May 29

At around 8:00 today I set out for Mainz. The train from Ingelheim for that distance was a reasonable €4.70, so after figuring the system out for myself I was in Mainz at about 9:17. Mainz is the capitol city for Rheinland-Pfalz, the Bundesland that Ingelheim is located in. It happens to be where Barbara lives, so she recommended I go; as did others, for there are many things to see there. I was able to get a map from a lady at the Deutsche Bahn booth in the Hauptbanhof, and with no idea where I was, I set off stalwartly. It took some walking, mixed with intense map reading to figure out where I in fact was, but after that it was mostly straightforward. The first place I went was to St. Stephan’s church, known for its Chagall windows. The second that I arrived, a motorcade with police escort pulled up and a lot of suits piled out of cars and into the church. I wasn’t at all sure what to make of that, so I just continued on after getting some outside pictures and a short look around. There is a pretty good system of signs here for finding things, so I just kept walking where they were pointing, trying to find things that Barbara had mentioned. I made it to the Zitadelle; I still have no idea what that is. It was directly after this Zitadelle compound/walled thing with modern buildings inside (and after seeing a small Roman ruin) that I managed to finally figure out where I was and construct some sort of plan. One of the more important sights here is the large Dom. It is a catholic church, and certainly one of the more magnificent structures that I have seen. It was pretty cool to tour, and free, so of course I stayed a while. Right next to the Dom is a bustling Obst & Gemuse Markt just full of people, fresh fruits and vegetables. Also near the Dom is the Gutenberg museum. How could I go to Mainz and not visit that museum? At this point, I could have bought a ticket in German, but the cashier had just spoken in Spanish to some people ahead of me, and German before, so I decided to see how her English was. It turns out, very good. She could speak Spanish, German, English, Italian and maybe a bit of Russian. You never know with people here, some can just speak German (or just Turkish, which is far worse for me), and then you have people like her. Anyway, the museum was pretty cool. It had a few of the original Bibles on display as well as a lot of the equipment. I’m not completely sure if they had any original equipment or not. Much of it was in German, and I wasn’t that interested in futilely parsing through a museum’s worth of German to find out. They showed a movie that was stop motion animated to tell Gutenberg’s story, which I could understand mostly from watching what was going on. Good job German film people. After the movie they had a demonstration of a press that was a replica of the first on Gutenberg made. It’s kind of hard to appreciate something like that when I can go back to my room and be typing this. But we wouldn’t be here without that, so it’s important to remember what an achievement that was; and Mainz was the beginning. They’ve got a cool looking Rathaus (city hall/government building) here along the Rhein, and it was close, also natürlich, I went there next. It is very modern looking with all sorts of metal and concrete everywhere. The walk along the Rhein had plenty of benches and was a great spot for lunch. I brought along some apples and a Nutella sandwich. Not having Nutella before was a huge mistake by the way. I asked a guy who was reading one bench down to take a picture with me and the bridge, in German and effectively enough I suppose. The picture was taken after all. After that it was much of the same. I saw Christus Kirche (another cool church), a government building where there was a statue of a large foot. Then there was St. Peters church and I walked by the Nature history museum. Apparently is was Museumsnacht today from 18-1:00, but I really didn’t want to wait around for that and risk missing a train back to Ingelheim. I was already pretty tired and museumed-out at this point, so I took a pass on the rest of them and meandered back toward the Hauptbanhof. For some reason, we were never taught how to order ice cream in German 101, so I was a bit on my own there. It went ok, I just ordered by flavor and price. Simple enough and understandable too apparently. Oh, and it was delicious and very, very, very sweet. There was an internet café that I intended to hit up on the way back. However of the two that I’ve been two I’ve been unsuccessful. Either the cafés here don’t have Wifi (incredibly unlikely) or I’m asking wrong (incredibly likely) or both of the Turkish men that ran them just didn’t like me (also likely). I’ll have to ask at work about that, and send an email to Diane to figure out what she did. I would like to update, that is for sure. After that it was a short trip back to the Hauptbanhof, and with a portable pizza thing in my belly a short ride back to Ingelheim. I wanted to make it back for the soccer game tonight against Hungary, which I can watch because I figured out how to turn on the television. That is in fact what I am doing right now! It will probably be another quiet evening for me. This is ok, I’m tired. I almost forgot to mention the most important thing that happened today: I got to watch a couple of episodes of Stargate SG-1 in German! The dubs were decent, but when you have seen every episode twice probably it’s just not the same. Oh, and by the way, when a goal is scored, horns start blaring all over the city. I think people leave their homes and apartments and sit in there for like five minutes, just honking away.