VOL 78 /9
Abroad in England
BY ERIK LUND
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
ERIK LUND / STATESMAN
The market is full of people shopping for everything from food
to used clothes.
My new favorite sanctuary lies in the front seat of the top of a double decker bus. I feel like I'm getting special treatment of some sort, like I'm getting a guided tour of the city. In reality, I'm just riding the bus into town, like thousands of others do every day. I'm heading to the openair markets in downtown Birmingham. Living oncampus we're no more than a couple miles away. Today I brought my notebook.
Pictures don't really do this place justice. It is positively writhing with people. Humans from all nationalities and all walks of life collide to do business here, to hang out, to shop. I push through into the first section of the market. Once you're in, there's no turning back; it's intense and overwhelming, and it sucks you in.
The tattoo-tattered arms of battle-weary Englishmen cram food of all sorts into plastic bags. Nothing quite tops buying eats direct from the farmer. A mother pushes her twins by me in a stroller with what looks like spaghetti sauce plastered all over their faces. "Try before you buy strawberries!" screams one woman as she stands behind crate after crate. A man in a throwback Aston Villa jersey boasts of having the bestbananas in town. The meatman, who "never forgets a face" recognizes each and every one of us as being from Minnesota, hooks us up with the fattest steaks and the juiciest lamb chops, and says it's "the best he can do for his boys back home." A constant hum of noise pervades until one persuasive voice rings out above the rest: "Three bags of cabbage for 1."
I'll pause for a minute, and touch on the dismal state of our U.S. dollar. When we first got here, $2 equaled 1. Now it's plummeted to about $2.25. Now you'd think everything here would be half as much right? For the most part-wrong. England happens to be one of the most expensive countries to live in. It has one of the strongest economies in the world, and definitely the strongest currency. So when we spend 8 on a mint lamb burger, we're spending almost $20. Back in the swirling marketplace, a boy no older than 14 pushes his mother's basket of tomatoes in my face. I sidestep him, and keep walking as a Himalayan man tries to sell me a yoga book.
I come across a table full of bag after bag of different candies, and always a sucker for sweets, I grab some chocolate. I head for the first indoor section of the market. I step inside and it's a whole different atmosphere. A lot less chaotic, but a whole lot more junk to wade through. Lacy socks, 50p a pair. Shelves of nearly extinct VHS tapes. Shampoo,spices, jewelry, a Bob Marleylooking fellow with atable full of bootleg CDs. Some owners make up clever names for their stalls like "1 Stop Media," others let their products do the talking. Pairs of shoes with their laces tied together hang over my head.
Pots, pans, cutting boards, knife sets. The Beatles' "Drive My Car" plays faintly above me. A man selling MP3 players tells me I have "quite a serious camera," and we have a little chat. A security guard is doing a good job of securing the area in front of the TV broadcasting the football game. I'm pretty sure I could steal the cap off his head. I make a stop at the indoor food market, where the rank smell of fish just about knocks me over. Finally, I leave the market. The chaos of the workday has started to wind down. I stroll down the street as the light begins to wane. Where it was only hours before packed shoulder to shoulder,
I find myself nearly alone. I end up near Broad Street, the pub-crawl location I described in my last story. I meet up with my English friend Kate, and we duck into a bar. We watch Englandbeat France in the Rugby World Cup semifinal. Another twenty-four hourshave passed in Birmingham,and it's feeling more andmore like home.
