So tomorrow morning I'm jetting off to Munich for a long weekend. Now I think Munich seems like an obvious choice for such a weekend - it's about a two-hour plane ride away, has a rich history (both politically and culturally), there are tons of museums and places to visit, and there's beer and soft pretzels and sausages everywhere. For some reason I don't think this occurs to a lot of people, at least in these parts, so it's not a popular choice. Perhaps Germany doesn't have the quaint appeal of Prague and Budapest, or the warm sunshine of Spain or Italy. Or perhaps they just have a thing against grown men in shorts playing tubas in public spaces. Hmm, that sounds more like it. Anyways, I'll be off tomorrow and will be back Monday night, with lots of photos and tales, hopefully none involving the US consulate. Oh, and we'll be keeping a sharp eye out for one of those little Bavarian hats with a feather in it to get Mark.
In other news, the congestion charge in central London has gone up to £25 for vehicles emitting more than 225g of, um, some kind of emmisions (CO2?) per kilometre (which seems odd, as cars generally function in miles, but whatever). Now some people seem to find this like an outrageous amount of money, to which I say, why the heck need you drive through central London anyways? Like, even if you are heading somewhere within the zone, how are you going to park once you get there? There's no parking garage under the Westminster Abbey, you know.
Last weekend I made an interesting discovery. The font of a brand name on a bathroom fixture caught my eye, with me going in the back of my head 'Oooh, American Standard, interesting choice considering we're not in America'. So I take a closer look, just to learn that, no, it's not American Standard, it's Ideal Standard. At first I was like, well that's a bold statement, to say it's an ideal standard, but then again, it's really no worse than saying something is an American standard, especially given that the term often refers to faucets. So now Ideal/American Standard has been added to my list, alongside TK/TJ Maxx and Galaxy/Dove, of 'seemingly different but actually the same' brands. Why must they be so sneaky?
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4 comments:
ooo something that bugs me...everything is both metric or imperial like you could be reading one official document and it has one figure in km and in the next paragragh another figure is in miles - a bit silly really! like people dont want to give up on the miles and the pints but do want to use cm and not inches. actually its most bizare when using weights and sizes like official things want things in metric when everyone still uses stones and feet for weight and height.
there are lots of products that have changed there names after decades so the item can be made for multiple countries some examples that come to mind are
starbust - opal fruits
snickners - marathon
detol - detox
sif - jif
oil of ulay - oil of olay
im sure there are lots more...i can understand where american standard is coming from though as i guess they wouldnt sell too many loos with the name american standard in europe!
We really all should be installing those nifty Japanese "choose your flush" models anyway.
I don't want to have to contemplate the type of flush required. I want to just walk away and have it auto-magically dealt with.
A wash and a spritz of rose-water would be nice.
What the heck is wrong with men in shorts playing tubas? Sheesh.
And those hate with feathers are EVERYWHERE in Bavaria. I have one somewhere, or at least I used to.
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