Aircraft Carrier Tours

The last week has been quiet entertaining if you were not affected by the Europe’s aircraft grounding.
Media has been full of reports about tourists stranded on their vacation and Britain definitely won the price for the most dramatic way to “rescue” its habitants from vacation.
A lot of British tourist couldn’t afford the passage from Calais to Dover and in an brilliant reflection of their marine history, the send an military aircraft carrier to bring their townsfolk home. It was particular amusing to see sunburn Brits (British tourists are a species on their own, as well as German-, Scandinavian- and in nowadays Russian-Tourists) as a replacement for heavy armory.


Besides showing us, how depend on airplanes for personal transport we are, it became obvious how many goods are transported via airplane, that you wouldn’t think of.
Who would think that a pound of strawberries, that sells for a price of 2 Euros, justifies sending a plane from Israel to Northern Europe, just to enabling us to eat strawberries throughout the year.

Although I try to avoid imported or out of season fruits and vegetables, because they simply don’t taste, I was quiet surprise how many people lost their feeling for seasonable goods.
In our canteen and in the tram, people were complaining about the ridiculous prices for cape gooseberry and dragon fruit, as if it was an regular good in Europe.

From my opinion we do import far to much groceries at too cheap prices. Having access to out of season grocery is fine, especially in the winter month, but in most cases alternatives exist, but we insist on having asparagus throughout the year.

I have a similar feeling when I order a bottle of table water in a restaurant. Usually the waiter tries to convince me to take an San Pellegrino or similar water, using a light mineralisation being more suitable for the wine, as an excuse to sell an expensive water. At that point, I just order a local mineral water. The reason is not, just that I don’t like to spend the doubled price, it’s also that I don’t understand why water – a resource that we have in all qualities in place – needs to be carried through Europe and across the alps.
There has been a convincing image in the media, showing a bottle of water which contained a certain amount of mineral oil, to display the energy need for the transport.

Fortunately it looks like the trend is turning around now. People seem to actively look for local products now. The racks in supermarkets show more regional groceries than they did two years ago.