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The Stephanskirche in Mainz has 9 large panels of blue windows by Marc Chagall. Works of art, symbols of reconciliation between Judaism and Christendom, they show wonderful hues of blue. Apparently they also show biblical scenes but for the life of me – I can’t … Continue reading Blue Windows
When I recently visited the city of Mainz with my sister we were a bit puzzled by all the sculptures and monuments we encountered to be wearing a yellow sash (turns out they were meant to represent gold).
From Johann Gutenberg (who together with Peter Schöffer invented book printing as we knew it until recently in Mainz) to a carnival fool (Mainz together with Cologne is the heartland of German carnival) to a naked lady holding two fish (I have no idea why but she looks nice), and quite a few others.




At first we thought it was a prank and it took us a while to get a decent look at the QR-code to figure out the meaning of the gold sash or ribbon:
It was a campaign to support the international childhood cancer awareness month.I learned that different varieties of cancer have different coloured ribbons, as well as other illnesses and causes.
Cancer occurs in children and adults. Cancer is a bitch – and that’s putting it mildly.
I have to add to the one word because this wheel led me down a small rabbit hole. At the harbour of Gernsheim, a town on the Rhine about 40 km south of Mainz, I saw this crest on the side of a monument. The … Continue reading A lesson in heraldry
One Word Sunday: Transport
We were out with our running/walking group in vineyard country and we were ambling a bit more than usual and we were additionally slowed down by a Glühwein (mulled wine) stall in a farm yard and it gets dark early and we ended up near … Continue reading It Was A Couple of Nights Before Christmas
is apparently a saying of English nannies working in the US according to the web. It is also advice that Meryl Streep credits her mother for (I can’t find a source but I remember this from an interview with her). Some stairs just seem to have been built to illustrate this.
I add a photo I’ve used before (as a square top) to drive the point home: