Excerpt from 2002 Letter About ALBERT CUYPSTRAAT OPEN-AIR MARKET

We are going to our favorite street market. Did we need anything? No. Did we buy anything? Of course. We only had one kind of cheese, so we needed to buy more so that the cheese police don’t get us. We already had flowers (2.10 euros for a huge bunch of yellow chrysanthemums) so we didn’t have to worry about the flower police finding our vase bare. But poor Ron had to deal with me drooling over the incredibly beautiful and inexpensive flowers at the market.

We had lunch there. Ron had his first but not his last "Nieuw Haring" –a lightly salted skinned and boned fat-and-buttery herring served with onions and pickles, and an order of "gebaked kibbles" small pieces of fried fish served with a remoulade sauce. Adelle had a delicious sandwich of roasted peppers, onions, eggplant and tomatoes.

At the beginning of the next trip, we went into the city armed with two backpacks and again visited the Albert Cuypstraat street market.

We had to buy cheese (Maasdammer, Emmenthal and Walnut as well as Roquefort and Parmesan) from the same merchant we usually buy from. Otherwise the cheese police might get us. And Adelle had to have flowers: 10 tulips for 2 euros and 10 Siberian iris for 1 euro)…otherwise the flower police might get us. And, as long as we were there and could carry more, we bought more. A lot more! Vegetables, fruit, meat, chocolate, deep fried macadamia nuts, dried tropical fruits, olives, a crisp baguette, cooked chicken for dinner, and a beautiful handbag that can be carried over the shoulder, or as backpack.

Walking in the street markets is interesting not only because of the really wonderful things you can buy, but because everyone else is doing the same thing. After walking through Amsterdam one thing is very clear. The Netherlands is living up to its reputation for being an inclusive, multi-cultural society.