Daydreaming

There is a cool little annex of Seattle called Fremont. It is the essence of quirkiness. They have a giant troll under their bridge, for pete's sake, complete with a full-size Volkswagen bug. It is also one of the only towns I know of to actually put a statue of a former communist leader in a prominent town square, for the sake of art. That took some serious cajones.

I have known about Fremont since I prepared to move to this wonderful part of the country. My mother-in-law has a good friend who told me about it. He made an enigmatic remark about the "trolls under the bridges" out here, and I had to do furious internet research to decipher it. I was fascinated by what I found, but I never had the chance to visit until last Sunday. My good friend and neighbor, Amber, refinishes furniture, and she decided to start selling it at this market again. I JUMPED at the chance to go and help her, even though it meant getting up at a time of the morning that is painful and foreign to me.

When the morning arrived, we piled the last-minute things into Amber's big SUV. The trailer was already loaded and ready to go. We stopped for much needed coffee and we were on our way. We didn't go over the Aurora Bridge, so I didn't get to see the troll this time. We went instead over the charming old Fremont Bridge into a downtown area that was already hopping. For me, it was love at first sight. I noticed the food first - two Thai restaurants and a Greek one all in the same block. Sigh. There was a conglomeration of shops, some very high-end but all cozy and inviting. One street section was blocked off for the Sunday Market, and there are bright flags at each end announcing you have arrived! We got the trailer unloaded and the furniture arranged, and I set off to explore. There were beautiful fresh flowers whose smell drifted down to us throughout the day, and lots of fresh produce. I tried rainbow chard, peaches, enormous raspberries, and nectarines. In fact, I had the first peach not grown in Georgia that I actually liked. I've been searching for 6 years. It still wasn't a GA peach, but it was really good. While I'm discussing food, let me just be honest with you. I had to try basically all of the market food, LOL. Amber and I had Phad Thai and pot stickers for lunch. Then we had shaved ice in a recyclable cup, of course! Earlier in the morning the smoothie shop had passed out bags of free organic goodies like bars and granola, etc. The piece de resistance came with the crepe, however. I've never had crepes, and I swear to you now that habit will change! The wonderful crepe goddess made me this light, fluffy, buttery confection that she sprinkled with sugar, then bruleed the sugar with a torch! She drizzled lemon juice over the top of that, then she added mascarpone cheese and sprinkled the whole thing with powdered sugar! Makes me drool just thinking about it.

Okay, enough about the food. The vendors were all unique and fun, too. There was even a lady giving spiritual card readings! I ran out of time to go see her, but maybe she'll be there on my next trip. There was also a booth that had a lot of art involving a goddess with an elephant head. It seemed very Indian, and the incense wafting out was thick and heavy. I was captivated by that art for some reason. There was a fair amount of junk, but it was good junk. I can't explain it to you unless you're a flea market kind of person. They all have junk, but some junk is better than others. The most interesting find, for me, was a small antique trunk filled with old black and white photos. There were handwritten notes on the backs of most of them. I found myself sorting through them, making up stories about all the fat-cheeked little babies, and the young couples embracing. There was one little boy with a cowlick poking a stick at a big fat frog in a mud puddle that I fell in love with.

All in all, it was a great experience. It was a loooooong day, and I was exhausted, but I plan to go back whenever I can.