“My father started selling books here in the 70’s not because he enjoyed reading but because he understood what was popular at that time. He was a passionate entrepreneur and a good salesman. When I was young I would help him during the weekends. Unlike my father I was very passionate about books and I couldn’t get enough of them. I learned so much from him and we made a really good team. I would read all the books we were selling so I knew a lot about the content of the books. He on the other hand knew how to sell books. We worked together until he passed away a few years ago. I still miss him every day but I have costumers coming up to me every week telling me stories about my dad and what a wonderful human being he was. Here at the market I can still feel my father’s presence.”

“After my relationship ended my friends told me to go on Tinder. I had never heard of such an app but I was open to it. I matched with a woman from The Hague. After chatting with her for two months we decided to go on a date. I drove to The Hague and we went to shore and we ate some fish. The week after she came to see me in Amsterdam. From that moment on we have been together. She is such a good person and I am so lucky that I have found her. Sometimes it amazes me how this world works though. If I would have swiped the other way we would have never met. We would not have been in a four year relationship and I would not have moved to The Hague.”

She made me count 1-2-3 ice cream to get her to pose for me.

“I grew up in Bulgaria. My dad traveled a lot for work and I would sometimes join him on his travels. Every new country we visited I would fall in love with and afterwards I never wanted to return back home. I always knew I would leave Bulgaria the minute I would be able to stand on my own feet. When I was 19 I packed my bags and left. In the past 3 years I lived in Milan and Amsterdam and I traveled to different continents. I noticed that whenever I would tell people I was from Bulgaria they had these negative associations with the country mainly based of what they heard through media. Of course it is not perfect but it made me think and focus on the beauty of the country. In a way I needed to be away from to gain the perspective that I needed to fall in love with the country I was born in. Even if its not perfect, it is still my home.”

“When I studied in Milan I would visit other places in Italy during the weekend. One day a friend and I decided to go to Cinque Terre, 5 beautiful little villages near the coast. To get from one village to the next you need to take a train. At the time we had very little money so we tried to travel as cheap as possible. We soon noticed that there was no ticket control between stops so we decided to take the risk and travel without a train ticket. Everything went well until our final stop. We tried to play the we-are-lost-tourist-who-dont-understand-the-system-card but they didn’t bought it. They were extremely mad and screamed at us and we both got a 100 euro fine. Now looking back my friend and I can laugh about it but right there we felt horrible. Whenever we take a trip somewhere together we kind of joke around if we should or should not buy a ticket but we both know that we will buy the ticket.”

“We have been colleagues for a few months.”
“Are you also friends?”
“I mean we enjoy buying toilet paper together. I’m not sure if we are friends yet but this could be our thing.”