I'm no small town man ~ The writings of Mark J. Lehman

I'm no small town man

Friday, November 7, 2008 by Mark J. Lehman

Perhaps the following story will illuminate my reason for such a declaration.

"Casino Royale", the last James Bond movie, has become one of my favorite films in recent years, mostly due to Daniel Craig’s remorseless, I-don’t-care-what-anyone-else-does-I’m-going-to-get-my-way, Jack Bauer-esque portrayal of 007 (only with much fewer torture scenes than “24.”) So of course, when I found out that the new Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, would be coming out in Germany this week, a full week before all you suckers back in the US could see it, I started scouring the net looking for original language showings.

What I found: one showing per night at 8:15, in a town that’s a 30 minute and three euro ride away. Well, I wasn’t going to let that stop me. We double checked the bus schedule to make sure they would still be running by the time the movie got out, found out there was only one bus left but we should be able to make it in time, and decided to risk it.

At this point, the astute reader can probably guess what happened. The movie itself was phenomenal, though I had to use my Spanish a bit since some of the dialogue during the scenes in Bolivia are in Spanish with German subtitles. As soon as it finished, Ellen and I were out the door, booking it to the bus stop, about a mile away. We made it at 10:45, with five minutes to spare before the 10:50 bus, so we congratulated ourselves on a job well done.

Only the bus never came.

I’m still not sure why, but we waited until about 11:30 for that stupid 10:50 bus, hoping it was just running late. Since the bus stop is the beginning of the line, it wouldn’t have left early, so neither of us can figure it out. Finally, by 11:30ish we got tired of waiting, flagged down a cab, and dropped about 40 bucks on a taxi back home. It was very weak sauce; in fact, the weakest sauce I can imagine. You can bet that bus company will be getting an angry letter.

Oh how I miss the days of living in a proper city that actually has a movie theater less than 15 miles away, and that shows movies in English more than once a day. Heck, even Madrid had that.

At least I can take comfort in one thing: even in Germany, where everybody is pale white, the cab drivers are still Indian.