Rheingau and Rheinhessen: Wine life

maipenquynh on 11. October 2024

I don't want to trivialise alcohol consumption. But if I want to talk about the region in which I now live, I can't avoid wine and what goes with it. Slowly but steady, I am absorbing the knowledge and information about the way of life in this region. The following are personal impressions and supplied without liability; please understand and correct if necessary.

~

I'm beginning to understand the regions (plural!) here and what they are called. I learnt that Mainz is in Rheinhessen. This is very misleading, as Mainz is also in Rhineland-Palatinate (a german state, Hesse is another state). The Rheingau is its neighbour and is actually in Hesse. Just mentioning things rarely helps me understanding and picturing things so here is a map of german wine-growing areas on Wikipedia: map. Rheinhessen and Rheingau are marked there. Maps are very helpful so I recommend taking a quick look.

When the days get longer and the temperatures rise, there are wine festivals everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I'm not exaggerating. There's one happening every weekend. There are so many wineries around!

Without being able to make a geographical mapping of what belongs where or where it comes from - important for wine or grape juice: Spundekäs. Spundekäs is made out of cream cheese and our favourite way to eat it is with crispy salted pretzels. If it is not at home but outside our home, we love to sit on an ale-bench in a Straußenwirtschaft in the warm sunlight. It does have its own charm.

I have brought along a few photos of wine events I have attended. A little insight into my wine life in the Rheingau and Rheinhessen.

Straußenwirtschaft is tidied up as it had rained shortly before

Wikipedia is great: The (german) article about Spundekäs says that it's coming from northern Rheinhessen. „Straußenwirtschaft“ seems to be a term from Rheinhessen, though I have seen it in Rheingau as well.

Photo 1+2
Camera + lens: Minolta Dynax 7000i + Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4
Film: ILFORD FP4 PLUS
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

Photo 3
Camera + lens: Olympus XA2
Film: Kodak Gold 200
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

A promise is a promise: The girl in the library of Mainz

maipenquynh on 15. September 2024

A few weeks ago, I told about happy 12 euros - my library card which I had just extended was the reason for that.

While I was in the library, I even took a photo. But I didn't want to wait until it was developed and so the post went online without the photo. I was really desperate to post my happiness!

Thankfully (not ironically), Miss Booleana reminded me in her last Blogophilie , that I still had a promise to fulfil and the photo was still being awaited for (so nice ☺). The photo has had a few days (weeks?) to have its peace, now it's time to go online.

So I'm posting the photo today, and I've also included it in the corresponding post.

The picture looked different in my head, and possibly in yours, too. I hope I'm not destroying any imaginations now :'D

But that doesn't change the memories of that day: happy 12 euros.

Camera + lens: Olympus XA2
Film: Kodak Gold 200
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

Happy 12 euros: library card

maipenquynh on 9. August 2024

Zuerst wollte ich auf ein Foto warten bis ich diesen Text veröffentliche. Dann habe ich gemerkt, dass ich nicht die Geduld habe, um auf dieses eine Foto zu warten. Daher musst du dich für eine Weile mit meiner folgenden Beschreibung zufrieden geben. Das Foto werde ich nachreichen – versprochen (*).

The outside (the photo)

You are standing in front of a shelf in a public library, probably 5 or more rows, all full of books. You can't see the end of the shelf, it extends beyond the left and right edges of the picture. The spines of the books are looking at you. And then there's a girl in front of you, primary school age. She is sitting in a crouch with her back to you. In front of the child is an opened book, half of the book is covered by the child. You're happy because it's nice when people, especially children, leaf through books.

The inside (thought and feeling)

This photo marks a special day. The day I renewed my library card in 2024. And the euphoria I felt when I held my card up to the machine and paid the 12 euro annual fee when asked.

Suddenly I realized what that meant: taking stories home with me, immersing myself in them and finding feelings and thoughts on a scale of 1 to 10 - those of the protagonists and my own.

No book promises me the world but the library promises me a thousand views of the world.

I didn't know how much I missed the world as a library user until I made the payment. Finally being able to spontaneously borrow eBooks again, finally being able to browse again and knowing that I could take the book home with me.

Eventually, I borrowed six books: 1 hiking guide and 5 novels. No way that I will get through all five novels in those four weeks of borrowing. But who doesn't know that happy feeling of taking books home?

So many things for 12 euros: stories, inspiration, perspectives on the world and society, discovering new things and the pleasure of immersing yourself into things. Into a love story, into Arabic cuisine, into the world of physics and languages, into new activities for your hands, into the history of the last twenty years.

Oh, books. Oh, libraries.

~

(*) Edit on 15 September: Herewith, I post the photo 🙂
You find a few words in the post A promise is a promise: The girl in the library of Mainz.