the good times - parties at Mauricio´s "bar"

Two or three times in the last few months my friend Mauricio has thrown terrific parties where he lives. Mauricio, you see, couldn´t find a room in student housing. Instead, he lives in the basement of an amazing German Catholic fraternity house.

In some ways, it may not look like the most desirable of living conditions, but in fact Mauricio has got it very good. He has a very nice handful of rooms, and although there can be quite a ruckus from time to time, it´s the sort of ruckus that tends to happen on weekend nights when ruckus is really welcome. Moreover on the main story is a massive refrigerator that gets restocked weekly with literally hundreds of beers from the best German brewery´s. Mauricio has been told he should never hesitate to help himself.

But anyway, Mauricio often has the four story house -- really a mansion -- to himself, and the brothers declared long ago that he was more than welcome to throw parties whenever he saw fit. The best part is that in the basement of his house is a large but cosy room completely decked out like a German bar or Kneipe. This
room is no joke -- there is a full bar, bar stools, dark wood paneling, a piano, old German paintings on bar-room type themes, a glowing chandalier -- but not too bright -- several tall wooden barrels carefully positioned so you can place your drinks there, and even an ancient stuffed fox -- you can see him on the left-hand side in the picture to the right. All in all, a room best described with the German adjective gemütlich which means cosy but much more. Most young hosts could only dream about having a room like this to throw parties in.

So we did. And it was great. The assembled guests were an unusually diverse group because when the first parties commenced we had only just recently completed our DSH course and Prüfung - exam - which is a pre-requisite for admission into the university. And a crash-course in the German language means exchange students from all over the world because, well, who else is going to be studying German grammar?

So at the parties were students and acquaintances from Germany, but also from the United States, Mexico, the U.K., Paraguay, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, and Eastern Europe. Ashish can be seen above on the left near one of the barrels.

These were good times.