Weekend report

Saturday was packed with social activities. Daniel's cousin came over with her husband and 2 small children at noon for lunch and a walk in Gruneburg Park and they stayed until 7 PM!! When we extended our invitation, we never in our wildest dreams thought they would stay so long. Which is why we had invited Steve and Kelly for our weekly viewing of DSDS and for dinner at 7 pm. DSDS (German version of American Idol) had its final, which was a boring "showdown" between Mark and Martin, two contestants we never had much interest in. After the final, we met some fellow ex-pats at Joe Pena's to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
Sunday we took our bicycles out for the first time. Once we got past the end of our street, it was like a whole new world opened up to us. There is actually quite a lot of green around Frankfurt (you see it from airplanes very well) and we rode in an area called Nidda Park. It was a very warm day, and we went out in the heat of it (a mistake we call "the badlands mistake" after suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion thanks to 3 of Daniel's brothers not bringing any water on our hike last June in Badlands National Park). So we weren't out for more than 1 1/2 hours. But that was fine for my first long ride in nearly 6 years!
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and reading. Daniel is in the middle of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" which I read a few months ago and really liked. I just finished Lionel Shriver's "The Post Birthday World" which is very well written but leaves you feeling like the author was a bit too hard on her main character. The book explores two different paths her life might take, each under the influence of a different man. So the concept is a bit like the movie "Sliding Doors" except that in the movie, it is clear that Gywneth Paltrow's character is better off without her cheating husband, while the author refuses to stack the deck in this book. Anyway, I just started "The Bullet Trick" by Louise Welsh, based on a recommendation from Steve.