Grocery Shopping is a Fun Adventure...

It's just a quick 10-minute bike ride to Leiden Centrum where there's a farmers market twice a week, which we just love. We've never seen such a huge variety of cheese, bread, flowers, fish and veggies as well as bike supplies, clothing and household goods. Jimmy can never pass up the booth selling Mediterranean nuts and foods, and I'm addicted to Old Amsterdam cheese. The grocery stores here are good, but small, so we're glad that there's lots of speciality shops to offer what they're lacking. Many of the small shops we go to specialize in just one food category such as cheese, chicken, fish or spices. There's also a lot of international shops such as Turkish, Indonesian, Asian and Italian. Every few months I tag along with a friend in her car to the Foreigner's Market (which is like an overpriced Costco) to stock up on staples (it's hard to erase all those habits as a US-consumer and besides it really helps save extra trips to the store on my bike).