Connyland!

"Seekeram va ma", shouted someone behind me. The ears perked up. What was it that I heard? Could it be right? Were my ears playing tricks on me again? Then the nose perked up. What was that odour?

Ah... that was "Dabur Amla Kesh taila". Where had it last encountered that smell? And why was I petrified? Mentally the offending odour me teleported back to the early 1990's - when that smell meant a forced head bath! And how I hated it ;)

But, what the heck? Where was I? Connyland. So the mind did a quick double take. Something didn't quite match. But after a while it kinda did. There is a sizeable Sri Lankan population in Switzerland after all. But today, in Connyland, it seemed as is all of them had congregated by design. Every second face was Sri Lankan, or south Asian :) It looked like a take over!

Anyways, the dope on Conney Land - the dolphin shows are interesting and are definately watchable. The sea lions shows are good too. They have a couple of sea lions which are supposed to be over 40 years. It also has a few rides - starting from the toy train, you can graduate to the wasserbhan - which threatens to get you wet, but not quite. Then there is the Dino attack which emulates Jurisic park on a microscopic and not quite as dramtic a scale. And don't forget to pose for the picture at the end! Then there is Star Trip - which, yes, it is supposed to be Star Trek. It feels like a flight simulator gone out of control - so be careful about that weak back and whiplash prone neck. And if you are less than 120 centimeters forget it - they don't like you in Star Trip :) If you fancy an adrenaline rush - you have the swinging ship where you swing like a pendulum, the only difference being the scary 190 degree of SHM! And there was one more ride - the name eludes me though - maybe "Free fall" or something similar.

I never thought I'd have a Eureka moment in an amusement park, but that is exactly what happened - maybe material for my other blog. muhuhahaha!!!

And food - a pizzeria, a cafe and a resteraunt provide sufficient variety, and you can also find an enclosure where you can eat your picnic.

Getting there - We took a train from Konstanz to Ermatingen and from there the bus to Conneyland. Trip time: approximately 30 minutes. The Day ticket for bus and train, Tageskarte, cost us 12.80 CHF, the tickets for Conneyland 28CHF. And we spent around 4 and a 1/2 hours there. A fun day trip, and oh for the record - I did think that it was rather cruel for those dolphins to be confined to only 13 million liters of water, ditto for those sea lions.

No pics were clicked on this trip - und das ist egal!

Connyland!

Lemon Icecream

Amul had this policy of one new flavour a week or something like that*, so you'd think you've tasted all the possible ice creams flavours by now huh? Ever tasted Lemon Ice cream? Not me. Heck I can't even remember ever seeing that falvour available at that Gellato place in Indranagar or Corner house or even Naturals**.

And it seems to the a common flavour, in the Vanilla bracket, in Germany. It is called Zitrone Eis i.e. (Lemon Ice cream). And what is my sample space huh? Oh well not that scientific, but I've been tracking the menu on the Eis Van for the past couple of weeks. Each day the Eis Man plays around with the menu, but Lemon, Strawberry and Vanilla don't change. So

1. a lot of people buy the three falvors i.e. it moves fast or
   
2. they make too much of it, and hence the sale price is low, but the profit margins are high or
   
3. old stock, never moves so he has a lot of it which he is trying to dump or
   
4. it is the personal favorite of the Eis man

And the Gellato shops which are all over the place. You know - that stumble and you'll find one saying - yeah that applies to these Gellato shops. Every second shop in the city seems to be selling icecream.

Even there I seem to find this Zitarone Eis staring down at me from the menu, and the it does look like it sells, so maybe the Eis Man is not an exception.

The taste is quite interesting - lemony, a bit bitter etc and I wonder why it doesn't sell in India? Maybe the focus group didn't like it or something, but in anycase hese Ice cream companies have denied us the Lime Ice for way too long! I even got the mandatory corny name for it - Thanda Sherbath, just in case Amul, Kwality walls, Arun Ice cream are listening ;)


*Unverified hearsay.
**All references to Bangalore

Lemon Icecream

Braille on drugs

Some time last month the common cold doing the rounds caught up with me and kept me company for the mandatory week. To aliviate my "suffering" I picked up some over the counter drugs from the local pharmacy (Apotheke in German).

The packaging for the drugs was rather unique, thanks to the braille inscription (see pic above) . Normally, I'd have thought, "Ah! how thoughtful of the pharma company, looking out for the visually challenged". But then, the inherent goodness of man invariably vaporizes the minute he starts looking at bottom lines and profit margins, so why the eff would a pharma company take a hit on the packaging to benefit a minuscule percentage of its customers?

The curiosity suitably piqued, I started searching the European Laws for an answer, and in no time the reason for this seemingly altruistic act was staring back at me - Directive 2004/27/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004. The relevant excerpt -

The name of the medicinal product, as referred to in Article 54, point (a) must also be expressed in Braille format on the packaging. The marketing authorisation holder shall ensure that the package information leaflet is made available on request from patients' organisations in formats appropriate for the blind and partially-sighted

Entire text of the directive is available here

This instance of the inherent goodness of man was a result of some wicked arm twisting by some kind soul(s) in the EU parliament! Long live the "inherent" goodness of man :)

Braille on drugs

We-Gay!

Woha! Now where did that come from huh? That's exactly what I thought. At first. Hmm...

But then, think about it - two guys; sharing an apartment; cooking food etc etc etc... hmm...

Well actually if you live in Germany it is sooo "we-gay". You see in Deutschland they call a flat sharing arrangement as Wohngemeinschaft. The popular abbreviation being - WG. Folks from the English speaking world would pronounce WG as Doubl-you-gee and be happy and dandy about it. But the German pronunciation is wee bit different. "W" is we and "G" is gay and "H" is haa. So, and so, WG is we-gay! Aren't we all so happy now ;)

And since I live in a WG it's such a We-gay situation! Yahahaha...

Disclaimer: They author is not a homophobe or heterophobe or any kinda ph(r)obe. The author does not personally know gay people, maybe this is why they don't tell him ;)
And no, he is not making fun of the German pronunciation. He is so glad Germans can pronounce his name the way it is supposed to be pronounced, he is just a full-of-himself-insensitive-f$@%^&*-b@$%^&#!!!

We-Gay!

Germinating an idea - step 1

Caution: Random rant! The only palce you'll read about - the inside of my cranium!

The phrase, "The plan, my friend, is to have no plan", has bounced around in my rather empty head for so long that it is now truly etched in my cranium. My travel plans are, at best erratic, and have been bordering on non existent. The cycle trip around the Bodensee - was a last minute impulse; ditto the walk along the Lägren; and ditto the trip to Munich. I spent more money than I should've on the first two ;) and missed out some very interesting thing too. But the Munich trip took the cake - I went on the weekend of an AC-DC concert and missed it. Sucker!

Don't get me wrong - having no plan works well , sometimes very well that you are tempted to give up planning altogether. For example - the numerous road side halts, to sip some tender coconut water or eat some finger licking dal fry - who the hell plans those? And they turn out well don't they? Or the unplannable pee stop. I can't do that man! Or not having any plans on a Saturday night and randomly hitting it off with someone intersting you've bumped into at a random location. Nah.. you can't plan those - but vacations are a wee bit different aren't they?

And at other times you just keep kicking yourself in the ass for having been so callous - like not having had the foresight to apply deo the morning of when you hit if off with the interesting person ;) which in hindsight is pretty daft.

So I got to make some sort of plan - even vauge one will do at this point, and do some homework if I want to get lucky or have a good vacation!

There are a couple of things I'd like to do on a vacation - climb mountains or ride a motorcycle. The former I can do in my new found "backyard" and the later I can do when I go back home in winter.

For climbing there are the Alps - apparently there are a few short ones where I don't need to be a technical climber to scale - so I need to find out those names, places, nearest rail head, prices, weather etc etc.

For winter I have my mind set on riding to the North East - more specifically Arunachal Pradesh A couple of weeks. And spend the remaining time in Banglaore. In the North East I'd like to see the Tawang monastery and cross the Sela pass. For both these I'd need an inner line permit from the Govt of India. So the next step to find out more about these innerline permits, and how to transport my motorcycle from Bangalore to Guwahati.

There you go - The seeds of an idea have been sown. Now the water needs to be poured!

Germinating an idea - step 1