. Ella brought a delicious cake. There were knick-knacks for the girls and flowers and gifts for Andrea. They spent the afternoon for coffee and tea.