Here is a view of the Markt Platz from yesterday. I took the pictures as though I was shooting the boys, but "secretly" included the rest of the place too. I desperately don't want to come off as a tourist, and I never see people taking pictures here at all, which means the bloggers are either in hiding or non-existent, so I am very hesitant when it comes to shooting in public. People might say "do what you want! Take pictures! It's fine! Be who you are!" But for goodness sake, I do live here! It's quite a small town, and I see the same people every day, including the same rotation of shoppers who are out when I am. So there's no recourse. I must be sneaky.
Here you go (or you can click here to see the slideshow):
First, I started out by snapping a shot of the boys, enjoying their market spoils. Andrew ended up finishing that entire pretzel, which is a first for him. The boys never figured out that there was candy inside of those whistles. They were given to them by the well meaning lady at the fish truck. I hate whistles. It's worse when the children blowing them are already high on the sugar from packs of gummy bears given to them by the vegetable lady.
I still pretend to take a picture of the boys, but now you can see the market a little bit better. Directly over Andrew's head is the egg cart. That lady just lays the eggs out on the table in cartons, and you can buy them loose. Not entirely sure how you're supposed to get them home without breaking them, but I'm sure they're very fresh if they don't even have to be refrigerated at her stand (or I would hope!). Greg always buys about 5 dozen eggs for me at the commissary every other week, so I never have the need, but it seems that Germans buy eggs as needed, each day. Hmmm.
The fish and seafood truck, where the lovely whistles came from. If you stood on the side where the awning is, you would see that there is a deli counter (just like the cheese truck, picture following) where you order. We picked up some Perch that I'll broil tonight with an orange marinade and serve with a spicy tomato-orange salsa. The tomatoes here are never hot-house ones -- just the kind actually ripened in the sun, so I've got to use them in everything!
I started getting a good deal braver. Now I used the zoom, and hoped that none of the people at the egg cart would turn around and notice me. (I'm incredibly conspicuous as it is with my two children -- and the one kindergarten age but not in school! Add to that the American look to me, in a small town where we are the only foreigners, and you can see why we are remembered wherever we go.) You can see the produce stand further on behind the eggs.
The cheese truck. You can ask for a taste of any kind before you buy, which is cool since there are mostly only types that I don't recognize. Andrew loves this part, because they give generous slices, and of course I always share part with each of the boys. This angle shows the deli counter part of the truck fairly well. Thankfully, once again, no one turned towards me while I snapped off the shot.
So there you go. You've visited a German market place. Cool, huh? My (German) neighbor never goes, but I look forward to it each week. I would have gotten a better shot of the vegetable cart, but we weren't close enough.
