I'm here to bring a neglected truth to light. It's time to dispel a few rumors which are possibly damaging, but in any case altogether untrue. We'll get to the truth part in a minute. First a few words of contextual information...

If you're ever in Europe, say the Germany part of Europe, and you happen to be in the Dortmund part of Germany, at the university, and you happen to walk into the cafe above the bookshop there, you'd be standing in a place called Durchblick. You can eat here, as well as buy cigarettes for 5DM, have a bier or simply sit and watch Germans go by in leather pants and jean jackets. It's a lovely place.

What's not so lovely is the report this place has with local people, specifically students. The cafe's name is often distorted in everyday use and jokingly referred to as "Durchfall," which is something rather nasty in German, namely dysentery.

This mostly has to do with the noodles.

Durchblick serves noodles every day. You can find them in the food section, at the end of the track for your handy plastic cafeteria tray. There are usually two different versions of noodles, varying in color from yellow to green.

They have a bad reputation because they sit behind the glass under a heat lamp all day, and start to take on a rather, well, bored complexion. They don't look like the most excited noodles you've ever seen. Most students order them reluctantly, when the other options at Durchblick just aren't that appealing on a particular day. Then they spend the rest of their day making jokes about the noodles.

The truth is (and this is where the "Truth" part comes in) the noodles aren't half bad. In fact, they're more than half good. All they usually need is a hit of salt to get them up and lively (so to speak), and suddenly you've got a plateful of darn good noodles in front of you. Their reputation precedes them, but don't let it fool you.

So for any travelers finding themselves out that way, the noodles in Durchblick at the Dortmund University in Dortmund, Germany, Europe, Earth are good noodles. Give them a chance. Give them some salt and give them a hand.

Everybody needs a little help now and then. Even noodles.

Some relevant (really!) info on the Dortmund area.