A day at the Piata Centrala

The Piata Centrala is the place buy anything from fresh fish to electronics. There is pretty much nothing you can't get here. The market is open seven days a week all year round. Supposedly Thursdays are the best days to go get produce since farmers come in with fresh vegetables on Thursday. I have not really been able to tell a difference between Thursdays and other days in the week.

Mark took me to the market my first day here and the first time it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. There are always a lot of people, and so on my first day I learned quickly that personal space between people is not something that people are concerned with. I couldn't understand but it seemed like everybody was in such a hurry. I was pushed forward, to one side, bumped into, and brushed up against by other shopper trying to make their way past each other in the small walkways between stands. However, after my first time I learned quickly that saying excuse me (in Moldovan) is not needed, nobody does it, you just need to be filling to push your way through a crowd, and hold your space when you are buying something and ignore those that bump into you.

I think I am no more a novice, I have graduated to a intermediate market shopper. Still, once there I do always have a little period of oh yes, it's the market, and you just got to be willing to push and push back.

This picture is near the entrance. Woman, like the one in the in the middle of this picture, are stationed all over the market selling nylon stockings, shoe inserts, or plastic bags that say Hugo Boss on them. Some of these woman are Roma(Gypsies -they don't like to be called that so people call them Roma) that come to the city to sell merchandise.