Movies and Parties and Erfurt, Oh My!

Hello all!

So I´ve done some pretty great things in the past few days. I went and saw this old German film called Die Feuerzangebowle, which was pretty entertaining. It was made in 1943 or ´44. The Nazi´s wanted to make a funny movie to cheer up the people, so they made this one, which was about an older guy who goes back to school. Think along the same kind of lines as Billy Madison only this film is black and white, the guy is much older, and the students are between 15-17, and, of course, it´s in German. That brings me to another point, actually, because some parts of the movie were difficult to understand. This was a combination of the sound quality being a little iffy and the German they spoke back then (i.e. the dialect) was just a lot different. If you´re thinking maybe it´s just because German is not my mother language, then how do you explain so many Germans who see this movie saying the same thing?

The actual term ´Feurzangebowle´ has to do with a type of drink. Picture this: A huge clear-glass bowl with warm red wine. On top of it there is a metal screen with a bunch of sugar cubes sitting on it. You pour rum over the sugar cubes, then light them on fire. The sugar cubes slowly melt and drip through the screen into the warm wine. It kind of tastes like Glühwein, if y´all know what that tastes like. It´s good stuff.

The movie is definitely considered a German classic, and it´s played every year. Kind of like Miracle on 34th Street or something. And no matter how many times you´ve seen it, it´s just a tradition to watch it every year. We went and saw it one of the nights they were playing it in the University. They were selling Feuerzangebowle and playing music outside. Then during intermission, they gave out little prizes and had a guy dressed in a Santa outfit beat-boxed. He was actually pretty good. I managed to record the last song he did, which was a Christmas one. It was not the best by far-he did some crazy complicated stuff that I didn´t tape. The quality of the picture is also not good, because it was all dark in there and they just had a weak spotlight on him.

On Friday was Thomas´ birthday party. We had some snacks, a cake, Czech. beer, and Glühwein (of course). The highlights were definitely dance time and limbo time. You can check out photos from the movie and birthday party in this album.

And on Saturday a group of us had breakfast at 11am, and then took the train to Erfurt for a city tour and to check out the christmas market. At night it´s especially cool when it´s all lit up. I also managed to sniff out a second-hand shop. heheh. By the way, when you look at the pictures of Erfurt, you´ll see a few of the Kremabrücke. This is really cool. It´s a bridge that goes over the river in Erfurt, but it´s built like a street with houses and shops and stuff. So when you´re on it, you think it´s just another street until you walk around to the back of the houses and see that they´re built over the river.

Oh, and I added a couple of pictures to the This & That album, too.