Market Day!

Every Sunday in Waterloo (and many other towns in Belgium), a market happens near the train station. Amelia and I went last week and had a blast, and we took Glenn and the camera along this week. The pictures will tell most of the story, but it's marketing like I've never experienced before. Among this week's pickings were Italian leather shoes, flowers, flowers, flowers, herbs, vegetables (including brocoflower and heirloom tomatoes), fruits (including fresh dates and pomegranates), a chicken and ribs booth (several, in fact) with all the fixins you can imagine for Sunday dinner, a stall with nothing but fresh-picked mushrooms, several with nothing but cheese, another for shrimp scampi, a guy selling Greek olives in a plethora of sizes, shapes, colors and flavors (who is entertainment himself) along with sun-dried tomatoes, spankopeta, feta cheese, etc., books, clothes, boiled wool jackets, dried fruits and nuts, a booth with every kind of freshly-made pasta you can imagine, Thai food, sausages, sausages, sausages, plants for the garden . . . ok, I could go on. But you get the picture. Now, to REALLY get the picture, see the photo gallery below.

A few notes: the boy in the 3rd picture helps his dad sell produce, and his dad had stepped away for a moment, and he got what we needed and started crunching the numbers when his dad showed up (much to his relief). And dogs go EVERYWHERE in Belgium--into stores, into the subway, on the trains, etc. Amelia was missing hers, so she took lots of dog pictures at the market. The guy under the umbrella is my favorite olive-seller; he's got the gift of gab . . . and his food is great too.