The Best And Wurst

Went to dinner the other night and sat at the bar. The guy behind the bar came over and I'm pretty sure asked what we wanted to drink. I said "Alt" as Alt is what you drink in Düsseldorf. The guy looked at me funny. "Alt" I repeated.
He questioned, "Oh, Alt?"
I relied, "Ya. Alt."
"Alt?"
Finally it sunk in. The drink Alt is pronounced with the 'a' sounding like ah. I was pronouncing it like 'all' with an added 't' at the end. This made what I was saying sound more like "Halt!" I corrected myself and asked for, and received, an Alt.

To avoid further difficulties, I ordered pizza for dinner.

Went to Köln (Cologne) yesterday. It's big draw is the Dom, an enormous cathedral that survived WWII. Cathederals aren't my big thing but it is impressive in its ridiculous ornateness. I didn't go in but considered paying 60 Euro cents to pee near it.

Another nice thing about Köln is that their beer is Kölsh which is much easier to order. I especially liked the sign on one bar that read basically, buy 10 Kölsh, get 1 free! As an educational aside, this is also known as a meter of beer, since they serve 11 of the 0.2l glasses in a meter long board.

Instead I went and worshipped at the Schocolade Museum. They actually make chocolate at the museum. Here I snagged a picture of the Oompa Loompas doing their work. They give out free samples which were sugar wafers which they dipped in melted milk chocolate (I think they use milk chocolate because of the kids and because it's cheaper.) On my second sample trip (of three) I hit the jackpot when the OL gave me the last four chocolate coated wafers she had in her hand so she could dip some more for the large approaching group. Total take for the day, 6 chocolate covered wafers.

After leaving, we went to the museum cafe for more schocolade. Deciphering the menu, I was leaning toward Käsekuchen (cheesecake). I asked the waiter if it was Schocoladekäsekuchen and he looked at me like this was as crazy as ordering Alt. I was actually hoping they might have chocolate beer but if they can't even get past chocolate cheesecake... I ended up getting the chocolate torte (which was good) and a Kölsh. Mmmm. Chocolate cake and beer.

This morning I ran 7 miles and actually saw maybe 6 other people running. A couple of the runners were wearing shorts. All had jackets on (it was around 60 degrees by that time). Very odd.

They had some dragon boat races going on along with festival food, music and activities. We went for a while and watched, ate, listened and participated (more on that in another post). It dawned on me that the festival food was really no different than their regular food. Lots of worst, bread, potatoes and deep fried treats.

And what is the deal with the fries with mayonnaise? Flavor-wise I don't have a big issue with it but, geez, why not cut out the middleman and just make deep fried mayonnaise balls or something?

I tried the currywurst. Take one worst, cut up, sprinkle with curry powder and smother in brown sauce. Serve with a piece of bread. It was not too bad...until I dropped my bread (which was covered in sauce). My lightning quick reflexed saved it from the floor...by pinning it against my shorts. Anybody know how to get a curry stain out? I'll tell you, I thought it was impossible since I have some plastic utensils that used to be blue and are now green after cooking curry with them. Bleach couldn't change them but the hand soap at the hotel appears to have gotten the curry stain out.

Oh, by the way, the "brown sauce" in the curry worst? Ketchup!

And lastly, we ran across this place which sells "Jay's juices." Mercifully, they were closed.