mainzer

A day and a half later in Mainz and I really like this place, although I've already basically exhausted the tourism possibilities. I'm here because it's where Gutenberg lived and worked and Mainz has embraced it with quiet pride. Mainz seems really at peace with itself, tastefully acknowledging Gutenberg as its one real tourist attraction (I think of the MASSIVE number of Klimt The Kiss merchandise in Vienna). It's comparable to Richmond: its geographic size; has no U-Bahn system, but a decent bus network; a university city. I only bought the bus pass on the first day and have been walking everywhere otherwise.

First day, I just went out and explored. I went with the current of people getting on buses and got off at Gutenberg Universität, which was boring and empty (well it is the summer). Then, trying to get back to the main city, I got on a bus that went to the Rathaus (City Hall), because I knew where that was and could get home easier from there. HOWEVER, the Rathaus stop advertised was actually like 8 km away from everything else in some quiet neighborhood, and there was definitely no Rathaus there at all.

Yesterday my only goal was to get to the Gutenberg Museum. This is one of the apexes of this trip! I got very distracted by the street I decided to walk down (Neubrunnenstraße) because of all the cheap/awesome/Special European clothing stores and bought a bunch of things that may or may not fit in my suitcase, but it'll be okay (worst case, i'll just do what emily & leah did and wear all of my clothes onto the plane ahehehe). By the time I got to the museum it was closing in and hour and a half, but I went in anyway because it's Important (and cheap). I saw TWO of the ORIGINAL 41-Line Bibles and a bunch of more old books, but AAAAH 42LINEBIBLES!!!!! that is AMAZING. something a little sad was that only a few people were in that room and sometimes I was completely alone. These things are, to me, THE symbol of modernity; they changed the whole (western) world forever and led us to where we are now! compare that to paintings who have whole crowds around them, but are mostly famous for being famous. however, the doors guarding the bible room were about a foot thick and had some serious looking locks.
 

I walked around some more. One cool thing I found was a "beach":

Later that night I really felt like dancing, so I went and checked out a club called Schon Schön ("already nice"). It was really terrifying walking in alone and no one was dancing when I got up the nerve, so I made origami out of toilet paper in the bathroom for a while. Eventually I joined the four other people on the dance floor, and after that more and more people got up and it was so great! I danced alone for almost the whole time, definitely my favorite kind of dancing. That's actually the point of these places in Europe (based on my experiences) -- dancing and listening to music, not butt humping!!! I'm going to miss that. Also the lack of cover charge! Clubbing alone was definitely a breach of my comfort zone, but an awesome thing about is it that you can go wherever you want, go to the bathroom, move around, and leave exactly when you want to. I'm much more alone in Mainz than anywhere else (since I'm in a hotel, not a hostel, and know literally no one in the entire city) but it feels much better than it did in Hamburg.