Things to Cheer You Up

Saturday is shopping day for me here in Frankfurt - mainly because supermarkets and most other shops still close on Sundays. It's also the day for the market on Berger Strasse (it's there on Wednesdays too, but that's not much use for those of us who work all day), and if you want to cook it's much better to go there than to the supermarket. The vegetable selection in the supermarkets around here is very limited in comparison to those of everywhere else I've lived, and the vegetables often don't seem especially good. The market, on the other hand, has all sort of fresh produce, and also has stalls selling bread, spices, cheeses, fish - a rich shopping experience that doesn't resemble at all the markets of Saltcoats or Doncaster (the two of which combined to form my early image of "the market") that seemed to sell mostly socks and oranges.

Today I shopped for all sorts in the Berger Strasse shops - things I've had on a list since I moved in, but hadn't got around to searching for or buying. I tried to do it all in one trip: Woolworths (yes, there is still Woolworths here, which along with C&A made me feel at first as if I'd been taken back in time to an early 1980s Scottish high street - all that was missing was John Menzies. Is there still John Menzies in Scotland? It seems impossible that this wouldn't have disappeared too, such a different life belongs it to for me) for things like food containers and coat hangers; a hardware store for a padlock (we have a storage enclosure in the cellar that needs to be locked); the electrical store Saturn for extension cords; and others. By the time I was done (adding in soya milk from the natural foods supermarket and bread and vegetables from the market) and had carried it all home, my arms had stretched a good nine inches. They're slowly shrinking back to something like normal length now.

Among my acquisitions was one thing bought just for the pleasure it gave me (at the beginning of the shopping trip, before I got weighted down). It is this espresso cup and saucer, from Könitz:

I've seen Könitz things here and there before - I've bought a couple of their mugs in the U.S. - but since they're a German company their stuff is much easier to find here. I love the colorful animal designs, but my favorite thing about them is the little design inside each one that shows itself to the person drinking, like a secret message (though only if you're right-handed, I suppose). They remind me of various antique trick cups I was shown when I was a child - the pewter beer tankard with glass bottom so no-one could take you by surprise as you swigged; cups with china frogs crouched in them; a cup that somehow diverted the liquid when you tried to drink (to pour it in your lap? That wouldn't be very amusing). They remind me too of the bowls that my great aunt had with a blue fish design in the middle, and the fascination of spooning away the melted remnants of vanilla ice cream to try at last to reveal the fish that was hiding there.

And, while I am at it, here are other things that cheer me up every time I see them.

The lions on the wall of the underground station Zoo that I go through every day on my way to and from work. The expressions on the face of the lioness is funny, as if she's a little ambivalent about her role in life (and her relationship with the male lion); the male lion looks oddly human, as if it were based on someone the artist knew:

The whole station is painted in Noah's Ark theme - a biblical reference I find slightly irritating in connection with a zoo (why not just animals? Why do they have to be caught up in some foolish anthropocentric myth?), but some of the pictures are lovely all the same. Another time I will add in photos from Habsburgerallee, the next stop along the line, mysteriously decorated all round with donkeys, each one of which is carrying something different on its back (a cross; a syringe, possibly a chair... I can't think what else just now). Somewhere in there is a picture of two donkeys mating, which always amuses me when I see it.

Finally, a squirrel in my garden. They move so quickly, it's hard to take a photo:

I watched a couple of them for a while earlier on. They bound around, carrying chestnuts here and there. One of them buries something, then another one comes and digs it up and bounds around with it for a while before burying it somewhere else again. They're very funny, and very red.