We often go through life believing things are the way they are because, well…that’s the way they are.
For instance, the Ritter Chocolate Bar. It’s square. Not rectangular like nearly every other candy bar in the world. Ritter bars are square.
That’s just the way it is.
Right?
Well, guess what? Ritter bars were not invented this way on a whim. They were invented this way for a reason.
When I first moved to Germany, I attended a culture class. On the last day of the class, our instructor took us to the Ritter Chocolate Factory and Museum. I wasn’t sure how this counted as German culture, but I happily went along for the chance to eat chocolate. While I was sampling, I learned two things: the word Ritter means Knight and the chocolate bar of the same name has been part of German culture since 1932.
Thus convinced of its cultural significance, I was free to enjoy Ritter’s museum, which takes visitors through the company’s entire history, including the reason for the chocolate’s square shape…
It’s made for walking.
Apparently, a very clever woman by the name of Clara Ritter realized that chocolate bars were the best travel snack around. Even the great German poets said so…
There was just one problem: those pesky rectangular bars didn’t fit very well in pockets and they had a nasty habit of breaking. Clara Ritter’s solution?
A square chocolate bar designed to fit in the pocket of a sports jacket. Suddenly, folks going to sporting events could carry their chocolate with them. Hence the bar’s unusual name…Ritter Sport.
Who would’ve thought?
Today, Ritter is still packaging chocolate that’s made for walking. If you visit the factory, be sure to head to the back room of the museum shop. There you’ll find pre-packed bags of Ritter bars with easy-to-carry handles…just right for walking.
Better get two…if you’re anything like me, only one bag of the bags will make it home to share with friends.
Okay… maybe only half a bag.
Saw this on a convenience store shelf in Italy:
Anyone have the munchies?
Image from http://www.chodovar.cz/
Have you heard the expression Beer me? How about Beer me a beer?
Beer me has become the cultured way of saying Give me insert item here.
Now that the weekend is here and I could use some time to relax, I feel like shouting, “Beer me a bath!”
Sound strange?
It’s not when you consider that there is a place where you can take a real beer bath.
If you’re willing to make the trek to the Czech Republic, you can stay at a beer wellness hotel and relax in a beer spa right smack in the middle of beer wellness land.
Yes, it’s for real.
So how does this beer bath thing work?
This is an excerpt from the Chordova website:
The real beer baths are prepared in a tub from beer and mineral water and have a temperature of 34 °C. The special ingredients consist of dark Bathing Beer (WHERE CAN I GET SOME OF THAT?), which is produced in a traditional way by the main brewer (MAIN BREWER, YOU ROCK!) of the family brewery Chodovar. The bath level is covered by the distinct beer foam (LOVE IT!) of a caramel colour and the area is scented by the fragrance of freshly brewed dark beer.
The client is immersed into the bath whose agreeable temperature causes mild and gradual rise of the heart activity (I BET!!) and activation of blood circulation in all the vascular system. To harmonize the blood pressure, increase the outcome of the bath and enhance the relaxation experience, the guests are recommended a glass of natural non-pasteurised Chodovar (YES!!!!!), which positively works on all the digestive system as well.
The length of the stay in the bath is 20 minutes.
What?????? Only 20 minutes? What’s up with that?
Oh, and yes, you read that right. The secret ingredient to this spa treatment is Bathing Beer. It comes in one-liter bottles. The recommended amount per bath is 4 liters.
So…at the risk of stating the obvious:
No! You can’t drink your bath water!!!
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I’m a gallon of milk girl.
But these days I live in Germany where they use the metric system. There’s no such thing as a gallon of milk.
I can get a bigger beer at a festival than I can a container of milk at the grocery store. While a typical carton of milk is 1 liter, a glass of beer ranges in size from 1-3 liters.
If you ask me, milk should only come in a single serving size if it’s part of a school lunch. It’s downright frustrating!
But I have a solution. Give me a meter of milk! Sound foolish?
It’s not! A meter is a bona fide serving size in Germany. Check it out:
For those watching their weight, there’s the ever-popular half-meter:
I’ll say one thing – if I ever convince the powers that be to produce a meter of milk, someone better send me a kilometer of Oreos!!
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See! 