Here’s a first curious shot of his new shoes,
Our street is lined with an amazing variety of small shops. Here are just a few. (Please remember that this is the real almost-downtown gritty city we live in as you join us!)
A Russian bookstore
An old mom-and-pop corset and underwear store
(well, actually I don't know whether they sell corsets for pop, too,
but you know what I mean!)
The neighborhood brothel
(“You come as a stranger, you go as a friend”)
Probably twenty hair-cutting salons with intriguing advertisements
The Lebanese (!) jeweler and his assistant.
He gives out cans of juice with pineapple chunks in it whenever we stop by.
Thai massage
Big Pimp Hotdogs??
(unfortunately I'm not making this up!)
African art
And finally the Saturday market,
a small village of canvas-covered stands huddling in the church square
There’s a wonderful assortment of almost every imaginable fruit and vegetable. Here Anna and I are filling up with a week’s worth of veggies from this Turkish stand.
Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes—a different kind for every different purpose
My favorites are the flower stands. The Germans really know how to make gorgeous bouquets. Here the salesman scolded us for not coming six hours earlier to get an adequate picture when the flowers weren’t nearly gone.
As we walked we sampled the strawberries from Morocco (3 boxes for 2 euro!), the fresh garden carrots, and some really yummy homemade Turkish delight.
But the best part was setting the table when we got home: homemade Dubai pesto, crusty bread, a couple of new kinds of wurst, and fresh garlic olives. And of course more of those delicious strawberries and carrots.
