Hot Love in a German Grocery Store

Today was a gorgeous day--warm on the edge of hot, with a nice breeze--so I ended up contacting Anna H and we decided to go to the grocery store together; shopping is usually more fun when one goes with a friend, even if it's just a run to get groceries. We've shopped in three different countries and for everything from groceries to antiques to fabric.

It is especially interesting when one discovers food or other items while shopping that makes one...pause. These items seem uniquely European. For instance, these items in the grocery store (photo courtesy of Anna H):

These are all teas. The third box translates to "Hot Love."

I was curious about the ingredients, and one of them (forgot which box) contains kola nuts, which used to be an ingredient in Coca Cola (the Cola part, not the Coca, which refer to coca leaves, from which cocaine is derived, believe it or not). So I decided to look it up, and apparently the kola nut is often used to treat whooping cough and asthma, as it's a bronchodilator.

Well, now I must go back and get one of those teas, because after all I do have asthma, and anything that keeps my asthma at bay is a Good Thing. Whether I get anything else out of that tea would be totally beside the point. Totally.

The last time Anna and I went to the Sittard market, there was of course that interesting knife holder we found.

Yeow.

And a prior excursion to a Brunssum, Netherlands market, we saw the following, somewhat sinister, hair salon sign:








A close-up of the poster, wherein the customer looks positively delighted with her brain wash.

When we went to the very delightful town of Monschau for a bit of sight-seeing and (of course) shopping, we encountered this on the side of the town's fire station.

What does this mean? Why is the knight (without a helmet) in armor skewering the rooster? It seems the man is standing on top of a roof. The rooster is either in mid-crow, or its beak is open in surprised pain. Did the rooster crow inappropriately early once too many times? Was the knight so fed up that he climbed the roof, determined to shut the rooster up once and for all? There is a flame-like thing behind the rooster...it could be the rooster's tail, or it could be fire. If fire, perhaps the knight was seized with a desire for roast rooster and, pressed by extreme hunger, did not even bother to doff all his armor, but hurried up and skewered the bird, forgetting to de-feather the thing before thrusting it into the coals.

Your guess is as good as mine.

As a result, I try to keep my camera handy in my purse, just in case I might encounter some interesting item that reminds me that this Dorothy Is Not In Kansas any longer. :-D I forgot my camera this time, but Anna is generous in sharing her pictures, and she sent me the photo of the teas in the grocery store.

Anyway, afterward, we put away our groceries, and I joined her for a lovely few hours of knitting out in her back yard, sipping iced tea and munching on croissant-like rolls with bits of ham in them, cherry tomatoes, and potato chips, while watching the sheep graze in the yard beyond. Altogether a very satisfying day.