To Market

This Saturday morning, we finally made it into the Utrecht Market. Though it had been going on right in front of our hotel when we were staying in Centrum, it is hard to tell exactly what it held. It turns out amazing things! Beyond the pantyhose, bad 80's CD, and assorted plastic knicknacks, there were stalls filled with an assortment of very fresh fruits and veggies. Cheese, bakeries, butchers, seafood and fish, chicken, spices, dried fruits, olives, Turkish breads...we though, we can live here for 2 years! We kept ourselves under control and only shopped through Wednesday, since our fridge is very small. Our big successes were some tasty scones with kanel (cinnamon) chips, pinapples (for the little Fruit Bat), and some sort of dutch bacon, not really smoked, but not as salty as salt pork (for our Sunday night beef stew with dumplings). We braved the butcher; thought we were ordering a good amount of moderately priced 'stew' meat and left with 6 fewer euros and two very small pieces of meat! We'll know better for next time! (though it was quite tasty). The veggie stand was very nice. The seemed quite concerned as I tried to frantically grab the veggies we need as Elena was melting down in the backpack with Jake. Earlier, Jake has seen their display of manderine oranges and said, 'look 3 kg for 5 E, we should get one.' I said, 'How will we get it home? On your bike?' 'Yea, no problem!' Well, it turns out he was thinking of the 1 kg bags and I was looking at the 3 kg boxes, getting the metric down is still a bit overwhelming when combined with a different language and currency. So, I checked out and added to our veggies and fruits, a 3 kg box of manderin oranges. We realized our miss-communication as I was lugging the ~7 lb box of oranges out of the stall! Luckily, it fit on the back of Jake's bike no problem. And it turns out that they are the best manderin oranges we have ever had. They are so sweet I could eat 5 a day! (which is good, because the tiny fruit bin in the fridge is full, as are the assorted random 'containers' that 'decorated' the apartment when we arrived! Almost every one in the market was very nice to us, it was a really positive experience, once you got over the hanging legs displaying hoisery next to the butcher stalls!