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Someone at Lynn’s office told her that there
would be lots going on in town the other night. We were unaware of
this because we can’t read any of the signs, or maybe there weren’t
any signs but the locals all knew about it because they’re locals.
Central Delft is pretty compact and although people are crammed in
here, there are only so many people that can live in a given area.
They were all out and each one brought ten friends. I can’t imagine
where they all came from.
We first went to the
Beestenmarkt. This is a small square that is lined with
lots of shops and restaurants. By my own personal estimate, there
are more restaurants per person in Delft than anywhere else in the
world. Last summer while visiting, we had dinner in the Beestenmarkt
and many of the restaurants had outdoor tables. It was just such a
pleasant atmosphere with people and bikes around, not a car in
sight, hardly any extraneous noise, and nobody in any big hurry. In
winter, it’s a bit different. Nobody was sitting outside with a
glass of wine. Even if someone wanted to, the area in the middle of
the market was taken up with an ice skating rink. In the summer, the
tables in the square are set among some tall, old trees. When the
rink was laid down, they didn’t move the trees, of course, but they
built small fences around each tree. Hanging from the branches of
each tree was a lantern with a reddish orange light surrounded by
some kind of crepe paper and a fan giving the effect of a fire in an
oil lamp. It was something out of Hans Brinker. One man told me that
the Dutch love to skate but because of things like global warming
that some presidents of the U.S. don’t acknowledge as real, there
are few opportunities to skate on the canals anymore because they
only freeze about once in ten years.
We left the Beestenmarkt and wandered over to the
Brabantse Turfmarkt where each Saturday vendor in carts sell
produce, antiques, bric-a-brac, and assorted junk. There are crafts
people there doing what they do best. Except for restaurants, Delft
shuts down at about 6PM on weekdays, but this night all the artisans
and fruit and vegetable guys were out in bulk. It was packed. There
was even a man making wooden shoes right there on the spot, and what
a kind, old gent he was. He loved talking about his craft as he went
about doing what he does. Of course, I didn’t understand much of
what he said but this was about atmosphere, not a technical
instruction on how to make wooden shoes in ten easy lessons.
When we got to the end of the market near our
house, there was someone selling Christmas trees. Lynn wants to make
our rather sparse temporary apartment a bit brighter so thought we
would get a tree. All our usual Christmas decorations are somewhere
between Lansdale and Rotterdam, and this includes the big tree stand
we have. We opted for a small tree in a bucket of dirt so we
wouldn’t have to get a new stand. Instead of the
six to six and a half foot tree of American days, we picked out one
that’s about five feet including the bucket which itself is about a
foot. (Notice I still use feet. If I had said "Instead of the
183cm to 198cm tree of American days, we picked out one that’s about
152cm including the bucket which itself is about 30cm" you wouldn’t
have known what the hell I was talking about. The numbers are
accurate but rounded off to the nearest centimeter.)
So now we are the proud owners of our first Dutch
Christmas tree. Let’s take it home. What does an American do when he
buys a Christmas tree? He puts it in the car, right? Where is our car? Same
as the other stuff, somewhere between Lansdale and Utrecht.
Besides, we couldn’t have gotten the car to this spot anyway, and
the car is too small to hold a tree any larger than a poinsettia
plant. But the tree was small, so we thought I’d carry it the three
blocks home. What a bad idea. I lifted this thing and fortunately my
back is still intact. I think it’s the load of dirt at the bottom.
So what to do. Every Dutch household has something you hardly ever
see in the U.S., at least in the ‘burbs. We got a dual purpose
grocery cart. I used to see these when I lived in center city and
people walked to the supermarket. This one is a bit different
because the place where the groceries go is a detachable thing that
resembles a backpack. By removing the backpack and extending the
gizmo at the bottom, it turns into something like a dolly or
handcart. Lynn babysat the tree and was entertained by the police
subduing the town drunk, while I went home to get this contraption.
Ten minutes later I returned, the police were still subduing the
drunk, and we walked home with our new tree. Tonight we put the
lights on and we are in business!
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