Saturday Market
Spuds of six different varieties. Baby blueberries, golden apricots, jonagold apples, sliced pineapples, and fresh red strawberries in wooden baskets. Farm fresh organic eggs and vegetables sold by mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Red, white and yellow roses, sunflowers, marigolds and other flowers in bunches fresh for the city dwellers who don't have a garden, who probably don't have a backyard. Smells of the market: every variety of cheese, pork sausages cooking on a grill, falafel samples given away by a middle Easterner and his son. Coffee, fresh juice of every combination from kiwi-carrot to orange-banana- apple (our choice); fresh coffee cake and banana bread become our breakfast. As we stand to eat at tall, red-covered tables, we are surrounded by young families with babies in strollers which double as carriers for market purchases, by young teens buying earrings from the jewelry merchant, by a woman my age trying on Indian pashimas as her friend advises her on her purchase.
After Mark buys African spoons, we sit for awhile on the park bench to read and watch a precious, pudgy, curly-headed toddler chase birds and wander aimlessly under the loving gaze of his young mother and look up to us as he passes to briefly acknowledge our presence on his way back to enjoying his adventures. We guess that he lives in an apartment and that his mother brings him here often to get rid of his energy.
On our way back to the hotel, we stop in the sandlot where dozens of families gather around the slides, snapping pictures, and Mark snaps pictures of the children of all ages. We recall Laura and Brian at those ages and remember how they filled our world with such joy, but we wouldn't give anything for the adult relationships we have with them now and were happy to walk away from the scene, knowing the years of raising these children belonged to their young parents.
Not content to go straight home, we stopped on the way for lunch since our small breakfast did not fill us up. There as we ate our sandwiches in one of many outdoor cafes, we witnessed a young man dressed in a dark suit walking with the passing crowd, wearing a clown's nose, mimicking them as they passed between the two outdoor cafes: the way they walked, their actions (eating, talking on their cell, speaking to their neighbor), often surprising them and eliciting all kinds of reaction from upset to laughter. It was lighthearted comedy for the afe patrons, and he collected our approving euros in his hat at the end.
We got back to the hotel in enough time to get ready to go to the gym around the corner where Mark lifted weights, and I had a massage. What an experience! I went to the gym's front desk, and the young woman called for the masseuse to come. Coming toward me and towering over me was a huge giant of a man, a bodybuilder type, who asked me to follow him. He spoke a few words in English: okay and are you an American? so the massage was quiet. I will just end with the observation that I was happy when he cut five minutes off of the 45 minute massage. The price was right (18 euros) but it was not relaxing.
"A Tribute to the Beatles" ended our day in Germany; it was like a Las Vegas act in a convention hotel on the other side of Berlin, and we sat with people from Amsterdam who helped us with the German part of the act (the actors who were telling the story of the rise of the Beatles). The look-a-like John, Paul, George, and Ringo were convincing, and the music was terrific. So many memories for me from the first time I saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 in the student union of St. Joseph's College (no TVs in the room) to their music during the Vietnam war to Peace Corps India where we listened to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heartclub Band and their other music when we gathered in Bombay. Wonderful nostalgia!
After Mark buys African spoons, we sit for awhile on the park bench to read and watch a precious, pudgy, curly-headed toddler chase birds and wander aimlessly under the loving gaze of his young mother and look up to us as he passes to briefly acknowledge our presence on his way back to enjoying his adventures. We guess that he lives in an apartment and that his mother brings him here often to get rid of his energy.
On our way back to the hotel, we stop in the sandlot where dozens of families gather around the slides, snapping pictures, and Mark snaps pictures of the children of all ages. We recall Laura and Brian at those ages and remember how they filled our world with such joy, but we wouldn't give anything for the adult relationships we have with them now and were happy to walk away from the scene, knowing the years of raising these children belonged to their young parents.
Not content to go straight home, we stopped on the way for lunch since our small breakfast did not fill us up. There as we ate our sandwiches in one of many outdoor cafes, we witnessed a young man dressed in a dark suit walking with the passing crowd, wearing a clown's nose, mimicking them as they passed between the two outdoor cafes: the way they walked, their actions (eating, talking on their cell, speaking to their neighbor), often surprising them and eliciting all kinds of reaction from upset to laughter. It was lighthearted comedy for the afe patrons, and he collected our approving euros in his hat at the end.
We got back to the hotel in enough time to get ready to go to the gym around the corner where Mark lifted weights, and I had a massage. What an experience! I went to the gym's front desk, and the young woman called for the masseuse to come. Coming toward me and towering over me was a huge giant of a man, a bodybuilder type, who asked me to follow him. He spoke a few words in English: okay and are you an American? so the massage was quiet. I will just end with the observation that I was happy when he cut five minutes off of the 45 minute massage. The price was right (18 euros) but it was not relaxing.
"A Tribute to the Beatles" ended our day in Germany; it was like a Las Vegas act in a convention hotel on the other side of Berlin, and we sat with people from Amsterdam who helped us with the German part of the act (the actors who were telling the story of the rise of the Beatles). The look-a-like John, Paul, George, and Ringo were convincing, and the music was terrific. So many memories for me from the first time I saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 in the student union of St. Joseph's College (no TVs in the room) to their music during the Vietnam war to Peace Corps India where we listened to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heartclub Band and their other music when we gathered in Bombay. Wonderful nostalgia!
posted by Kathy Sohn | 2:38 AM
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