Mediterranean Markets

Call me cynical, but to me, most Mediterranean markets are the same. There's the same old pointless junk sold in each of the stalls, with overly-eager sellers (or, seemingly laid-back sellers who glare at you from afar) who are just gagging for your money. Plus, they can literally smell tourists from a mile off and bunk up their prices when they see yo' skinny white ass approaching. Have you not heard of bargaining, darling? I must admit that I used to be a bit fearful of doing so, perhaps after my first experience when I was 10 and my Father pushed me to ask for a lower price for some tacky hair band that most 10 year olds want, and the woman merely pierced her lips together and said "Non, petite. Allez, va t'en". This was condescending, and psychologically damaging as I didn't try to push market prices down for about 4 years until my ego recovered.

Nowadays, I rarely accept the suggested price on items I find at markets. After all, the price on an item is called an 'Offer to Treat', to give it its legal name. This means that the price that they place on the item isn't necessarily the one you settle upon. It is just an 'offer', as the name suggests. Occasionally, and this just goes to show how low my life has become, I enjoy bargaining with market sellers on items I don't necessarily want to buy; I like bargaining just to see how much percentage I can get off. Then again, this can go awfully wrong. The other day I felt like Johnny English trying to escape the crazy cleaner lady because I had to run away, literally run away from this guy who didn't get the hint that I didn't want to buy his tacky faux P'tit Marcel bag. I used the common excuse of "Oh, I'll be right back, I just have to get my money" but the idiot wasn't street wise enough to get the hint and followed five paces behind me until I escaped to some public bathrooms and stayed in there until I 100% knew he was no longer waiting for me outside. Tragic, I know.

Every time I go to markets, it's like I can already tell what is going to be there. There'll be the fruit section, the clothes section, and the trinkets section. I mean, c'mon, here's a check-list of people in markets that you can use to play 'I Spy' with.
 - a stall with tons of bracelets attached to cardboard poles
 - a fruit stall with melon samples which is covered with flies, but nobody seems to know the definition of hygiene as they happily stuff their face with the bacterial-ridden fruit
 - a mysterious white haired woman selling spiritual books and crystals
 - a guy with amazing dreadlocks, tattoos and piercings selling intense and Buddha statues (he often seems really, um, /high/ on life)
 - a token English couple selling some weird English stuff eg. scones, which nobody really wants bar other English people, who are often friends of the couple and who only buy their products out of pity
 - a stall with huge woven baskets in pretty colours, pretty designs and pretty big sizes
 - a stall with all the varieties of 'saucisson' there is, which includes tasters and is probably one of the most popular tables in the market until a little kid screams because there is the option to buy some little horsy meat too... which, by the way, is delicious
 - an organic honey store with tasters of bread and spoons to spread the honey on... again, very unhygienic - but who cares apart from the tourists?
 - a mobile pizza van which nobody really goes to
 - a stall selling bread that looks like rock hard plastic which would 'kneed' a strong set of teeth to eat, let alone a good deal of stomach acid to digest
 - a dench old guy who attends a surprisingly huge book store who insists on reading you Voltaire in a deep, calming voice... and thus convincing you to buy an anthology of French poems (true story)
 - second hand clothes 'stores' which looks like a bomb exploded in a teenage girl's wardrobe and then taken to the market and set out on a tressel
 - overly eager Moroccan men ready to sell you imitation leather bags and belts (reference to the story above)
 - and finally, the most random store which sells stuff ranging from mattresses, to kitchen utensils, to loom bands to zips...

If you've ever been to a Mediterranean market, did you recognise any of the people I mentioned above? If not, do comment others that you've seen so that I can add them to the list. This post has quite a negative view of markets, but there is a part of me, deep deep down, which actually likes them. I guess I like their ambiance, which one can't really get in England. I like the chaotic cries coming from the loud fruit sellers, the rush of people as they go from store to store, but what I love most of all, is spending my money buying all the pointless junk I find there.