BELGIAN SWAP MEET

On Saturday we also went to the Belgian equivalent of our swap meet. They call it "Brocante."

In the expo building above the archives they held a large Brocante, and since we have good parking there, we decided to check it out. It was really large - the entire section of the building was filled with tables and displays (some of them laid out on the floor) of all kinds of interesting items. They were mostly old things, but there were also some new things that were difficult to find anywhere else.

We could have spent the whole afternoon there and spent our whole mission fund. They had so many great things that were at great prices but would have been impossible to bring home with us. There was a lot of glassware, dishes, brick-a-brack, swords, musical instruments, model cars, etc.

It was hard, but we only bought two small items for ourselves.
They had this very tiny nativity scene. You can see by the penny how small they are. The figures are porcelain but we felt that we could tuck them into our suitcase and they would arrive safely in the United States with us.
The other thing we purchased were these porcelain wooden shoes. (Is that an oxymoron?) They are also very small - about the size of a peanut. If we had any room we would have loved to have been able to bring home some real wooden shoes, but these will have to do.
We didn't get this at the swap meet, but couldn't resist it at a store near our apartment. The nativity scene is made up of what we believe are Belgian-dressed figures. It also is quite small (the figures are about 2.5 to 3 inches tall) and will be able to be tucked into a suitcase.

We have not purchased many items here, mostly because all of the really interesting stores are in places that have no parking and/or would be very difficult to walk to - especially with Arnold's injured knee. We mainly wanted to bring home a little something to remind us of the culture here. We thinks these fit that to a "T".