Saturday morning market

While we say we live in Portsmouth, Ross campus is actually a bit of a hike away, about a 30 minute walk from the town of Picard and Ross.

It's difficult to get fresh produce here, and the Saturday market in downtown (as it were) Portsmouth is really the only place to get it unless you want to pay double nearby. Paying double really means paying about what it costs in Canada. The food here is cheap and delicious, but not always easy to acquire.

The market opens at 6am, and we got there around 645 with some other students. It's a lovely walk (cab ride there is about 60 cents Cdn, but the walk is worth it. We took the cab back.) with a view of the bay and the mountains in the background. Apparently, Picard seems to be cow jurisdiction; the closer you get to Portsmouth, the more chickens roam freely.

It should be noted before you scroll through the pictures, so Denise doesn't get mad at me, that all these photos are courtesy of Denise and her camera.

Look close and you see a chick!

The little speck on the left mountain is an old trading post that they've restored.

A blurry photo of me.

The Indian river. This is the last photo we took before the market, as we were pretty sure that we weren't allowed to take photos there.

The market is fun. This is the second time we've gone. Last Saturday we woke up at 5:30 and said screw it. As a consequence, we've been eating a lot of rice, pasta and beans. Now, our fridge is loaded, and we're friggin' pumped.

What we bought:

-pumpkin
-eggs
-homemade honey
-fresh tuna (they literally dragged out a huge fish, cut it into steaks for us, and gave it to us in a bag, all in the back of his truck)
-cherries (these are quite tart, but tasty)
-avocados
-onion
-tomatoes
-cocoa (Denise tried some and was thoroughly disgusted. Might be good with the honey)
-watermelon
-two fresh cinnamon buns
-coconut water

Two dozen eggs, watermelon, avocado, cinnamon buns.

Roughly clockwise from the top: pumpkin, tuna, avocado, eggs, cucumber, tomato, watermelon, onion, cherries, coconut, cinnamon bun, honey.

When we asked the seller where the honey came from, he thumped his chest and said: "from my heart! from my heart!"

All this is super fresh, and we're pretty sure it's all organic (they make this a selling point for us yuppies, I think for everyone else it's just called food). The coconut is a special treat. Two people come to market with the back of their truck literally overflowing with coconuts, and for 1.25 EC (50 cents CDN), they take a machete and hack it up so you can hold it in one hand, and then make the tiniest slit into the middle and give you a straw. You get about a cup of juice, and it's refreshing and delicious. Here's Denise drinking from it.