Day 4 - Mainz and Rudescheim - May 30 2012

So today started with a stop at Mainz.  Not too much going on in this town of about 200,000.  There is of course a Cathedral in Rudescheim and a square.  The most interesting thing happened this morning though.  Janice has not been feeling well. Sore throat, coughing, pus in her eyes.  She wanted to see a doctor.  We went to the Gutenberg Museum.  He was born here and printed most of his Bibles here.  We got to see a reproduction of the first printing press and some actual volumes that were printed by him.  That was the second most interesting thing about Mainz.  The most interesting thing was a trip to a local doctor's office.  Andrei, the tour director, met us at the Museum and then took us to a local doctor's office.  It was not a state run facility, which is the norm, but like a doc's professional association.  Three docs in the office who see all people.  The government insured and the private insured. Janice was seen by Doctor Irene Kohls.  Using Andrei as our interpreter, she examined Janice and prescribed 3 medications.  Which we then took to a Apotheke (pharmacy) and got filled.  The doc visit was 24 Euros, which we paid in cash.  The drugs were about 33 Euros which we charged.  While in the doc office, Andrei stayed with us, and we talked about the healthcare system in Germany.  I guess it's what we would recognize as Universal or single-payer.  They do have private pay options, which seem to be advantageous in the time arena.  Private payer probably gets services quicker.  The reason why is because even the private payer has 80% paid by the state and the medical provider keeps the 20%. Andrei kept saying it's not perfect, but it's what we're used to.  We came back to the boat and are sailing to Rudeschiem, our next stop.  It seems to be the heart of the Reisling wine region, so wine tasting.

We went to a really neat mechanical musical instrument museum. Very cool stuff. A gentleman named Vernon, or something like that, showed us around the museum and demonstrated some of the instruments to us. I had the opportunity to actually participate in a demonstration. I'll try to post a video clip.

The museum was followed by a visit and wine tasting at Georg Brauer's wine garden. They put out cubes of cheese and let us taste a couple of different white wines. There was a band playing. Very friendly atmosphere. We would come back later that evening for dinner.  While walking around the town, we were there when a Russian woman from NJ feel.

The band played H'vana Gilah, and a few people actually got up and danced a hora.

This is an easy way to type