Frankfurtly Speaking

Just got home from a weekend away from Dublin. I can't tell you how good it feels to type that.

I blew out of town on Friday with some friends from work. Destination: Frankfurt, Germany.

Now, I spent a weekend in Germany not too long ago, but really didn't get to see much beyond the insides of a couple of very nice hotels and conference centers, along with a cool double-decker bus and some fun bars. It was a working weekend, but from the little I got to see of the country, I wanted to go back. Hence, Frankfurt.

I can't say this city was our first-choice destination, but the flights were cheap - as was the hotel - and getting in and out of the Rhineland couldn't really have been easier. We spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon walking around in the cold and taking in the sights. Honestly, it's not the most attractive city I've been in, but it's got an interesting mix of old and new architecture, and certainly more vibrancy than Dublin has. I'll put up a couple of pictures soon.

At night, we sampled the requisite nightlife and I believe I can safely say, a good time was had by all. That's all that really needs to be said about that - at least in a public forum.

On Sunday, we all slept in after a late night/early morning out and woke up to some pretty serious rain. After getting our shit together, we headed out for lunch and the continuation of our weekend-long Chinese poker game. We had started playing at the airport on Friday, and picked the game up again at lunch on Saturday before diving into a day-long festival of cards on Sunday.

We played at lunch. We played at the bar after lunch. We played at the airport. We played on the plane on the way home. We played at E's apartment after we got back into town. We played for the better part of 11 hours in total on Sunday. Again, a good time was had by all, even if I did end up losing a total of 80 Euro when all was said and done.

Speaking of winning and losing, I decided to play some real poker last Thursday night since I knew I wasn't heading into the office on Friday. I headed to my local casino for what I thought was the weekly 50 Euro game, only to find out it was the monthly 100 Euro tournament. Oh well, I came to play and didn't have to worry about waking up too early, so I bought in. Nearly 8 hours later, I left the table with an additional 850 in my pocket after busting out third. I probably could have won the event, but made a bad call for most of my chips and ended up on the short stack when my K-J ran into A-J. After that, I was forced to play push and pray poker, and got knocked off the table when my 10-J ran into Q-J. Oh well.

Combined with my cash game winnings from the previous weekend, I was up the better part of two grand for the week, so I'm not complaining.

Of course, it's nearly 2AM here as I type this, and I need to be up around 8 so, if I don't pack it in now, complaining is about the only thing I'll be doing tomorrow (or, more accurately, later today).

Just eight days left before I head back to the States, by the way, but who's counting?