Yeah... The Queen's Day again... Last year's didn't impress me at all - just herds of drunk and noisy people and techno 'music' roaring from every corner... I said 'never again'. So this year we stayed at home...
I have only heard about the flee market - people sell all the crap they don't need anymore... I remember good old car-boot sales in England - oooh, how much treasure one could find there!!! And the books were in English! So I must admit, I was pretty sceptical about the one in Holland...
The first 'flee-marketers' I saw were a bunch of little boys shouting out the names of the toys they had for sale ;) Oh, I forgot to mention - the Queen's Day is the only day in a year when you don't pay any fees for your stall.
So, yeah, the boys, - I thought the whole flee market would look like this, one little stall every tenth house...
But how mistaken I was!! The closer we were to the park the more suspicious I was becoming... There were more people carrying stuff, more noise and at the end many more vendors! Whole families, wearing orange - the national Dutch colour - put up little 'villages' with furnitire, tables, cupboards and all the other goods on top of them...
You could buy virtually anything! And not all the things were rubbish I must say...
Although the video tapes were kind of weird to see...
...as well as old, veeeery old coca-cola...
...or an ancient ENEMA!!! ;)
You could see people carrying all sorts of stuff back home - carpets, chairs, huge plush toys...
...and troleys full of toys, books, clothes... And babies. Occasionally.
This I will leave with no comment.
We got there quite late and some people were already packing up, well, not quite, they were simply abandoning their stalls and walking away... and the stuff that was left was FREE!!!
It took us two trips home and back to carry all the stuff we got ;)
You could see many weird things on the way - toys, clothes and items that were more difficult to identify...
...pieces of electronic equipment, toilet plungers...
...chairs... whole sets of chairs... and many many more...
When I was trying to take a photo of the sweet monkey (it just brought some memories from my childhood, I had a similar one, but made of red plush) a women shouted - 'This is mine! This is mine!' Who would have guessed...
...a poor bear sitting alone on a bench...
And now a surprise! Guess what happened to all those 'left-overs' - no, they weren't given to the poor. No, the books weren't given to libraries. No, the glass, paper and wood weren't recycled.
THEY WERE ALL THROWN INTO GARBAGE TRUCKS, SMASHED AND NOW THEY'RE PROBABLY JUST ADDING TO THE OTHER PILES OF RUBBISH STORED ON EARTH.
.jpg)
And tomorrow, on the news, I will hear about the ozone hole, melting icebergs and the global warming... No I won't. I don't watch the news.
And THIS is what we brought home:
Mostly books, nice jars and bottles, wooden trays, some musical instruments and a pair of almost unused, rubber-wheeled ROLLERBLADES!!! Thery were my size and only cost 2 (!!!) Euro!
And a chair. :D
And in the evening we went to see a nice concert. There were a few bands playing but we managed to see only the second half of the last performance (late again...). But it was so worth it - if you have a chance you have to see The Antwerp Gipsy Ska Orkestra ;). It's a really nice, lively band drawing from Balkan traditional music (one of my favourites!) in a ska rythm and with a nice brass section. I do recommend it!
So, how did you like our Q-day report?
