Indische Buurt

Today I walked up to the Indische Buurt, which sort of means Indian neighbourhood, just north of the center of Groningen. While it does seem to be home to at least a small Asian community (some Asian grocery stores, Surinamese restaurants) it doesn't really 'live up' to its name in that way....no Samosa stands on every corner or anything...which would have been delicious. It's very quiet, with a lot of nice big parks with big ponds in them, and rows and rows of residential flats, one main street going through that had a lot of sports specialty stores for some reason.











two blokes I met on the street who really wanted me to take their picture. the one on the left is from Suriname and the one on the right is Nigerian.




swingin'


people had really nice little gardens and shrubbery outside their homes....


digging up the road


peeked into the hospital...looks like an airport! didn't feel like a hospital at all.

tobacco

Every so often, in the evenings, there is a strong smell of tobacco throughout the entire city, or at least the city center. I guess it's when the wind is blowing in a certain direction.

The reason for this, apparently, is:

...the Tobacco Museum (Tabacologisch Museum) of the Niemeyer company, with a unique collection of material on the history of tobacco-smoking ranging from 3,000- year-old American Indian pipes to the present day, illustrating the manufacture of pipes and displaying pipes, snuff-boxes, spittoons and tobacco jars of porcelain, silver, meerschaum, crystal and ivory....

Treasure Hunting

Every time there is a market (Tuesday, Friday and Saturday) boxes of produce that is deemed unsellable is left in the square. I found out about it one my way home from class one day. It was about 6PM (the market closes at around 5) and I saw an older gentleman rummaging through what looked like trash. Slowing my bike to investiate, he handed me an avocado, in perfect condition, and I was hooked. Since then, I have been going after almost every market. You would think that the students would pounce on this stuff, but they don't seem to care. They pass by on their bikes, often looking judgmentally at the people who are doing it, who tend to be young hippie couples, older anti-establishment types, and other intelligent people in general. My grocery bill has been cut substantially since I discovered this ritual.

Here's some of the loot I've picked up:

6 red peppers, 1 Canteloupe, 2 Avocados, 1 apple, 1 tomato, 1 mango


1 cucumber, a box of cherry tomatoes, 1 tomato, 2 potatoes, 1 orange, 1 red pepper, 2 chilis, 3 canteloupes, 2 papayas, 3 peaches, 1 apple, 1 kiwi


2 boxes of blueberries, 1 box of rasberries, 2 bundles of white asparagus (there were crates and crates of these!1), 3 heads of lettuce, 4 tomatoes, 2 onions, 1 box of mushrooms, 2 potatoes, half a zuchinni, 1 banana, 1 mango