The realities of the experiment hit me on the first day around lunchtime. As usual, I had been too lazy to make my lunch at home before coming to uni. Instead of just going to the Mensa (student cafeteria) for lunch, or popping in for a dodgy kebab, I realized I would have to go and purchase some local produce from the Munster Markt. Of my fellow experimenteers, only Luis agreed to come with me – the others sneaking off to Mensa when we weren’t looking. I was feeling good about this decision as we manfully strode through the rainy streets of Freiburg to get to the market. Unfortunately, this feeling evaporated as the sweet smell of frying sausage hit my nostrils. The Munster Markt is renowned for its excellent wurst, and the thought of not having these tasty German morsels for a month made me quite sad. In fact, the prospect of eating only expensive locally grown organic vegetables for a month also made me quite sad. I tried to hide my disappointment from Luis by buying an organic bread-roll with seeds on top – he said he thought it looked good, but all I could think about was the curry-wurst I was missing out on!
My experiment took a further turn for the worst only 2 days in. I had forgotten that I had been invited to dinner at a Brazilian friend’s house – she was cooking a Brazilian fish speciality. Not only was the dish flavoured with coconut, but the fish came from Thailand. Of course, I had no intention of being rude to my host by saying I could not eat it because of the rules of the experiment. So I happily and deliciously broke the rules – although I thought to myself that I had not made a very good start.
Back home I was quite proud that I had managed to have cold showers all week. I used a method known as “submarine showering” in which you wet your body for only a very short time – soap up – then wash off the suds. Not only does it make the cold water more bearable, but you use a lot less water than normal showering. I was finding the food rules quite difficult to follow though. My partner was not participating in the experiment, and so it was particularly difficult to sit back and watch her eat all manner of chocolate and other exotic delicacies whilst I had broccoli and potatoes. However, proving that my five years at law school were not a total waste, I exploited a loophole in the experiment rules that said you could eat food from outside the region that was purchased before the experiment began – after all, it would be a waste to let it go bad, right!?
I also got around the no washing machine/detergent rule by getting my partner to do all my washing for me. Not exactly in the spirit of the experiment I know, but she was doing a load anyway. On the plus side, I have found that Luis’ organic wonder soap is great and works just like normal soap – although it leaves you smelling a bit like a peanut butter sandwich.
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