"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:25:50 GMT, "a.spencer3"
wrote:


Agree totally re Casa. Just miss it.
Marra is Marra - helps if you speak French? I love the place.
Must admit I never got drunk on any of countless mint teas!

I saw a snippet on Dutch TV of a program about Dutch royal tours of 2007.
In the
bazaar in Istanbul a carpet seller offered the queen, her son and his
Argentinean born wife Maxima, tea.
Maxima said to the Turk in Dutch "We are a typical Dutch family, we take
the
free offers, but never buy anything"

I tried to turn down the offer (as I don't like tea) and the response was
"are you refusing my hospitality". This kind of puts one in a position
where you have to accept. I took the tea and discovered that it doesn't
taste anything like the stuff sold in England.

As to (not) buying something, if you really don't want it, it is easy (if
time consuming) to avoid. The opening prices are staggeringly high - they
may be good value for hand made quality items (assuming that they are hand
made quality items), but I have no desire to buy such items in this
environment and would only be interested in cheap (but functional) tat,
which it is not.

tim