High Speed!

Mainz and Weisbaden
On Tuesday So Raya came over and we wandered around Mainz, she showed me her favorite sites and everywhere else her boyfriend suggested as he called every 20 minutes or so (he is proud of Germany and he wanted me to have a good impression of it).  So Raya wasn't as concerned, perhaps because she is originally from Iran and although she has lived in Germany most of her life she has two cultures.  It was a great pleasure to spend the day with So Raya as she is kind and very interesting, we had good conversations about faith in God and where we find our peace.  She identifies herself as muslim but she stopped practicing the religion when she was 16 because she no longer believed it to be true.  Listening to So Raya's story made me think again about the importance of telling our stories to others.  Life stories are powerful as they can convey a truth, an idea or a belief in an easy to comprehend way that is both personal (that is intimate) and interesting, and personal experiences can be hard to refute.  As I listened to So Raya and the questions she had about finding peace I was drawn in and it made me question how I choose which stories to tell which people and which are the ones that God would want me to tell?
So Raya and I visited churches in Mainz and Weisbaden and the healing waters in Weisbaden.  I convinced So Raya that we should go down and touch the healing water even though it was dirty, unfortunately we had to reach way down to get to the water and all So Raya got was goose poop on her hand for her troubles.

The Slide
While wandering around Mainz in the evening on my own I encountered a strange slide in one of the many parks. The slide was at the top of a large hill; the tower to climb up it was in a windmill and the slide was composed of a long steel tube that was enclosed for the better part of the hill and opened at the bottom (perfect for dumping children onto the ground once they reached peak speed).  This indeed was an impressive slide and I was curious to try it, but I hesitated, not because of fear of course, but because of the couples lounging about around the park who may be disrupted by a large figure shooting out of a metal tube at high velocity.  Now I had a conundrum: to slide or not to slide?  I paused and considered how Meghan had requested that I write about embarrassing incidents on this blog; sigh, the choice was made: I would slide.  Even with the decision made I found myself hoping a small child would happen upon the slide to test it out first.  As luck would have it a young girl, age 8 or so, in a pink sweatshirt came up to the slide with her mom.  The girl stood at the base of the windmill and looked at it wearily while her mother coaxed her up.  Eventually they made it all the way to the top where some negotiations were made (all in German of course, but I could tell from the tone of her voice the girl had reservations).  Finally it was decided that the mother would accompany her daughter and down they came; the little girl let out robust screams even though I could hear her mother slowing them down by bracing against the sides of the slide and they came shooting out.  The daughter looked relieved if not happy, so then it was my turn.  I deftly climbed up the inside of the windmill (despite the poor German engineering of the ladder) and made it to the top, I paused to take in the scenery and who should appear?  The pink sweatshirt girl was back and this time with her dad.  So as to be polite I motioned for the pink sweatshirt girl to go first, with equal chivalry she shook her head no and motioned for me to go first. In the cramped quarters at the top of the windmill we were at a standstill.  Luckily her father broke the truce of niceties and had his daughter go with him first.  Down they went (she screamed again).  I was next, so with gusto I begun my descent. I began to pick up speed quickly but felt I could neither grip the sides to slow myself down nor scream as pink sweatshirt girl and her dad would be watching and I needed to preserve my dignity. Thus, at full speed and just a mild "eeee eeee e" I dropped out of the enclosed portion and bounced to the end of the slide just catching myself with my feet so I wouldn't land on my butt.  Whew! I looked back at pink sweatshirt girl's dad and mumbled and motioned about the surprising velocity of the slide while I collected myself. He nodded sympathetically in acknowledgment of the lack of grace with which I slid down the slide and said "high speed!"  Disclaimer:  the windmill slide is much more ferocious than it appears in the picture below.

Pictures
So Raya in Mainz, picnickers during Germany's labor day holiday, So Raya and I, the infamous windmill slide, me nervously considering the infamous windmill slide, the Rhine at sunset, the nasty fountain water of a fountain that pictured children hurting each other or animals (4 different sculptures on the four corners) with a little boy giving an apple to the baby Jesus held by Mary at the top ??, a boy twisting/squeezing a girl's arm with the girl visibly looking pained, the Germanic obsession with putting couples names on locks and locking them to bridges, and finally - an example of TPing a tree in Germany?