One thing that we (both me and Jyothi) miss in the States, are markets. Flea markets, 2nd hand markets, veggie markets, spice markets… all kind of open air markets. You must think we are nuts – there ARE markets here, after all!
Well, yeah. Sort of.
I mean, if you consider the various famers markets, thrift stores, garage and yard sales and various other markets (i.e. today we went to the Freemont’s Sunday Market for example), yes there are various places where you can get either the market feeling and/or rummage in between old junk and find hidden treasures.
But… the biggest ‘but’ we have is that all those things are either geographically dispersed (you need to drive miles in between each of them) and even in the case of those markets… they are SMALL. You can see the entire Freemont market above in 20 minutes. It’s nice – I even shopped! – but by the time you start having that cozy market feeling… you reached the end of the street, you have seen it all – that WAS it.
Seriously. EVERYTHING in America is big, but markets here are really nothing for us spoiled Europeans who have been visiting Portobello Road, Porta Portese and the Bazaar in Bewerwijk.
I mean a MARKET. in ALL CAPS.
One that you get there at 10 in the morning, you walk around a section of and around 12 you get some lunch, some tea/coffe, then you walk some more… then by 3 PM you still have not managed to see it all, and you finally give up, happy and exhausted, and head back home…
American friends – where are you keeping the good markets hidden? Do you even know what I am talking about?
me
Microsoft Way
In the last couple of weeks we have been driving thru America from the east coast (New York) to the west coast (Seattle).
I figured out I needed to show my family the Microsoft campus too. Of course they know I work at Microsoft… but having only seen the office of a subsidiary – the one in Rome, with about 250 people at its max – might not have given them (especially the kids) an idea of the actual size of the company.