Weekend Escapades

With our social life being kicked into super-high gear, the weekends have been a happy blur of bonhomie and fun. Yes, the hectic weekends continue. Not that that makes the weeks between them any easier or faster! I still wait for the next hectic weekend to rear its beautiful head and engulf me in its being.
At the cost of sounding repetitive, the weekend that just went by was no exception. Having a friend or even a friend of a friend visiting sure makes for a marvellous time! Saturday saw about half a dozen of us making our way through the sights and sounds of Frankfurt. The weather Gods kept playing truant, what with the sun making its appearance felt one minute, only to be displaced by a light shower the next! We took a ride on the Ebbelwei (Apple Wine: Frankfurt is known for its apple wine) Express, clicked tonnes of pictures, ate lots; in short, a merry time was had by all. Walking down the coffee shops laden streets of Frankfurt like tourists and seeing all the architecture and monuments in the city which is now our home, was quite a lovely experience. Seeing them all again made them seem that much more charming! Evening had us indulge in a good game of pool and bowling. Considering that dusk during summer in Europe is only around 10 in the night, which makes it pointless to wait for the sun to set, we (the half dozen had by then become about a dozen) made our way to an Irish pub, and slowly, but steadily, proceeded to bring the house down with our raucous laughter and joviality. We downed some drinks, played the fool and returned to our houses just after midnight. Midnight (early by our current standards), only because we had an impending trip the next day!
Mainz; pretty, little Mainz...
This town, located on the west bank of the Rhine river, was our Sunday destination. After 2 in the group missing the train by just a few seconds and after countless explanations and directions over the phone, the 9 of us and 2 dogs managed to be united just in time for some lunch!
Mainz itself is a delightful place. The first thing that caught our attention was a very uniquely structured fountain, with various figurines etched onto it and water spouting out of various outlets. Like almost every place in Europe, Mainz also boasts of some beautiful churches, a lovely river, an old part of the town and some fantastic bridges. The castle that we came across was quite a letdown, though, especially after the Heidelberg one. We even made time to play some beach (artificial) throw ball and loosen up those muscles a bit!
The only blip on this beautiful day was the fight that Paul got into. Paul; poor, little, excitable Paul! Paul and Mia were the 2 dogs who were part of our group. Beautiful babies, both of them, but so easily and stupidly excitable! Mia would start (and I guess, still does) barking like crazy on spotting even the tip of the tail of any other dog, and that would excite Paul so much that off he'd go galloping like a horse! He learnt his lesson fast enough and how! The simpleton that he is, on seeing Mia bark at a couple of huge dogs (one looked like an Alsatian, the other, a Rottweiler), off he went as was his wont and before any of us could do anything, there was poor Polly being roughly manhandled and being reduced to pulp by those horrible beasts! The police came a running and finally we managed to extricate him from their vicious holds. The poor boy was in such a state of shock that we couldn't get him to eat anything even after a few hours! Thankfully, nothing worse happened. After some infuriating moments with the police detaining the owner of the 2 hounds and getting all the details about Polly, we continued on our sojourn, albeit a little morosely and leadenly. We found a nice perambulator abandoned on a sidewalk and made Paul comfortable in it. He didn't bark at a thing after that horrific trauma he'd been through. Mia, on the other hand, was Mia through and through! Barking at everything with a tail, she brought us girls to shame, I say! So much so that I called her Naughty Mia and Paul, Poor Polly, the rest of the day...
P.S. Pictures to follow; they were in 2 different cameras and a phone, at the last count!