Laundry and the Bibles...

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I'm taking the last few days of my vacation pretty chill. I really don't intend to do too much. And that was what today was all about. I think I finally rolled out of bed around 9... lounged and munched breakfast/had coffee until well after 11, did a load of laundry (which was an adventure... First, trying to find the laundry room in Nicky's building... down to the cellar, hang a right, and trying to find a door that had something about washing on it... given my craptastic German... turns out it was the first door on the right, as I determined on my second pass. Then there were the washing machines themselves. Entirely in German, as were the instructions. I'm pretty sure I washed my clothes in cold water, as there seemed to be temperature control on the machines. I suppose I'll find out if any of them have shrunk when I try to put them on! Then it takes 1.5 hours here in Nicky's building... to WASH one load.).

And yes, I did just write an entire paragraph on the process of doing laundry in Germany.

Did a little more lounging, before Nicky and I headed back into the city centre to take in the Gutenberg Museum.

Gutenberg hails from Mainz, so this is pretty big. Even the university here is named after the guy. The museum is super-informative and takes you through a history of printing from, well, before printing (manuscript work). While some bits were in German only, it was still mostly understandable from my perspective, which was really cool. And there was also a lot of English translation available. And... since I am a book nerd, the piles upon piles upon piles of books from the 17th century and earlier were super cool. Not to mention the section on bookbinding. And art books. Yes. I was a nerd. I think I spent about 10 minutes staring at a page from Caxton's printing of The Canterbury Tales, just reading it. Not only was it cool because it was a Caxton, but also because it was the Canterbury Tales. I mean, seriously!

Another highlight was definitely getting to see a Gutenberg bible. Not to mention the extensive security measures that surround the said Bible. They're in a vault, with, like, 6-inch thick walls. Behind reinforced glass. And I'm sure there were all sorts of mission-impossible-esque other security features that I just wasn't aware of at the time. Given the 'street value' of the bloody things, though, that's not particularly surprising. But nevertheless, a pretty cool thing to see. Now I just need to _hold_ one... I've held a Caxton...

A stop for some food and some ice cream later, and we were headed back to Nicky's. Tonight's plan = chilling.

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Photos

Moveable type
blocks/stools/art outside the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz