One month Down. 11 to go

Just as a Candle cannot burn without fire, Men cannot live without a spiritual life.
-Buddha-


HEEEYYY everyone!


Well. Tomorrow (Tuesday) Marks one month since I got here. It's crazy. Absolutely insane! There is a part of me that is like, Oh my gosh! I've already been here for a month? And then there's another part of me that is like..What the? It's only been a month? Feels like I've been here an eternity!
What happened this week? Hmm..Well I met a sister missionary from Plain City, we reminisced on missing Melina's and when she found out my cousins owned it and I worked there she asked if I knew Adam Peterson. I thought, Wow. Those Peterson boys. From Craig on down to Adam. They know ALL the ladies. ;) No, but it was fun to talk to her, She's way cool! She's been here for as long as I have.
Everyone kept saying that I would get homesick this week and I didn't believe them, but lo and behold. I think I had a realization of how long a year is and I just...kinda...ooohhh myyy goossh! What am I doing? It wasn't a bad depressed homesick. It wasn't a "something bad happened" homesick. it was just simply a, "wow. I don't want to be here" homesick. I'd rather be home or in New York with Russell. I think I'm just longing for someone or something familiar.
I went shopping this week as well. There was a really weird statue....I still can't figure it out, but even then I was like. what the???? what is he doing?
Also, in the shopping area of Frankfurt they're building this building and it's weird...I'm convinced it's a portal to another dimension. But none of the ropes were within my reach so i could climb and find out. dang.
QUIZ TIME! This man is a-) a carnie begging for money
b-) taking his pony for a walk
c-) all of the above


If you answered C, then you are CORRECT!

These things are creepy! They don't even sound like horses, more like...pigs. But whatever. There you have it: Teacup horses and Carnies! They need lovin too!
On Friday, the girls had a potluck dinner at school and Carola convinced me to make foods for them, so here's the conversation:
"Mandee, Anna's class is having a potluck dinner at school friday night. Do you know what a potluck dinner is?"
"Yes, Carola." (underlying tone: I'm Mormon, I'm Utahn, I'm American! We revolutionized Potlucks and Buffets.)
"We're supposed to make something everyone can eat."
"Yeah, generally that's the idea at Potlucks, " (no laughter in response to my mild joke)
"Okay, Then what are you making?" (WHAT? When did I get roped into this?)
"What am I making?"
"Yes, I assumed you were going to cook something for it?" (Oh okay.....)
"Well my brother taught me how to make this amazing pasta salad. If we had top ramen I could make cabbage salad." (score. those never fail at potlucks!)
"Salads? No Mandee, it needs to be a finger food. Don't worry you'll figure it out. Friday night. Okay? You can come if you want. I don't see why not." (Oh! You mean I get to cook the food AND eat it too? Lucky me!)
So I started wracking my brain for a finger food you could take to a potluck. What did I do?
Ladies and gentleman: Croissasnt dough, gouda cheese (they don't have cheddar here) and wienerchen....I give you: The Mandee's Germanized attempt at Pigs in a blanket:

The result: Yummy, but ladies and gentleman, even this german sausage can't compare to a little smokie. I'm telling you. Americans are onto something there. Oh and the picture? That's onlya bout half of the pigs. I ended up taking tons to the American neighbors and then I didn't even go to the potluck. I went to the institute for movie night and took some with me to that.


So Once again taking the girls to school, it was a very frosty morning, everything covered in that white frost blanket, and there was a beautiful sunrise, which I captured, and in my opinion, did a pretty dang good job. I thought this was gorgeous.


Saturday Morning I woke up to POURING RAIN. POURING. I knew I had two choices: Sit in te house all day and go insane with homesickness, or brave the rain and find something to do. Yep. Brave the rain. So I went into Frankfurt, took the train to Schweizerplatz and found a chocolate cafe called dulce. Man it was good. And then I found the Städel Museum of art history. I was just...captured for 4 hours. I sat and sketched costumes and took notes on what they were wearing, etc. It was like I wasn't in germany, I wasn't in America, i was just in this little world with all this artwork, Vermeer! Degas! Renoir! Manet, Monet, Van Eycke, Munch, Boticelli! It was just amazing! My favorites are still Renoir and Vermeer. And I love the impressionism paintings. I feel like I've intruded into someone's dream with impressionism. Like it's that space between waking up and sleeping where you still remember your dream, but it's fading fast. And I love Vermeer and his use of light and composition. I find his paintings so simple, and yet so bea

When I left the museum, I was on the Rhine, so I crossed a bridge and took some pictures of Frankfurt. It was pouring rain and kinda foggy, so they're not that grea. I can't wait to see this city in spring! Frankfurt was bombed during the war, but it is one of the few major cities that still has most of its old buildings and churches from before the war. They've rebuilt the Alte Oper (old opera house) which got demolished, but you go downtown, and most of the churches are really really old. So I grabbed the train home so I could go babysit at Julie's and drifted off. When I woke up we were leaving a station, so I looked up to see what the next stop was. Bad Homburg. Oh okay. Wait..BAD HOMBURG? that means I missed my stop. I woke up AS we left my stop. And I had to be at Julie's to babysit in 10 minutes. So I got off at Bad Homburg. There wouldn't be another train to Oberursel for 25 minutes. So I had to grab a taxi to get back to Oberursel. So Russell, I slept through my stop. But unfortunately, it wasn't quite as easy as missing a stop on the subway.
But when I got there, the boys were watching Star wars, so we made brownies and watched star wars. Woohoo!

The language is...not coming, but I"m trying. Anyway, here's a video for you guys. Honestly It's probably not that funny to anyone, but it makes me laugh so hard!



Last night I had dinner at the Brown's house. (People from my ward). We had the best pork roast and then spätzle. Okay. I have always known this and i say it everytime I eat it, but I LOVE SPÄTZLE!!!!!! We had a fireside afterwards for the youth. It was about the Journey Faith by Lehi's family and it was seriously just so cool! They're daughter, Jen, is 21, and we Visiting Teaching partners. It was a good sunday.

I lvoe you guys! Hope everything is well! Can't wait to hear from everyone. Love you all!