Hallo Aus Zwoenitz

Hello friends. I made it to Zwönitz, at long last. Yesterday sucked, real hard. I flew out of Philly at six on Tuesday night, arrived in Frankfurt on Wednesday morning, and then spent all day on one train after the other, hauling my comically oversized luggage with me. I had two massive suitcases, weighed down by BOOKS, in addition to my backpacks, which were stuffed with duty free CIGARETTES. As you can see, I'm every bit as cool here in Germany as I was in America.
My flight was pretty standard. No legroom, two crying children across the isle from me, awful romantic comedy as the movie, etc. The food was decent though, and I think I got several glasses of wine for free, or at least I didn't pay for them. The guy sitting next to me was very peculiar. He was German, probably mid-20's, and he sat there for the entire flight without doing anything. He just sat there, no headphones, no book; he didn't even sleep. I was obviously raging to some particularly dirty Biscuits sets, so he was probably somewhat weirded out by my head-bobbing and occasional fist-pumping...I also kind of hogged the middle arm rest. Whatever.
The movie. It was "Made of Honor," which I guess is supposed to be a pun, much like "Made in Manhattan" from a few years back. But I don't really see how it works, there is nothing honorable about any character in the movie. I will now provide a brief review.
SPOILER ALERT
So, it begins at Cornell University (ever heard of it?) in the early nineties. Tom, the protagonist, is quite the ladies man, and he's stumbling through a freshman dorm looking for some biddie who he has been defiling. She's not at home, and he instead meets her roommate, the ballsy, quick-talking Hannah. Though Tom throws some game her way, she's way too spunky to fall for it, but she's obviously attracted to him. Fast forward ten years, the two are best friends. Like, such good friends it makes you want to vomit. They shop, eat fancy deserts, and just like totally rage the yuppie NYC lifestyle to the extreme. Tom has made a fortune by inventing the little cardboard sleeves that go on coffee cups, so he doesn't really have to do anything but shoot hoops with his bros (a bigger group of tools I cannot imagine) and be a total gal pal for Hannah. He supposedly gets laid constantly, but he has an extensive list of "rules" about how often he can see these concubines and under what circumstances. His adherance to these rules is so intense, however, that he loses any bro points he earned by getting laid so much.
Hannah abruptly leaves for a month long work trip in Scotland, where she meets a Duke who is the perfect Scottish gentleman. He is a brawny, soft spoken young man set to inherit his family's lucrative Scotch business. He seems to have no flaws, but as a guy, I guess you're supposed to hate him for being so perfect (because Tom is not perfect at all, he's just your average super-rich, handsome, witty Ivy League graduate). In her absence, Tom has decided that what he's been looking for in a woman has actually been right there in front of him the whole time: the extremely attractive, intelligent, carbon copy of himself- Hannah! So when Hannah returns with Colin and asks Tom to be her maid of honor, he has to accept if he wants any chance of sabotaging the wedding and winning her over (I guess this would be the "honor" being punned in the film's title).
One day, Tom and Colin are supposed to hang out so that Colin can become "one of the guys." Tom brings him to the basketball court, the hang out spot for him and his college bros. Tom sees this as an opportunity to upstage Colin, who initially seems bewildered by the sport. After a few minutes, though, Colin realizes that its actually very simple because, standing at about 5'10", Colin can DUNK! And not just dunk, but dunk over people, all people, on every single play, whenever he wants. Well, Tom doesn't like this one bit; his plan has backfired!
Eventually, it comes time for the wedding in Scotland on Colin's family's elegant estate. Tom is running out of time. Yet whenever he tries to get a moment alone with Hannah, the two are interrupted!
Apparently, in Scotland, the ancient tradition is for the husband-to-be to compete in a series of manly athletic competitions with the male maid of honor who is actually in love with the bride (not unlike the final chapter of The Odyssey). These include tug of war, shot put, and so on, all while wearing kilts. Coming into the final event, Tom and Colin are tied! The last competition is throwing a massive log end over end as far as possible. Tom can barely lift it, and his throw goes the wrong direction and lands on someone's car. HA! Tom is crushed, if he had just thrown the log far enough, he could have had Hannah for himself.
Finally the night before the wedding, at Hannah's bachelorette party, Tom kisses her and she kisses him back. The two make out for a solid 5 seconds, making that one hell of an ambiguous kiss. They are again interrupted, but back at the castle that night, in a scene cut DIRECTLY from Wedding Crashers, the two cannot sleep and after contemplatively staring out the window for a while, decide they need to talk. Unfortunately, just as Tom opens his door, a hot, drunken brides maid stumbles in looking for some late night bridal party ass. Hannah walks in a moment later and misconstrues what is going on; to her it seems that Tom is up to his old games, he hasn't matured at all. Tom runs after her but its too late, she wanted to talk about the kiss but now she won't talk to him at all. Distressed, Tom leaves early the next morning.
Colin doesn't seem to wonder why Tom has abruptly decided he can't be in the wedding, after all, what could possibly have happened between two very attractive people who have been best friends for a long time right before one of them gets married? Halfway to the airport, Tom recalls a moment long ago when Hannah told him that he should try saying "I love you" to a person at some point in his life. That's it, he realizes. The cab comes to a halt and Tom locates a pre-saddled horse belonging to a complete stranger who encourages Tom to ride like the wind to stop the wedding.
After a harrowing ride, he arrives at the church just in time. The priest does the whole "if anyone can see why these two should not be married, speak now..." thing, as the horse comes to an abrupt stop, hurling Tom at the church where he crashes through the closed doors. He is knocked unconscious and Hannah comes running to his side. Slowly he comes to and manages to tell her that he loves her. A beautiful moment. Hannah declares that she cannot marry Colin and wants to be with Tom instead. Colin, ever the gentleman, understands and kisses her on the cheek. His quirky grandmother (again ripped off of Wedding Crashers) tells him in an unintelligble Scottish dialect to punch Tom in the face, which he does. But its ok, the two are together at last. I was moved so deeply that I managed to fill my air sickness bag with tears of joy.
My Rating: A-
It was a hell of a movie, but I just didn't like Tom enough to really root for him the way I think the audience is supposed to. Still, this one has laughs at every turn. Furthermore, the movie explores a truly original concept: a ne'rdowell womanizer with a heart of gold is no longer satisfied by a life of getting absurd ass all the time and realizes his super hot best friend has been in love with him all along, so why not just marry her? Deeply conceptualized, artistically driven, and aesthetically awe-inspiring, "Made of Honor" is one of the best films I have seen on an airplane in a very, very long time.

Why was that necessary, you may be asking yourself. Well, I guess it was not. Anyway, I landed in Frankfurt and switched to my train to Leipzig. A couple minutes after this train left the station, I pressed the button to open the bathroom door. I was horrified to see an old lady, pants down, sitting on the toilet. "Jesus!" I shouted before apologizing and averting my eyes. The woman frantically starting pushing buttons, but the door remained open for a good ten seconds before slowly shutting again. When she eventually emerged, I apologized some more, but she seemed totally unconcerned. Luckily, I will not be dealing with any sexual harrassment charges just yet.
After more trains and hauling my shit through more miserable train stations, I arrived in Zwönitz around 9 PM. It was cold, dark, and rainy, and I suddenly realized that I did not know where to find a hotel. Not good. I walked aimlessly down what seemed to be a main street until I found a sign for a bed and breakfast. The lights were all off and there was obviously construction work being done, however. Luckily, and old woman appeared, and told me she was friends with the owners. She came with me to the backdoor, and after a lengthy conversation, I was finally invited inside, where I passed out for twelve hours.
Today I'm going to explore the town and school, there's definitely plenty of excitement to come! Stay tuned.