A Whole Lotta People

Yesterday we walked south past the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) to the larger movie theater in Landau to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie. It’s a good 20 minute walk, but we were stopped about four blocks before the street the theater is on by a woman in a car who was – coincidentally – looking for the movie theater. We told her we were on our way there as well, and she offered us a ride the rest of the way. Kathy sat shotgun, and I got into the back of the car to sit next to the woman’s four or five year old son and his car seat. Kathy starts to tell the woman where to go, and I look at the kid and say, “Hallo.” After a short pause (during which I began to buckle myself in and where he was seemingly assessing the situation and deciding what to do) he says, “Hallo” back. Success! The child speaks! Then I made a comment about his shoes (Spiderman) and asked if he liked Spiderman. The kid nods, and I say I do, too. The child seems amused. Then I tell him that, unfortunately, for my shoe/foot size (Fußgroße? I have no idea how to express this concept, yet), they do not make Spiderman shoes. This is a lie because I have not done any actual research to back up this assumption. We ask what movie they’re off to see (The March of the Penguins), tell them what we’re seeing, and arrive at the theater (Film Welt) a few moments later.

Our movie started at 11 and thanks to the woman and her kid we arrived 15-20 minutes early. Tickets were €5,50, a small bag of popcorn €1,70, small beverage €1,70. Not too bad for a movie theater. Normal prices. Other options included other fountain beverages, candies, nachos (and other similar foods), more candy, coffee drinks, ice cream things, and alcohol. Yes, in a German movie theater you could kick back with popcorn and a Pilsner or Karlsberg beer and watch the March of the Penguins or the Little Polar Bear 2. The popcorn, as it turns out, is not the salty buttery goodness I am used to. It’s not caramel popcorn: it’s like they’ve taken sweet popcorn balls and broken them up so the pieces fit nicely into a paper bag. I was quite disappointed. I had purchased a cappuccino and Berliner (not a citizen of the city of Berlin, but rather a jelly doughnut) for breakfast, had brought mandarin orange candies with me as movie-theater back up, and then purchased a Coca-cola and bag of SWEET popcorn. I was not ready to go on a sugar high, and was very much looking forward to enjoying some movie theater SALT popcorn. Next time, I’m bringing along a bag of chips.

The movie was good. Go see it.

Afterwards we walked back to the city center and sat on some benches around a tree, where I learned how to crochet. Then a street performer with a Jamaican puppet set up closer to the square behind us and “played” a few Bob Marley songs for a surprisingly large audience. I didn’t look. I hate puppets. We left soon after and headed to our favorite (and only?) crêpe stand. Sunday was the last day of the festival, and out of all four days, today was the most crowded. All of the stores and shops were open and the streets were absolutely filled with people. It seemed like there were even more people in Landau yesterday than there were in Neustadt’s festival last weekend. Made me feel kind of proud.



I bought a winter semester course catalogue, and am hoping to set up a time to met with Prof. Wagner next week to go over my options and selections for classes. I’ve found some that I’d be seriously interested in taking (hoping that they will count for credits at Coe), and some that I don’t really want to take, but would most likely be candidates for counting towards my majors. Just like at Coe. This week also marks the start of my quest to fix the bike I have, so I might get an adventure out of that.

I’m starting to really like it here.