A Perfect Day in Mainz

It's been almost a month since my last blog post, my apologies. Maybe that's a good sign. Maybe I'm so busy with my fun new life that I haven't had time write. Or maybe I'm just lazy… the world will never know. Any way, I'll give you a quick update on my life in Germany before I get to the true topic of this post, my day in Mainz.
Two sentence summary of the last month: Things are going well. I've made some friends, most host family is absolutely fantastic, my German is still pretty bad but also getting better, I don't understand what is happening in most of my classes, and I'm much better at using public transportation.

My day in Mainz: Last weekend, Taisy (an exchange student from Hong Kong) and I spent the day in Mainz. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the best days I've had in Germany. We would be getting up early Saturday morning to drive to Mainz, so Taisy invited me over to spend the night on Friday. That night we talked about how our year's been going, told each other about our home countries, took pictures, ate dinner and so on. The highlight on the evening, however, was us trying to learn German rap songs. It was quite a challenge, but fun. Needless to say, we failed miserably. Fortunately (or unfortunately, I haven't decided which yet) a short video of our sub-par German rap skills exists and is available for viewing here. This is only a few seconds of the whole song which we recorded so that we can look back on it at the end of our exchange year and laugh, because hopefully at that point we'll be fluent in German and able to rap that song like bosses.
Okay okay, now I'll talk about Mainz. So we were up and out the door early Saturday morning. Mainz is a little more than an hour's drive away. Taisy's host mom had to attend some sort of conference there so when we arrived she told us to meet her back at the conference center at 4pm.
So with the whole day ahead of us, we contemplated what our first move would be. The night before we'd decided that some "must-sees" were the Mainzer Dom and the Gutenberg Museum, but other than that we hadn't had much else planned.
Our first goal, we decided was to locate the Mainzer Dom. Which, without a map, was not as easy as we thought it'd be. As we walked, the city was quite in the early morning. There were hardly any people on the streets… so we took that as an opportunity to release our inner child and play a little.

When the people are away, the exchange students will play.

We finally reached the Dom (FYI: Dom is German for cathedral) and it was beautiful. I wish I could've taken better pictures but unfortunately, an iPod camera just didn't do it justice.

After spending sometime in the Dom we made our way outside to see that the city was starting to come alive. A cafe next to the Dom enticed us with windows full of delicious looking cakes; we decided that we would return to the cafe for lunch. A market of some sort was in the midst of being set up. We walked around the street examining the things the vendors were selling. At one stand we sampled some cheese and at another we bought Plätzchen (Christmas cookies). The best thing we found at the market was a stand selling hot apple cider. I could not imagine a more perfect thing to warm us up on that chilly morning. In that moment, everything fit together so perfectly: the busy market, a beautiful city, a steaming cup of apple cider, and a good friend. 

Collage made by Taisy

Me with our bag of Plätzchen

Next, we set out to find the Gutenberg museum. For those who don't know: Johannes Gutenberg was the inventor of the printing press and he was born in Mainz. Last year I did a research project on him for European History, so I was more than a little excited to learn more about this important inventor and see copies of the famous Gutenberg 42-line Bible, the first book ever printed on the printing press.
We had a bit of difficulty finding the museum. We ended up walking in a huge circle just to find out that the Gutenberg Museum was right next to the market and Dom. While searching for the museum, we happened upon a print shop next door. Originally we'd gone inside to ask for directions but then the woman working there asked us if we'd like to make some prints on the printing press. After taking a look at the things we could print (everything from cartoon characters to silhouettes of the Mainzer Dom, we could even make prints with letters) and finding that it would only cost a few euros, we decided to give it a go. The woman in the shop gave us a short demonstration (in English!) on how to set up the print, add colors, and then press it. Printing was such a fun and unique experience and provided us with perfect souvenirs for our day. I can't help but think how lucky we were to just stumble upon the shop after getting a bit lost. Somethings you just can't plan.
Here are my prints:

Making a print

Taisy and I in our beautiful printing smocks

After finishing up in the print shop, we were told that the Gutenberg Museum was right next door and that we should also check out Saint Stephen's Church later. 

At the museum, we spent quite a while looking around and learning about Johannes Gutenberg as well as the history of printing. The craftsmanship and detail of the books we saw was absolutely mind blowing. My inner history nerd was having a heyday. Finally we found the 42-line Bibles; there were two of them at the museum. The bibles were in their own special fire-proof room behind bullet-proof glass. Looking at two such important historical artifacts made me giddy with happiness. 

So many books!

One Gutenberg Bible

The other Gutenberg Bible

After the museum, both of us were quite ready for lunch, so we headed back to the cafe we saw earlier and each ordered a slice of cake and a mug of hot chocolate.

Enjoying a mug of hot chocolate

CAKE!

As our day was coming to an end, we decided to make our last stop Saint Stephen's Church. Plot twist: we found it without getting lost. From the outside, the Saint Stephen's Church looked liked a pretty typical (yet still beautiful) church. But as soon as you stepped inside, everything glowed blue due to the light passing through the stained glass windows. The windows in this church were literally the most breathtakingly beautiful windows I've ever seen in a church or cathedral. The windows were made in the late 1900s by Russian Jewish artist Marc Chagall. The windows are luminous blue and depict scenes from the old testament, demonstrating the commonalities between Jewish and Christian traditions.

After taking in the beauty of Saint Stephen's Church, we made our way back through the city to meet Taisy's host mom, stopping on the way to buy some Currywurst mit Pommes. Simply put, that day was perfect.