Food Shopping in Köln

Saturday. A nice long sleep into the wee hours of the afternoon. Then to take advantage of the sunny 25 deg celsius weather, wifey and I decided to take a short drive to Köln and do some shopping. It's not often that we go to Köln as we hate driving through the city. I swear, once you get in, it's only chance that allows you back out. The city itself is devoid of any logical plan with roads and signs leading you in wierd curves around the area. For locals this isn't so much a problem as it is for the tourists like yours truly, but sometimes, they admit they're bamboozled as well if you ask them for directions.

Wifey did her shopping for some clothes, and I love dragging her to shops to buy clothes for her since I love shopping as well. But what makes me happier than shopping for clothes, shoes and accessories, etc for wifey is shopping for food. Specifically, food from the english shop. I'm not much of a fan for german food, mainly because a proportion of their diet is centered around cold suppers, and cold foods. The english on the other hand, have the enviable diet of deep fried fish and chips, IRN-BRU for those nasty hangovers, Indian Korma, Oily saussages and fry-ups, over saccharinated chocolate cookies, and tictacs. A very important distinction. So here was my haul for today - and the main reason for going to Köln - from the english shop.

I can't believe these measly items cost 50 Euros altogether. Apparently the pound is still overrated in Europe >_<. I think the shop gets everything by Star Trek "Beam me up Scotty", because the markup is quite significant when you compare it back to UK prices. Still, looking at the picture, I can recommend the ALPEN as great cereal if you can get your hands on it. What's really good also are the Walker's crisps - Gently infused Lime with Thai Spices - excellent stuff. The lime tastes - to pun the word - sublime when you pop it in your mouth and allow your tongue to savour the flavour. Another thing that always fascinates me about Köln is the Dom. The Dom is the cathedral that overlooks the city. It's a marvel not just of human engineering and many hours of slave labour - tell people to spend your whole life working on that so you can get to heaven is akin to enslavement methinks - but of what humans can actually do without technology. These people had nothing but the basic tools and their two hands. After a few missed chops with the axe, maybe just a stump or one hand if they were lucky, but that's another story for another time. Here's a picture of it from Wikipedia if you haven't seen it before.

Cologne Cathedral - It's even prettier at night

My adage for this - cynical as it may be - is that if you've seen one cathedral, you've seen them all. Essentially, they're all the same except for the name. Like the great bard once said, a horse by any other name, is still a horse. If I remember correctly that he was referring to a horse, and not something else.

Nonetheless, while the Dom is a masterpiece of gothic architecture and human spirit, it's also black from all the pollution caused by vehicles, and a major black hole for funds because at any point in time, there's always repair work going on to maintain it. I'm not sure if tax money is used for this, but if it is, I consider it a bad allocation of resources. There're much better things to use tax money for in Germany at this point in time. Now I'm off to enjoy a cup of hot tea with orange flavoured chocolate covered Mcvities biscuits. I'm a sucker for those, since I can never resist them.

Oh yes, dead fly meter -----> 22