A place with the strangest dynamics. Non-movement in chaos, talk which can under no circumstances be considered discussion, something I can't take. I am also somewhat scared of the encounters here, so clearly there is only one thing which brings me here: the love of old objects, and perhaps the way they make me travel back into the past, times when even my grandparents were children, when I was a child and my papa used to tell me about the good old days, when he travelled all over town, like we travelled when I was a child, and he taught me streetnames which were later changed, and which have been changed back to the original since. On certain days I feel closely connected to an era long gone, those times around the turn of the century into the 1920's. I can only praise the perfect craftsmanship and splendour of an age which still shines through times that have worn many a nation out.

              I watch the old lady as she takes an ornate glass into her hand with such familiarity it is obvious she used to own one, or maybe still owns one exactly like that. The elegant walking cane speaks of old men clad in suits, their posture portraits their strength of character, while the simple white wash basin, the one which used to be present in every household recalls days I spent in my grandmother's village, and I can almost taste the iron as we drank from the top of the can.

              I took my sister along one time, and even she was taken by the place, our common reminiscence in the crips weather, as most of the objects she marvelled at were things that we have seen before, belongings of our relatives. The rest were things she could only have imagined at a film set, just as those English speaking girls who were there browsing, also awestruck by the experience. The place is as universal as it is timeless. The pieces are delicate, with a life of their own, and not afraid of time passing them by.

              I am not a collector. I am not looking for objects here. They find me if they want to. There is yet another old armoire which has addressed me in one of the shops in town, and a bracelet which has whispered me stories about ballroom dances and a dark haired woman whom it made shine on those special occasions. Objects and places which are genuinely European, and have survived more than a lifetime. You have to love their stories in order to love them, much like how it goes with people, and care about them to make them last.