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Arran is everywhere…

We had good weather yesterday, so Bill and I decided to go to Wiesbaden for lunch. I had a few places in mind where I’d like to go, but they were all pretty crowded. We ended up at Scotch N’ Soda, which is an Irish pub that is popular with the American community in Wiesbaden. In retrospect, I realize there’s another Irish pub near there that we have never visited. Maybe we should have gone there… but we were destined to go to the place we knew from prior visits.

One reason we like Scotch N’ Soda, besides the fact that they have a lot of scotches, is that they don’t take a midday pause. We have a tendency to get started late on the weekends, especially on Saturdays. But as it turned out, we were well within the bounds of the lunch hours when we arrived. A lot of people were sitting outside, because it was relatively warm and sunny. We went inside, where there were several tables available.

Bill ordered us a round of beers, and I looked up and noticed a reminder of Arran… We have twice been to the distillery that makes Arran Malt whisky, and it’s a good product. We didn’t have any yesterday, but it was a reminder that our dog, Arran, will always be popping up in unexpected places.

Arran’s memory lingers.

Lots of people were watching rugby on the televisions while Bill and I enjoyed comfort food. He had cottage pie, and I had fish ‘n chips with mushy peas. I actually got the small portion (one piece of fish)– they also offer medium and large. I couldn’t finish it. In fact, we didn’t even eat dinner last night. Say what you want about British and Irish food, it does stick to the ribs!

Kilkenny and Guiness on draft…
Dollars and euros on the ceiling….
Impressive scotch whisky collection.
Excellent fish n’ chips. This was a SMALL!
Cottage pie… I didn’t try it, but Bill ate the whole thing.
They have lots of bottled beer, too.
I told him a dirty joke to get this smile.

Before we got to Scotch N’ Soda, we walked around Wiesbaden a bit. I noticed something I’d never seen before. There’s a really cool city model near the main drag. Four years, we’ve been living here, and we never saw it before yesterday.

This was constructed in 2010 and even has Braille translation. I’m always struck by how pretty the city of Wiesbaden is. It’s so graceful and genteel, compared to Stuttgart.

And no visit to Wiesbaden would be complete without a photo of the Evangelical Market Church in downtown Wiesbaden. It is such an imposing and beautiful structure. Every time I see it, it takes my breath away.

To see this huge, majestic church in person is an experience. It always makes me feel small and insignificant. Maybe that’s the point… to remind Christians of the vastness of God. I’m not particularly religious, but I can appreciate that sentiment.

Well, it’s our first weekend without Arran… and we do miss him. This is the first time since 2002 that we haven’t had a beagle in the family. Noyzi is a wonderful dog and we love him very much, but he’s definitely different on many levels. It’s hard to get used to not having a warm doggy body on the bed with us. Noyzi probably would oblige, but he’s really too big to share the bed, even though it’s a king.

On the other hand, there are some things about Arran I won’t miss… like the fact that he was never 100 percent housetrained. He was good about 90 percent of the time, but we had to watch him, especially at night or in the early morning. Sometimes he had a habit of relieving himself on my rugs, rather than telling us he needed to go outside.

On Friday morning, Arran actually DID alert me, even though he could barely walk, and he did his business outside. But as recently as a couple of weeks ago, I found a big wet spot in his favorite place. Noyzi, on the other hand, almost never goes potty in the house. He’s always been like that, even when we first got him. It’s a definite plus!

I don’t know if or when we’ll get another beagle. We do love them… but they can be rascals, and they require a lot of diligence to make sure they don’t get into trouble. On the other hand, they’re cute, snuggly, friendly, and hilarious. And they’re also not quite as common in Germany as they are in the southern United States. I have noticed they’re much more popular here now than they used to be, though.

I suspect our next dog could be another Eastern European or Balkan immigrant… and smaller than Noyzi is. We shall see. For now, I think we’re going to enjoy having a little more freedom. It’s time to start planning a vacation. I definitely need one, and this blog needs some fresh material. So stay tuned for that.

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Wiesbaden is ALIVE again!

In celebration of our fully vaccinated and certified status, Bill and I decided to visit Wiesbaden yesterday. It was my first visit to the downtown in almost a year. I hated the COVID-19 rules so much that I just stayed home, where I could do my own thing without having to worry about confrontations, dirty looks, or judgments from other people. I realize that attitude was probably prompted by news articles and social media posts I was reading on the Internet about how things are in the United States. I read so many accounts of people getting into altercations about COVID-19 that it just turned me off of interacting with other people. So, visiting Wiesbaden was kind of a big deal. I guess our Heidelberg visit last weekend was a reminder to me that life is still going on where we live, too.

I took some photos of what was happening in Wiesbaden yesterday, as well as our visit to Scotch N’ Soda, an Irish pub and popular American hangout. We stopped in for lunch and got treated to a little concert by buskers… guys I’ve seen before in the city. They rove around town with their instruments. One guy has an upright bass violin. We saw him lugging it around before he met his buddies for their session. I was so happy to see and hear them that I tipped ten euros. One of them rewarded me with “twinkling eyes” (he squinted and smiled affectionately– I used to see this in Armenia all the time) and a hearty “Danke schoen!”

  • Politics… as we were leaving, this truck was parked in the walkplatz. A table was set up with Schwag, and there were cops everywhere. Looks like a rally!
  • I had forgotten how pretty Wiesbaden is.
  • It definitely has a posh vibe.
  • It’s as if God was shining down on us… the bells were ringing, too.
  • The outdoor seating areas were full of people dining out.
  • The market was shutting down. I wished we were earlier, so we could have gotten some produce.
  • Signs of life and happiness everywhere.
  • Yes, we’re open!
  • Restaurant row was hopping! It was a little too crowded for me, though, despite the plexiglass barriers put up to hamper the spread of germs.
  • Bill checks out the bar menu at Scotch N’ Soda.
  • I thought about the MO FO burger, until I realized how huge it is… hence the hefty price tag.
  • Buskers!
  • That steakhouse also has good food.
  • I had spare ribs. Had to take some home.
  • The ribs came with mashed potatoes and salad. Bill had to help.
  • He had fish n’ chips, which were excellent.
  • This is so Wiesbaden…
  • There’s a lot of money here.
  • It’s not uncommon to see many ladies who lunch, dressed to the nines and driving hot cars.
  • Yeah… it fucked my year!
  • A classic European version of the brown squirrel who kindly posed for me. American squirrels don’t look this cute. I think think the squirrel approved of our fun yesterday.

As we were enjoying beer and lunch at Scotch N’ Soda, the buskers played “my song”. It’s not my song in that I love it– although I do. It’s my song because I’ve sung it so many times that the lyrics are burned on my brain and I can’t mess it up. I’m the same way with Patsy Cline’s version of “Crazy”. I don’t actually do those songs very often anymore, because I’ve done them so many times. But people who know me and know my songs, know those are perennial favorites from way back!

Another one of our funny experiences in a Biergarten.

On our way out of Wiesbaden, a young woman with a child asked me in German if I had two ten cent pieces for a twenty cent piece. I was surprised when I understood her without having to think too hard about it. I guess seven years in Germany is finally rubbing off on me. 😉

I think we may head out again today… take my Mini Cooper convertible, which has suffered mightily from disuse during the pandemic. We had to replace the battery two or three times because it went dead from lack of driving. Finally, we bought a battery charger and an air pump for the tires, which also were going flat from temperature changes and lack of use. Normally, during the summer months, we use my car all the time!

I would like to drive to the Rhein– maybe to Eltville or Bacharach. I’m not sure how successful that would be, though, because Die SalzbachtalbrĂźcke, which is a bridge on A66 is falling apart and will have to be blown up soon, because it can’t be repaired. That means a traffic nightmare for the next fourteen months or so, or at least that’s what the paper estimates. I’m pretty sure we usually go over that to get to those areas… and there are other places we haven’t been recently that need our attention. Maybe we’ll hit Hofheim today, instead. We’ll see… it’s just so nice to finally have the option to go out and be relatively free to be normal.

Wiesbaden was almost back to normal yesterday. They didn’t even do contact tracing at Scotch N’ Soda yesterday… no need to use the Luca app for checking in, like we did in Heidelberg last weekend. I hope the trend continues, although everybody is a bit worried about the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.

I think now it’s time to plan for a vacation… and a trip to Stuttgart for dental hygiene purposes.

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