Hausbrandt

Early morning August 4, we're zipping through the streets of Beziers after our nuit at Municipal Camping when I spy a sign. It appears to be a coffee pot about to gulp down a cup of coffee, but that seems too surreal to be so, and I don't really get a good enough look to be able to confirm or deny my first impression. I pass it off as the fruit of a mind fatigued, a vision born of my not-yet-croissant-filled stomach and caffeine-less veins.

But then we stop for gas, and across the street, swinging from the front of a shuttered cafe, is the sign again. J fuels up as I grab my camera and traverse the parking lot for a better look.

And, well, damn. Sure enough. Hausbrandt coffee advertises its wares with an anthropomorphic coffee pot that's either self-referential or cannibalistic (or perhaps both). I snap a few photos and head back to the Golf.

But that's not to be the last of it. The sign shows up again on a cafe in a Ljubljana alleyway, then on sugar packets resting in wait on a table when we stop for coffee, then again as we round a corner. It's just there, its subject smiling blisfully as it tips its head (?) back and prepares to drink deeply. Of itself.