North African Market

14-9-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 Day 76
What a delightful morning! We hopped the blue tram to the end of the line at Mosson and walked to a weekly plant market. Beautiful flowers and plants! We bought six geraniums (three for each of our front windows), four pansies for our bedroom window, four cyclamen for our kitchen window, and a basil and a parsley, also for our kitchen window. Now I can’t wait to get them planted. I have no pots, no potting soil, no window boxes, but I was dying for some plants.

On the way out on the tram, we passed a halle which appeared to have a market outside it, so we walked from the plant market to the halle. There we discovered an extensive street market. We were clearly in the arab part of town – there were hundreds of these scarf-clad women and some men with skullcaps. The market catered to them – lots of scarves for sale, plenty of shiny fabrics for making clothing, a multitude of sleeveless tops that the arab women here tend to wear over their long-sleeved tops. We found some faux crocs and Roger bought a blue pair for 3€.

We set out this evening to determine what we would eat for supper. As we passed a charcuterie, Roger noticed that they had a pan of lasagna, so we decided on lasagna for supper. From there we walked up to a greengrocer’s to get some fresh green beans. His were a bit tired-looking but we bought a few anyway. There is a very small vendor around the corner from us who sells pots, potting soil, seeds, cat and dog carriers and a few other sundry items. I am not sure how he stays in business because his selection of merchandise is so small. But we dropped in on him and bought a planter box and a metal hanger for it. Our hands were already full of supper, so we didn’t get any potting soil. On the way back home, we stopped into our favorite boulanger and bought bread and a dessert. The baguette was right out of the oven! We started eating it on the way home. Hot bread – sooooooo good!