GOUDA, Netherlands – The market on Thursday presents its namesake – Gouda cheese. The mood is festive as children run around the cobblestoned plaza, and sellers display fresh fruits and vegetables. Fish is served at the cafes that line along the center.
Stores typically close early in Gouda, except for these weekend nights when people go out and partake in their interests. They take their time conversing. There is a game shop where people play and a book store where an author reads a book on local history to an interested crowd. Just at the corner, a Lego shop is filled with quaint characters where whimsical outfits are mixed and matched.
The weather is amenable to such ambles through the charming streets, where cats roam past families’ murmurs as they pack it in for the night. Soon, the pairs pass the cathedral, and head home, too, as it is almost too dark to see past one’s shoes. The lights twinkle from river fore to aft as the quiet waterfront laps away.
But time stops for no person. In the early hours of the day, weary workers continue to mill towards bigger cities, waiting at the terminal for an ever-coming train.
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