After a couple of hours of walking around with our mouths hanging open in amazement, our stomachs started rumbling, and we took the opportunity to step out into the fresh air in search of grub.
Interesting, though: I'd never held this particular kind of poison in my hands before. By the way, people constantly ask me why I drink Coke, seeing as it's such junk. The answer is simple: I drink sugar-free Coke, which is most likely not as harmful after all. Yes, sweeteners aren't the most essential thing for the body, but very few people are savvy enough to argue with me about nutrition. I'm by no means an expert, it's just that people usually try to argue without having any knowledge whatsoever. I've read a couple dozen articles about sugar and sweeteners myself, and drew my own conclusion. If you don't have the willpower to quit completely, sugar-free Coke is the better option. This specific one had sugar, so I barely drank it, poured it out into the grass, and tossed the can.
An even less edible thing, and for crazy money. But a great indicator of the current trend. However, if you study the ingredients, the outlook is meh. Sugar — 22 grams per hundred. Let me remind you, the WHO daily recommendation is 50 grams, or better yet — 25. Meaning, one such bar contains almost all the sugar that is reasonable to consume in a day. Don't forget, sugar is in almost every boxed product on a supermarket shelf, so exceeding the limit is a piece of cake.
I have a keen interest in protein bars because I lift. Drinking a shake is boring, I want to chew on something. Preferably something sweet, otherwise life is too bitter. Bars with a ton of sweeteners taste way too cloying, and the sugary ones, like the ones above, are unhealthy. Eventually, I found bars to my liking, with lots of dietary fiber, relatively little sugar, and a reasonable price (under two euros). Oddly enough, in Latvia they are only sold in Depo. The real bummer is that Depo's supply of pretty much everything is often irregular and spotty, and sometimes items run out completely.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the manufacturer ships them here to Latvia. The bars are Slovakian, called TEKMAR. They have different kinds; the best ones are those with lots of dietary fiber, but low in sugar and fast carbs. There is literally one with just 3 grams per hundred, and no polyols (those are sugars that have few calories).
Okay, enough about food. We eventually found something, and even had some coffee. I normally only do that when traveling, because normal tea is nowhere to be found. We decided that since we were already out and about, we'd go to the botanical garden. I always enjoy visiting places like that, because nature soothes and harmonizes (pardon the cheesy clichés). An added bonus is that it's always uncrowded there. And another plus — all sorts of interesting plants, infinitely diverse in their details.
It's water, food, and shelter. A little bit of radioactive granite ore won't hurt the cause either.
We strolled around the botanical garden for an hour, and went back to the camera obscura. There we finished looking at whatever was left unseen, and headed off wherever our eyes led us. Our eyes led us towards the Dean Village area, but that'll be in the next post.