Saturday, January 21, 2012

What I did in Mainz

Mainz was fun, although I was a little under the weather, and didn't do much dancing.

I had an amazing meal at a place near the theater, HDW (Haus de deutschen weines) for not a lot of money. I got a huge veal roast, red cabbage, and spaetzle, German noodles. It was delicious. The waiter didn't feel like indulging in meine deutsche zehr schlekt, so he decided to pretend to be French. I wasn't angry though, because he tripped at one point and we both laughed for a long time.

As I was leaving he explained how to get the nearest movie theater, which turned out to be the one I walked past on the walk with Johanna when I first arrived in Mainz. All movies in Germany are dubbed, with no subtitles. I decided to go through with it anyway, and ran into the theater for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

Now, I've read the whole trilogy since I left on this trip (thank goodness for the kindle, much less heavy than lots of books.) I was really excited to see the movie, but of course was worried that I wouldn't understand anything in German. It didn't take me long to make a decision about that, and I was very excited about the outcome. Since I knew the story, it was easy for me to follow what was going on, even within the conversations. I knew if somebody was giving a threat, or telling a joke. It was very rare that I had no idea what was going on. And I knew enough German vocabulary, mostly from the language course my dad sent me, to actually understand some of the dialogue.

when the movie was over, I was very satisfied because it felt like I'd seen a movie. I'm not saying I can understand German. Most of the time it still feels like people could be speaking Swahili around me. I'm just saying it felt like I've made some progress. And, the movie was great!!

The audition today in Mainz was uneventful. I wasn't the director's type and was cut almost instantly. The best thing about it was that I've gotten to know some of the other people from seeing them at other auditions. I exchanged some emails and am happy to have made some new friends.

Now I'm back in Frankfurt for the night and traveling to Lyon tomorrow. The TGV was sold out from Paris to Lyon, so I'm taking a longer route that has at least 3 transfers. I'll be traveling all day, but thankfully it doesn't start until noon!

I found a yoga studio that had a 9am class tomorrow morning, so that will be a nice way to start the day.

No comments:

Post a Comment