it is february 14, and since a week or 2/3 shops have been accumulating hearts. heart pillows, candy, balloons.. whatever you can shape into a heart and turn pink or red. even, people at work seriously mentioned valentine's day, and this morning the guy that sells newspapers suddenly also had a lot of flowers for sale. not that pretty bouquets for a lot of money.. even my work-related email was sending me some offer that you could buy a bunch of roses (10 or 12) on discount as a hospital employee (now for 60 dollars instead of 70, or something like that).
ah, and not to forget; we saw in the supermarket 2 steaks placed into a red heartshaped container, like 2 halves of a heart. how does that work? man buys that for his woman, brings it home and says "here, 2 steaks" and off she goes, into the kitchen?! hmmm, a little old-fashioned.... next to the meat was a heart-shaped container with prawns and some greens, and around that a lot of chocolate-covered things like strawberries, cookies, an enormous cake. eeehmm? so toys are not allowed with food, but raw meat can be kept in the same place as sweets?
hmmm. another in the category "things i miss", a huge bunch of flowers from the market in utrecht. 40 or even 60 roses, or whatever other beautiful flower you like for only 5 euros!!
ah, and the photo was in haarlem. i especially liked the sign "due to freezing temperatures, flower sale inside"
