Lift off.... - #1400

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1.... #1399

...very nice lady (Heike Heiseler) from Ono Koon in the Augustinerstrasse.

Not that I bought anything....

2.... #1398

...chairs outside Ono Koon in the Augustinerstrasse

"I'm 3.... - #1397

 

..." said Grace Niklas, my little Irish friend "but I'm almost 4. And then I go to the BIG school"

Growing up in Dublin with an Irish mum and a German (Christoph and Uschi's boy Stephan) dad and perfectly bilingual.

When she leaves Grandma and Granddad's apartment, she says to Áine "We can speak English now, Mummy"

Cute as.

4.... - #1396

 

Madonna on high with cherubims, seraphims and twiddly bits at Jakobsbergstrasse 4.

Gimme a "G" - #1395

Aqueductoral detail on one of the 9 carved stone cubes spelling out Johannes' name on the horizontal surface in front of the Gutenberg Museum.

Why do they always remind me of Country Joe and the Fish at Woodstock....?


(The song's as topical today as it was in 1969 - "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" don't rhyme nor fit the meter quite as well as "Vietnam", though....)

Under the spreading chestnut tree - # 1394

 

...a boy was playing cricket....

"Zum Goldstein" was first documented in 1568 and registered as an operating brewery in 1747.

Mainz had over 20 breweries at the time - "Zum Goldstein" being the 2nd largest - for the simple reason that well water was more than dodgy and the risk of contracting the Dreaded Lurgi from beer and wine was significantly lower.

Folk still say "Was soll ich Wasser trinke un kronk wern, ich trink liewer Bier odder Woi un bleib gesund!" - Why on earth would I want to drink water and get sick, I'll stick to beer or wine and stay healthy.."

A wise strategy and one that I can thoroughly recommend...

"Zum Goldstein" was swallowed by the larger Mainzer Actienbrauerei in 1860, closed down and reduced to selling their product until 1878 when a fire and significant roadworks emasculated the original structure.

These days, it's one of the best places in Mainz to chill out, eat well and enjoy the (Bavarian) beer.

Just stay off the water - you never know where it's been...

The suspense..........- # 1393

The foyer of the VIP lounge at Colosseum Cofacies decorated with Calderesque figures of "the beautiful game", separated from the photographer by a thick pane of glass and hefty bouncers.

Probably the closest I'll ever get to them, if I'm honest

All the print that fits..... - #1392

 

Historical stuff, this....

"Typesetting and Design"

Typesetting machine knowledge"

"The serigraph manual"

In 30 years, we (you, actually, I'll have fallen off the perch by then...) will stumble over relics like 

"Adobe Pagemaker for beginners".

"Quark XPress in the newsroom"

"Adobe InDesign explained"

and smirk at the outdated stuff they used to work with back in the day.

Except we won't find them on the Johannisnacht bookstalls - they'll be flying around in The Cloud as pdfs or xmls....

Climbing wall.....#1391

Beginner level stuff.

Urban recycling on the Kästrich.

(Just make sure you don't fall in through the windows....)

You would be jesting - #1390

The real McCoy, as it were, decorating the collar of the Heunensäule on the market

The Buy Courtyard...-1389

..is having a Reduziert.

If you have to translate [übersetzen]your advertising [Werbung] into your customers' own language [Sprache], you've got the wrong advertising agency [Werbeagentur].

Linguistic fail.

Seasonal - #1388

It's always a surprise to find what you associate with cooler days and longer nights on the market in mid-summer.

Savoy cabbage, for example.

It's only when you listen to country people that you begin to understand the seasons.

Program on Bayern 2 last week was excellent.

Spring starts - irrespective of the vernal equinox - when the forsythia starts blossoming.

Autumn starts when elderberries are ripe and winter kicks in when the oaks lose their leaves.

There are markers for early, mid and late spring as there are for the other seasons and by observing the offsets, country folk can tell you how the climate is changing.

Spring - by this definition - is a month earlier than it was 50 years ago.

Sounds a lot like fashion, when winter kit turns up while you're sweltering under 30ºC and people drag diaphanous spring thingies home through the snow.

It's only a matter of time until fashion and climatic seasons align themselves and you can actually buy a sweater when you feel cold....

Alternatives - #1387

The Lavazza café in the Augustiner Strasse has a lot going for it.

Cosy in winter, seating out in the (pedestrian precinct) road, 2 golden retrievers to step over, nice people.

It's clear that the TSOW remains the barista of choice, but as an alternative......?

The espresso in the Augustiner Strasse's good, too.

If not better......

Easy as - #1386

Just go from one end of a SINGLE MARKET STAND in Mainz and take one image each of what they're selling at the moment.

This was last Friday.....

Half.... - #1385

...mast.

Germany's women soccer team loses against Japan in the FIFA World Cup quarterfinals.

Oh dear.

Don't be a square, Johannes - #1384

 

Rampant cubism on display in one of the City of Science installations.

Spring is..... - #1383

 

...busting out all over.....

Seen at Yokojeff Ono Koon in the Augustinerstrasse

Choose your poison - #1382

One good reason to visit Bad-Kreuznach is to learn how to walk again after the nice people in the Vincenz Hospital in Mainz give you a Bionic Leg..

Another - even better reason - is to rip into the products of the Brauwerk, a newly opened brewery on the banks of the river.

But it's worth a visit even if you're a wowser and only interested in the architectural aspects of the place.

Bad-Kreuznach's renowned for the wellness properties of its historical salt production.

The way to harvest salt from a saline solution is to evaporate the water.
You can either do that by applying heat, using solar energy or  - if you live in a climatically challenged region - drizzling the saline solution over a high wall of tightly packed thorns. (I'm not making this up. Honest. That's one of them in the background.)

The spin-off of this, of course, is that when you take a deep breath of the surrounding air, you immediately hear seagulls and the crashing of waves on the shore and think you're at the seaside.

This has attracted people by the THOUSANDS over the years and they drift around with buckets and spades looking for the beach.

Nothing compared with the hordes who will descend on THIS place to admire how the architect has continued the line and materials of the graduation tower into his piloti-supported structure.

They might just be here for the beer, of course.....

The Pilgrimage - #1381

The entertaining Christians vs Lions game did finish at the Colosseum Via Fractus at 17:15.

And thus did the 20,300 disciples of the Tribe of Mainz 05 follow Presidentus Strutzus the onerous 3.4km to the new Colosseum Cofacies.

And Presidentus Strutzus stretched out his hand over the Via Saarus (having had a word with the Excolo Moguntia); and the EXCOLO MOGUNTIA caused the vehicles to go back by a strong east wind all that afternoon, and made the normally gridlocked Via Saarus empty road, and the Saarstrasse was pedestrianised.

And the disciples thus passed safely through the Via Saarus and were welcomed by their brethren at the Colosseum Cofacies and were refreshed with cervisia and farcimen inferos and entertained by nubile slave girls in native costumes.

And they gave thanks to Presidentus Strutzus for a fine day out.

Not to mention a brand new Colosseum

Honesty box - #1380

 

The things you stumble across in the country.

Honesty box stand on the cycle track between Mommenheim and Harxheim with all sorts of interesting stuff.

Bog standard fruit jellies, of course, but the odd (in its true sense...) daisy jelly and beer jelly threw me.

Beer jelly.

At that point of the tour (40km behind me and another 10 to go), I could have verily used the real stuff...

If Mainz ever needs....#1379

 

....its own National State City Flower, I think I've found it!

It's Paeonia suffruticosa or the tree peony aka Narrenkappius officinalis.

The blossom's a treat, but if you wait a bit, you're rewarded by a dead ringer of the thing that hard-core Karnevalista transport around on their heads.

X marks the spot - #1378

Either that, or a near-miss....

Greenfield site - #1377

 

Tomorrow's the Big Day!

Mainz 05, the local football [soccer] team moves from its current home of 20,300 seats to a flash new stadium of 34,000.

Last game at the old stadium in the afternoon followed by a mass pilgrimage to the new one, press-ganging 13,700 bystanders and sundry unaware folks to make up the numbers as they go...

Monthly Theme Day - Green - #1376

"Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT

I don't care about spots on my apples lemons,

Leave me the birds and the bees - please"

(Big yellow taxi, Joni Mitchell)

Germany's as Green as all get-out.

We recycle stuff as if the world's coming to an end (well, it IS, but don't tell anyone...), the Green party is the senior coalition partner in one of the largest (and most conservative) states and you get organic stuff on every street corner

Even in the discount supermarkets.

But I'm sure you'll agree with me that this is going a bit too far.

A bit of DDT never hurt anyone....

Seen on the market in Mainz.


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