Ikea, Brassica Napus
This afternoon, I headed out with my roommate Andre and his friends transporter van to Ikea!
Here is a pic of Andre goofing around with some cliche hipster clothes:
I needed to pick up some things to make my house oh-so-nice for my mothers visit to Germany later this month.
Of course, it is nearly impossible to venture through Ikea without contemplating and ultimately buying all sorts of little “neat” and “cool” items. I intended to purchase only 2 bed frames, but after nearly 1.5 hours aimlessly wandering through the aisles and snaking around the kitchen, bedroom and living rooms areas, I bought a rug, a pillow, some bed sheets, a trash bin, candles, colourful markers, an ice-cube tray and 4 towels. Yes, even amongst the mayhem of the Swedish furniture wonderland, I managed to still buy the bedframes. What the hell did I spend the cash on?
More importantly, I had a nice chat on the 25km ride from Halle to the Ikea Leipzig/Halle, located between the two cities. Out of the windows of the giant van we had borrowed from a friend of Andre’s, we could both see yellow plants blanketing the fields surrounding the A14 autobahn (runs east-west) and the A9 autobahn (runs north-south). Andre relayed to me that the plants are used to make oil and that they are called “Raps.”
Of course, a quick search on wiki proved no dice. Rather references to Rap and rapping were at the top of the query. I proceeded to search on the German wiki and, there it was “Brassica Napus”! Another name for the plant is Rapeseed. I prefer Brassica Napus, though! It turns out that the yellow flower is harvested to make oil all over Germany, even Canada, India and China. A beautiful plant indeed and provided a nice sea of yellow on the German countryside horizon. Of course, it was only a preview of what was to come at the yellow logo-ed Ikea megastore.
Yeah we have huge fields in France too ! We call that “colza”