We knew we had little time to spend touring Mainz, but knew that we specifically wanted to see the Gutenburg Museum. Johannes Gutenburg is said to be the originator of the first moving type press. We hadn’t thought the museum would be much, maybe a quick 20 minute tour. But as it turned out, it was very interesting and we spent a couple of hours wandering around and learning. The only thing that dampened it a bit was one of the women working there, a very serious-about-her-job person who was very cross with me when she saw me taking pictures (no flash, of course). I hadn’t known that we weren’t allowed as there were no signs indicating that and no one else had said anything. It even after I apologized, she continued to scowl at me. So, I secretly took photos when she wasn’t around and no one else working there seemed to care.

Gutenburg bible

Mainz market

What was interesting was how revered Gutenburg is for his wonderful “invention”, but the Chinese were using something very similar centuries in advance. The problem for the Chinese was that they have so many more characters than letters of the alphabet, so it was hard for that to be as efficient with a printing press.

Next stop, Strasbourg, France. I had always understood Germany to be a centre of efficiency and organization, but oddly, that has not been my overall impression. The station in Mainz was an example of confusion for us. We arrived more than an hour earlier than the train that I had planned out, so we figured we’d simply arrive early. We went to the platform, looked at the board registering the train numbers, and waited. The train there didn’t have a number on it, but the platform listed it as a different train and it left 5 minutes before ours was to depart, so we figured maybe ours was late. Nope. That was our train and we missed it. So, back to our original plans which meant waiting at the station for an extra hour. As it turned out, that was okay as we sat in Starbucks, had a coffee, and used the free wi-fi.

Two train changes with no further errors and we were soon arriving in Strasbourg. Yay! I saw Julie and her dad (I had seen his picture on Facebook) waiting for us and they are some of the warmest people you could ever meet. Little did we know, that would get even better.

Feeling like we already know each other

Time to pull out our rusty Quebequois French! But with Julie there it was no problem as her English is fluent–like a native speaker. Julien’s mom Marie speaks English very well too. And despite Pascal saying that he can’t speak any English, he actually can understand pretty well, and he picked up more and more as the days progressed. We, however, are in France, so it is important that we practice our language skills.

I’ve travelled many places where I don’t speak the language, but I have to say that it was a relief to have some idea again of what is being said and of being able to communicate as well.

It helped as well that the whole family made us feel like we were home. Sean soon discovered that he and Pascal both have a love of bicycles. Pascal has 3 bikes that he showed Sean, one of them is a frimeur (“show off”) bike. Marie is a hairdresser and loves to sew, decorate her home, and laugh tons as well. I had met Julie before, at my birthday party last year when she came to visit Julien. She’s amazing and what strikes me most is that she already seems to know herself well at just 19 years old. Jeremy, we’ve yet to meet, but there are pictures of him doing equestrian all over the place. In fact, pictures of all 3 kids are everywhere as their parents are clearly so proud.

That night we enjoyed “les plaisirs de la table”, local foods of Alsace, the province of Strasbourg. We started with tarte creme fraiche, an appy that looks like pizza, but is so much better than. Oh, and even before that, and soon after our arrival, we had to have an aperitif liqueur with beer mixed in.  Then a cassis and wine. Then, thankfully for me to be able to stand up and walk okay still, dinner.

Dinner was sausage with the spiciest Dijon mustard (or in France, just “moutarde”) I’ve ever had, potato salad, and sauerkraut salad with more wine. And, of course, bread. And for desert, a homemade rhubarb meringue pie. Yum! And more wine. Even though I’m not much of a lover of wine, it was really good. Sweet. But I stopped early. Our hosts were incredible! What a great time we had with lots of rigole!