June 6

Marc, Joe and I went to the Burgkirche this morning for worship.  Compared to last week the place was empty; we were three of maybe at most 20 people there.  I probably should have been prepared for the disparity between a "celebration" service and "regular" worship, but it still caught me off guard.  There were no other young people there, quite unfortunate.  After worship we headed back to my apartment for some sandwiches before heading to the train station and Mainz.  I had been there last Saturday of course, but Joe and Marc had not, so I could at least show them the highlights before they headed back to Koblenz.  We bought a day ticket that the three of us could ride on, quite a bit cheaper for them at least.  We did this on Friday as well, and it proved to be quite economical.  It was good for Rheinland-Pfalz, so we could unfortunately not go to Köln or Frankfurt with it; I'm sure we'll figure something out with that though.  We had great weather for visiting Mainz.  I took them to St. Stephen's church with the Marc Chagall windows, then to the Dom and for a walk along the Rhine by the Rathaus there.  When I had been in Mainz before, they were preparing the Natural History Museum for Museumsnacht and alas I could not go inside.  However today, as every Sunday, admission was free, so we spent some time there admiring the natural history of Rheinland-Pfalz.  Many of the animals and plant life were what you might see in Michigan, but the geography and natural features were certainly not.  They had some manatee skeletons there (Seeköhe I believe), which I did not expect to see in a museum here though.  After we visited the museum I tried a few times in vain to find a wireless connection to use.  There must be somewhere in Germany with an unsecured connection.  I wasn't able to find one in Ingelheim either yet.  Diane mentioned where she had found one, but I struck out there.  I'll just have to keep looking I guess.  Arriving at the station following our afternoon tour, we barely missed the train heading back through Ingelheim to Koblenz, but they come through on the hour, so we visited the little garage sale type thing going on in front of the Hauptbanhof for a bit then just hung out in the shade.  The train ride back was short for me, and probably not too long for the other guys either, but we did run into a little rain, which was the theme for the rest of the evening as well.