Weekend Fun

It's Fasching tomorrow (Karnival, Mardi Gras, etc) and all around town this weekend we saw people dressed up in costumes. Last Thursday at work, Marty saw a man wearing a tie that had been cut off halfway down his chest. When he saw the second tie like that, the asked someone, and learned that the Thursday before Fasching is the day when men get their ties cut off with scissors. Okay!

We didn't dress up, but we had a good weekend too. Friday night was an English evening with a Canadian woman I met in my German class and two of her friends from England and New Zealand. We met at the Löwenbräukeller in Stiglmaierplatz and shut the place down.

Saturday I discovered that there was a double feature that night at the cinema -- Chicago and Moulin Rouge. I'm sure nobody's surprised to hear I couldn't resist that. We were out really late, since the first movie didn't start until around 11pm. But boy, was it fun. Chicago was all right -- I think I'd probably like it better on the stage, with all the original Fosse choreography, but it was enjoyable.

Of course, it was no Moulin Rouge. And my oh my, was it nice to see that movie on the screen again. Two years after I first enjoyed it, that film sits firmly in my top five or ten of all time. I absolutely love it.

Sunday we went on the train out to Freising to visit another friend from my German class. We walked all around Freising, up to the Dom and the Weihanstephan beer university and through the altstadt. It's warmed up a lot in the last week or so, and all the gelato stores were open and everyone was out walking around town. I took a bunch of pictures but, thanks to (I think) some Windows XP updates, I am finding it impossible to liberate them from my camera. I will keep trying.

Tomorrow morning at the Viktualienmarkt is the big Fasching celebration, I think, so if the weather is clear I may try to get down there and take some pictures as well. It should be interesting. In the meantime, we've been enjoying the sugary Faschingbrezn (like donut pretzels) and Krapfen with apricot filling.

Finally, a note for those of you with sandwich grills. Marty and I had one of these years ago when we lived in Pennsylvania, and recently we got one here in Germany. Any sandwich filling works great in the grill but some are more sublime than others; for instance, we have always loved grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and now I can also vouch for the yum factor of peanut butter and nutella. But I think yesterday we discovered something even better. I put leftover spaghetti sauce on a slice of bread, topped it with grated cheese and another slice of bread, and grilled it. Oh. My. God. It was so good. We were both completely shocked. I recommend it wholeheartedly! (And incidentally, this looks like a nice grill, and the price is certainly decent as well... if you're in the market for one.)