To market, to market

The morning of Mimi's wedding was free, so my friends and I decided to drive to the nearby town of Arles to see the Roman ruins, an idea that delighted the Asterix fan in me. There was a Dutch connection there, too—Vincent Van Gogh had lived there towards the end of his life, producing some of his most brilliant and intense work while living in Arles.

Entering Arles, we ran into awful traffic, and had to endure the electronic nagging of our GPS device as we kept deviating from its frenetically recalculated routes. I had set the voice controls to American English and hearing it slaughter the pronunciation of French street names was both maddening and hilarious. 

When we finally found parking, however, we discovered the reason for all the rerouted traffic... a Saturday farmer's market!

Marlon and I were instantly catapulted to heaven. We love markets, and it's rare to see such beautiful and abundant produce as we did that Saturday morning. Among the bounty were melons bigger than my head...

Fragrant, blushing garlic...

Luscious fruits and berries...

A number of varieties of perfectly plump tomatoes...

including some varieties that were completely new to us.

I love my life, my new city and its markets, but for the first time I actually felt like packing up and moving to France. I was positively green with envy. So much good food! And it's like this every Saturday?

The array of dry goods was also pretty spectacular. Lavender sachets being sold at souvenir shops for €8-10 were available for €2 apiece. All eight of us raided that stall like there was no tomorrow. Compare before...

... and after. What is pakyaw?

Marlon took home several small glass bottles of spice mixtures, including some labeled for specific uses like with omelettes, fish, and steak.

He was thrilled to find a stall specializing entirely in salts, and bought some black and pink Himalayan salts to add to our already-full spice rack at home.

We were getting hungry just strolling through the market, so we decided to split up and buy our lunch there. There were so many choices.

I was momentarily entranced by these teeny tiny baby clams...

... but I eventually settled on paella. Yes, Arles is that close to Spain.

The eight of us gathered around an old gazebo and carousel in the sun and sat down to an immensely satisfying lunch. Afterwards, it was time to walk off the calories by exploring Arles' old town. 

So many beautiful details, full of history and character.

Modern architecture can move and impress me, but I will always have a special place in my heart for old places and things.

Interspersed among the narrow streets and quintessentially French buildings of Arles are ancient Roman ruins, like the amphitheater...

... and the coliseum, built in 90 AD. It's still used today for events like horse shows and bullfights. A Roman coliseum, built in France, used for Spanish traditions. Just... wow.

We managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the Espace Van Gogh before leaving Arles. Formerly the main hospital of Arles, it was where Vincent Van Gogh was committed after infamously cutting off his ear.

At this small garden, immortalized by Van Gogh on canvas, our day as tourists ended, and our day as singers began. After all, we had a wedding to catch that afternoon!

Les Puces de St-Ouen

I'm a lucky, lucky girl: last week's visit to Paris was my sixth. Having been there several times with my family and friends, I've managed to check off most of the tourist staples, such as the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur and more. On my last visit five years ago, when I got engaged in Paris, I started working towards the lesser-visited sites such as Ste-Chapelle and Musee Rodin. 

Still, I've only just touched the tip of the tip of the iceberg that is Paris. With every visit, there's always too much that I want to do, see, taste... and buy! Having experienced the city at different ages (5, 18 and 25, for example), my tastes and interests change between visits, which always makes each time new, fun and different. 

Two things that I was never really interested in on my past visits to Paris, but absolutely love now, are vintage and flea markets. So I just had to visit Paris' biggest flea market: Les Puces de Saint-Ouen at Clignancourt. Lured by Jordan Ferney's beguiling photos and guided by her bright, cheery and very accurate map, Marlon and I headed there our first morning in Paris.

In my new one-sleeved dress from Uniqlo. I love this color!

Les Puces (The Fleas) are made up of different markets spread out over numerous city blocks. It's reportedly the largest flea market in the world. It's about half the size of Bangkok's massive Chatuchak market, but filled with nothing but antique and vintage furniture, clothing, odds and ends.

Both of us have been searching for the perfect living room armchair for the last six months. Les Puces were full of gorgeous pieces that we were dying to take home. You'd think delivery overland from France to the Netherlands would be somewhat affordable, right? 

Wrong! Estimates of at least €400-500 for shipping alone dashed our French armchair dreams to bits. So we simply made ourselves content with roaming the narrow maze of alleyways and resolving to come back some day with a car.

Still, if you can't carry a piece of furniture home with you, memories and photographs are the next best thing to take home from Les Puces.

And in this aspect, you will not be disappointed. At Les Puces, rounding a corner reveals a fascinating vignette for your camera and mind's eye to capture. 

Turning a corner can spark desire by discovering an entire alley full of objects you want to take home...

... or can simply mesmerize you for a moment with eye-catching textures and colors. 

Each turn can remind you of a friend... 

evoke a bygone era so vividly, that you wished you were born in it...

... or even make you see yourself in a new and different way. 

 Wandering the alleys of Les Puces, you come upon everything from the beautiful... 

to the chic...

... to the oddly humorous... 

.. even to the faintly disturbing. And that potent mix of everything and anything, carefully chosen yet haphazardly thrown together, I love. 

There is magic in a place like Les Puces where, like these bits and pieces from dismantled chandeliers, the old, broken and useless come not to die, but to regain a new life and beauty...

... and where unconventional combinations give a new power and vibrance to the ordinary. 

Or maybe it's not magic. Maybe I just really love flea markets! And maybe it's simply Paris!

Saturday lemonade

Bright and early Saturday morning, Marlon and I set off for the Vondelpark to join a beginners' running group that I had signed us up for. I was thrilled at the prospect of meeting new people and making running, a rather detested activity of mine, more fun and exciting. Having roughly sketched out a route on 9292ov and Google Maps, I thought we were set.

But no. It was not to be. My excitement turned into horror as I realized the route we had taken was one. Big. Circle. A circle that led back to our neighborhood. Yep, we got lost. Hopelessly lost. And there was no way we could figure out a new route and make it to Vondelpark in time. 

"Let's just go home, eat popcorn, and watch a movie," suggested Marlon, in an attempt to cheer me up. (Prime example of the kind of activity that has gotten us into this shape.) So we hopped on Tram 24 back to our house... until I realized it was the same tram that takes me to Albert Cuypmarkt every week. Marlon, who loves markets, food and cooking, had never been there, so... "Why don't we take this tram all the way to the market?" He thought it was a great idea. Go me!

So we spent Saturday morning walking around the market, and it felt like the best thing ever. Half of Amsterdam seemed to agree, judging from all the Saturday shoppers milling about in the sunshine. No mall zombies here—everything looked and felt so alive, and both our moods were instantly transformed. Marlon was overjoyed to finally find the butcher, and bought pork chops and a whole lamb shoulder to roast that weekend. (It's the first time we've had red meat at home since we moved!)

Aside from the food stalls, Albert Cuypmarkt also has a few furniture and lighting stores. I usually ignore these stores when I go on my weekly market runs, because it would just be more fun to have Marlon around. We finally got to go into some of them, and found...

... a low, comfy gray armchair that's exactly the kind of thing I want for the living room...

... a small sparkly chandelier that would look nice in the bedroom...

... and beautiful silver filigree lamps that we could picture in the hallway or living room. Pero surprise! We didn't buy anything. Canvassing muna. I feel like such an adult when I can resist a strong impulse to buy!

Marlon indulged me in a little window shopping while he sat outside... kinda like this gigantic terrier (how's that for a segue?). It was exactly like a normal terrier except it was about the size of an Akita. I've never seen those before.

We stopped for appeltarts (a.k.a. good ol' apple pie) and cappuccinos at a corner cafe called Flamingo. Across the street was another cafe with a huge crowd—not because it was any better, but because the sun was shining there. "I bet all the people move over here after lunch, when the sun shifts position," I remarked, a guess confirmed by the barista.

Before we hopped back on the tram home, Marlon bought me an armful of pink carnations (which you've seen in a previous post). "Lemons into lemonade," he remarked on our way home. "What a way to turn this morning around."