What a weekend it was.

I said that I was looking forward to quite the weekend, and boy it didn't disappoint. It was most certainly eventful, I've made a few new friends, a few enemies, and had the time of my life at the Mainz Open Air concert last night. And I'm also going to start by thanking Anne for a brilliant weekend, one which I won't be forgetting about anytime soon.

Let me begin however by explaining what the changes in the plans were. I hadn't been intending to stay in Mainz overnight, and hadn't heard about the concert, but I got a phonecall during the writing of the last post and was told that I could stay the night at Anne's and go to the concert as well. So, that's kinda what happened.

It all began with a rather expensive train journey to Mainz via Frankfurt. Frankfurt was my first destination of any significance. This is where the enemies section of that opening paragraph come in. McDonalds, should be safe enough. Not if you're wearing a TSG Hoffenheim shirt. When I said in my presentation that they were anything other than popular, I was more than right. And when one of Anne's flatmates later told me that Eintracht Frankfurt fans were some of the most agressive in Germany, she was also more than right. I was standing there minding my own business when two Frankfurt fans turned round to see me in my Hoffenheim shirt. First mistake. I then tried to tell them in German that I couldn't understand what they were saying. Second mistake. Should have played the 'ich spricke keine Deutsch' card. From what I could understand, they wanted to burn my shirt, I had too much money, and had better have had another t-shirt in my bag. I did, but I wasn't going to tell them that. When another five of these hardcore Eintracht fans arrived, I waited it out for another two minutes (slowest McDonalds staff ever by the way), and then slunk out quietly, and made my way down to the S-Bahn without my much needed drink. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, there was a vending machine downstairs, which I do think was kind of cheaper.

Other than that, I had a stress free, amazingly fun weekend! Back home, United won 5-0, here, Mainz beat FC Bayern 2-1 which had the whole city absolutely bouncing, and I went to my first concert, which I absolutely loved. Without a doubt. Only thing is, I enjoyed the Sugababes way too much. I will however blame Hannah. She made me dance and actually enjoy myself. I was quite proud of myself though. I started a sway in the middle of one of their old songs, maybe a hundred people? Was quite pleased with myself. A mention also has to go to Sunrise Avenue who were also rather good, and took me completely by surprise with the rapping. That was just hilarious.

Before the concert though I was given a guided tour by it's most Northern Irish inhabitant, Anne Schickel. It really is a lovely city with a lot of history behind it, and is fantastic for photography. The university area is also lovely, with the stadium being in close proximity. And of all the teams to be playing there, as I have already mentioned, FC Bayern München. We were unfortunate enough to be standing in a shopping centre between two bars, one for Mainz fans, one for Bayern, and be there just as Bayern scored their goal. Germans more than know how to celebrate. So as could be expected, when we walked back past the stadium to go home, we couldn't hear each other speak, thankfully the score stayed at 2-1 and the entirety of Mainz was happy for the rest of the day. Then again, I think some of the Bayern fans just used it as an excuse to get drunk. One fan wearing a Lucio shirt basically stripped in front of a lorry whilst kissing the Bayern badge, it was weird, but I was in hysterics.

Church was a very different experience. Despite being tired to the point of almost falling asleep during prayer, it was a rewarding experience. I didn't necessarily understand it all, but it was nice just to be there and to experience a German church service. They blessed the kids starting school, and the youth pastor who was leaving to take up a post 600km away. Sounds somewhat familiar, but slightly more extreme distance-wise... Hmm. Well, because of this, the service was about 2 hours long, but afterwards there was a dinner for everyone, and I had a great time with Philip and Christian. After I had said my goodbyes, Anne and I made our way to Limburg, a beautiful historic town, roughly the same size as Lisburn, and I was shown round it.

Now for a very German thing. Spaghetti-Eis. It's delicious, and ya know what makes it even better? Having it in three different colours. Yes, I had apple, bubble gum and vanilla flavoured spaghetti eis. It was AMAZING. Green, blue and white. I'll have a photo up before too long, it was simply fantastic.

But now I'm back to work. Quite the stark contrast from this past weekend. So I shall leave you now, have a great day and God bless.