Continental Christmas

Went to the most brilliant Christmas Market in Belfast, the, "Continental Christmas Market," which consisted of various stalls and tents surrounding the ornately lit up city hall (and of course, a giant christmas tree.) Seems the Belfast city council is trying to start a Christmas market tradition by inviting all sorts of vendors from, "the continent," to sell their wares for the month of December. It was most lovely, with all sorts of trinkets and edibles. There were the most amazing french patisseries with tartes, and gateaux and petit pains and bush de Noel and some sort of potato and bacon dish that smelled amazing. There were creperies and a Paella stand with the biggest vats of Paella I've ever seen, There was a woman selling tiny dutch pancakes served in a paper bag with sugar, and dutch tulips. French soap, dried lavender, leather handbags and belts, jumpers, christmas trees and the like were all on offer. The German "Christmas Beer tent," was serving up, "Big German Bratwurst and 2 pints of Erdinger Weisbier for 5 quid as well as German alcoholic, "Fruit Punch." No german Christmas Beer tent would be complete without eurotrash pop-music and disco lights and this tent lived up to expectation.( David Hasselhoff would have felt right at home...haha) We kicked it with the Germans for a while and then ended up in the Irish beer tent, a similar venue except with fiddlee-dee (Irish tin whistle and the like) and heat lamps which were appreciated but not really necessary since the temperatures here have been strangely warm lately. We wandered around nibbling on all the free samples of cookies and olives and olive oils... and among us (Tom and me and a couple of his friends) we tried Paella, some kind of Nordic pizza, Kangaroo Burgers (really), Paella, garlic mushrooms and a whole loaf of Olive bread....yum. Love Holiday eating 'specially European style. Good stuff