Welcome back to the 2016 Paris farmers' market revue!!
These markets seem to play an integral role in the life of everyday Parisians -- I'm getting a chance to intereract (even at a low level) with people I would never have otherwise had the chance to meet -- for the most part they're young mothers with children, elderly men and women and people from other cultures and other countries of the world (many third-world) who find themselves in Paris -- just trying to live a normal life as best they can.
At these markets, you get to observe behavior you would never see in touristy areas -- for example, at today's market, an elderly woman spilled a small purse of coins onto the ground and everyone walking by stopped what they were doing to help her pick-up the coins -- at another market, a pail of apples got knocked to the ground scattering them and the people in the area made a circle around the apples (keeping other people from coming through) so that the vendor could retrieve the spilt apples -- small things, but telling of the culture.
Today's marche was a spur of the monment thing -- didn't feel like playing tourist but wanted to get out, stretch my legs and do something -- so figured, this market is kind of in the neighborhood, why not go check it out -- had to be better than yesterday! And it was, by far -- it wasn't too big and it wasn't too small -- it was part farmers' market and part just an open air market with a variety of things for sale -- to me, exactly what a market like this should be.
Obviously, you could find all kinds of food products (fruits, vegetables, baked goods, meat, fish, spices, dried fruits, nuts, etc...) but you could also buy children's clothes -- women's dresses, skirts, jackets, scarves -- men's pants, shirts, hats, belts -- cd's and dvd's -- small kitchenwares and cleaners -- obligatory souvenirs -- small dressers, chairs and tables -- and some beautiful silk, cotton and brocade materials and linens -- sheets, coverlets, quilts -- flowers, perfumes, socks, underwear -- it was amazing. I think I enjoyed this one the most of all I've been to -- Marche Belleville was great but too huge and too crazy crowded for me. Took photos of some things displayed and many of the vendors thought my taking photos of their wares was cute and gave me big smiles -- like I said before, more of a relaxed, neighborhood community experience.
My purchases for the day consisted of a pastry (sweet bread with chocolate, almonds and powdered sugar), a flat of strawberries and a bottle of rhubard juice ( I have no "clue" -- but couldn't pass it up trying it!)
Back at the apartment, working on planning out the next leg of my adventure (post-Paris) -- trying to find places to stay -- revising my route (decided not to do the Chunnel train -- to take a ferry instead to England on my way to Scotland -- bought my ticket last night -- it's a thirteen hour "cruise" leaving from Zeebrucken, Belgium near Bruges going to Hull, England. Hull is a ways north of London -- decided I didn't want to deal with London traffic any more than I have to -- plus the lure of taking a "slow boat to Hell Hull" across the English Channel was too tempting to pass up!
The ship "sets sail" at 7:00pm and I have "dinner and breakfast reservations for one" -- not sure what all that consists of but it sounded good! (Probably a burger and a Coke!) The boat arrives in Hull the next morning at 8:30am which means I should be able to be in Edinburgh, Scotland by mid-day and have some time to adjust in "non-traffic" conditions to the driving on the left convention.
Am looking forward to Scotland -- Paris is not a "hiking" city, everything is flat -- walking yes, being out in nature, no -- they have parks, but they're pretty much crushed gravel and paved pathways amid neatly trimmed grass and trees. Scotland is known for it's world-class nature hiking along the sea bluffs and inland lochs.
My seat mates on the flight to Paris were a young couple from Glasgow, Scotland and when I asked them what I should be sure not to miss in their country, gave me a blank stare -- eventually (after a discussion amongst themselves in a language that maybe was/maybe wasn't English), they came up with three recommendations -- the MacIntosh raincoat factory(?), the scotch distilleries (ok but I'm not a big scotch drinker) and hiking the mainland and the islands (looks like I'll be doing a lot of hiking and maybe some boating!)
Can't believe I've already been here three weeks -- time is just flying by. A little over a week from now I'll be moving to a new apartment in the northwestern part of Paris (I'm in the southeast arrondisement now) -- am planning on having some help moving which should make it easier and a lot more fun!! Plus, a whole new world to explore!
