Ice on my Carousel

They are in several tourist places in Paris, like the Place Saint-Pierre in Montmarte, Jardin des Tuileries and Jardin du Luxembourg, but the most beautiful is the Eiffel Tower Carousel on the corner of the Pont d’Iéna and Quai Branly. What distinguishes this colourful carousel with white horses from any other in the world is the fact that it is right in front of the Eiffel Tower, giving an excellent opportunity for photographs.

Shipshe Horses with their Buggies

Shipshewana and LaGrange County are home to the “plain people”: Mennonite and Amish. Their influence contributes to Shipshewana’s unique small town atmosphere, which is also characterized by quaint downtown buildings, quality schools, a gracious park, a library of distinction, and a respect for people of faith, all of which are highly valued by its many long time residents.

The Children’s Crusade of 1212

Less formal and less historically certain was a movement in France and Germany in 1212 which attracted large numbers of peasant teenagers and young people, with few under age 15, who were convinced they could succeed where older and more sinful crusaders had failed: the miraculous power of their faith would triumph where the force of arms had not. Many parish priests and parents encouraged such religious fervor and urged them on. The pope and bishops opposed the attempt but failed to stop it entirely. A band of several thousand youth and young men led by a German named Nicholas set out for Italy. About a third survived the march over the Alps and got as far as Genoa; another group came to Marseilles. The luckier ones eventually managed to get safely home, but many others were sold as lifetime slaves on the auction blocks of Marseilles slave dealers.The sources are scattered and unclear and historians are still not sure if there really was such a crusade, and if there was, exactly what happened to many of the thousands of children. Nevertheless, the memory of the event is part of European culture, and has often been used to tell a morality tale of purity of children versus the exploitation by adults, or perhaps to warn of the madness of mass hysteria.