no-plan plan Saturdays

In my book No-Plan Saturdays are the best. You know, the ones where you wake up, roll over and laser beam stare at your other until he opens his eyes and jumps a little at your creepy wide eyes, and you exclaim, "whattarewegonnadotoday?!'

Just me? Okay, whatever. 

Contrary to what you may believe, the Checchias are not always gone for the weekend. I'd say three out of four in a month are spent in Frankfurt, where Michael refuses to go anywhere that's farther (further?) than a 15 minute train journey. Fortunately, Frankfurt summers are full of festivals to entertain and parks to explore, if the rain would only let up. I used to hate the No-Plan Plan, because I like to know what's going on and suck the marrow out of each hour, but I've realized that sometimes the best days are had when you just let it decide for itself. 

A Saturday in the Life of American Expats Whose Friends or Wives are Unable to Play Because they're in Cool Places Like Italy and the United States of America:

I somehow convinced Mike to go to the giant flea market, even though he gets bored easily looking at the same junk that's always there. We went on the pretext of finding the booty lady, who knits the most amazing booties on the face of the planet, sitting on the curb and selling the 5 or 6 pairs she made that week. Unfortunately we could not locate her. Maybe she takes the summers off. 

The best Saturdays usually come from long bikes rides to nowhere. A couple weeks ago we found a cool riverside trinkhalle under a bridge with old men consuming beers and the trains rumbling overhead. This week, we took the long way home through Bockenheim, riding through our favorite park, and stumbled across an Asian-themed garden to soak our tootsies. 

Later, we made a plan to meet up with Cory at the Schweizer Platz fest, except right before arriving we got caught in a massive storm for 45 minutes under an awning. That was not planned. 

So naturally, Cory took the U-Bahn back one stop and met us with beers while we waited for the rain to subside. Prost!

The sun reappeared! We made it to Schweizer Platz and immediately commenced our gluttonous ways.

Empanadas. Steak sandwiches. Pommes frites. Kartoffel puffers, perhaps (which are like a hashbrown cake with appelsauce, try it. Delish.) Beer, apfelwein. I could keep going. We couldn't stop eating. 

I'm pretty sure my heaven will include giant hams on a rotating pole. 

sorry, Cory, this picture is too good to pass. He had just said, "Usually Marley (his wife) is around to stop me when I've had enough. But she's in the states."

oh you know, just rocking my mullet and eating some ice cream.

 To top it all off we then rode our bikes 20 minutes to the best ice cream place (Eis Cristina) for spaghetti eis. Yes, it looks just like spaghetti. Awesome!

 I encourage you, where ever you are, to attempt a Saturday just as this. Hop on your bike (maybe after driving it to a good location, all yous in Florida) and just let it dictate your day. Then post pictures and tell me about it! :)