The day started with a run along the Main river.  Rivers are a bonus for runners because it is easy to get keep your bearings.  With many sights to see, it is hard to feel motivated to do longer runs especially since my husband is no longer able to run as far as he used to.

Then we headed off to the heart of the Frankfurt tourist district.  While enjoying a basic but excellent German lunch we got a text message from one of my brothers saying that he and a 4 workmates had a longer than expected stopover in Frankfurt and were enroute to the centre of town from the airport.  With 3 Blackberries in play, emails, text messages and a couple of trolley rides we zeroed in on the group at perhaps the most touristic spot in town.

The group was exhausted, having traveled from Whitehorse and spending several hours at the airport haggling over a missed connection to Venice.  My brother the architect is the fearless leader of  his band of hardy employees, headed to the Venice Architecture Biennale.  In spite of 24 hours with no sleep they plotted their course over the next few hours of unplanned for time in Germany.  We left them as they considered their options and headed to Goethehaus.

Goethehaus was brought to life by an excellent audio tour which was made easy to navigate with state-0f-the-art hand held visual prompter.  After this we headed to the nearest coffee house to recharge and wondered aloud about what time “The Marriage of Figaro” started as we contemplated doing some shopping for a stylish shirt for my husband to wear to the opera.  The time 6 :00 p.m.  The afternoon had passed quickly and we decided that since the Opera house was close by we check to see what time the show started.

We began to worry as we saw crowds of well dressed patrons entering the place.  At this point I realized that I had lost the printout of our on-line ticket order.  We dashed into the opera house and found out the opera was due to start in 30 minutes.  After discussion with various staff we were able to have our tickets printed and with our hotel 5 minutes away decided to jog to our hotel to change.  Needing more time to change than my husband I sprinted ahead and by the time he arrived, was half-changed.  We made it to our seats with 9 minutes to spare.

Having missed dinner, we snacked at the intermission on open-faced sandwiches.  The opera was delightful but long, although the finale was grand.  We decided to eat at a restaurant we had noticed close to our hotel and were shocked to find ourselves in front of a photo of a CP rail car at the Chicago Meat Packers Restaurant.  Where am I?  Did we flash back to our holiday a couple of years back in the windy city!

All’s well that ends well and we strolled happily back to our hotel.  What a day!