spent a glorious sunday last weekend exploring the antique markets in roncesvalles! come november, i might have a different feeling on this, but for now anyway, i really can't remember what was so great about first-hand shopping.
at wal-mart, you find the same crap everyone else has, and you walk among artifacts of a life, a time and place you already know well and understand. in an antique market, you find the quirkiest, most random things, and you learn cool little facts about how people used to live. like? at some point, salt and pepper shakers were only half the equation: the shakers used to come in groups of four: salt, pepper, flour and sugar! sugar was once consumed in sprinkles and dashes, not pints and quarts like it is today. it's such a quiet detail in someone's mundane kitchen somewhere, but when you think about the insane rates of obesity, ADD and diabetes we live with today, it suddenly starts to speak louder.
you also have so much more space to dream in an antique market, because you come across things that are either obsolete, or whose purpose isn't immediately clear. so you can put thumbtacks into an old leather shaving strap and use it for reminder notes! or you can use an old industrial factory cart for the base of a table!
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