The in-laws humoured me in accompanying me to a Fleamarket on Saturday morning.

I miss flea markets and proper opshops! Back home they were my main source of clothing (and jewellery and book and nic-nacs). Apart from the fact that I don't feel so much like a filthy shallow consumer when buying pretty second hand frilly things, I also enjoy the 'hunt': the searching through racks and racks of crap to find something fancy. But, aside from a few fairly poorly outfitted Oxfams, the Potsdam-Berlin area seems to mostly be filled with fancy second hand and vintage 'boutiques'... not at all good for hunting.

So I took advantage of the high-wage, high-cost Perth-like society of Copenhagen, and we all took the 9A bus to Frederiksberg where they run a pretty decent sized fleamarkets (every Saturday morning from 8am to 15:00). I shopped my little heart out and came home with a navy dress- decorated with slightly abstract Chinese characters, and a new winter coat- the latter being the equivalent of <6 euros (plus Karen Millen for those of you playing at home). Photos of the coat to come in the winter. The dress will feature fairly heavily in the next couple of blogs.

We had a coffee before taking the 9A bus back to the centre. The bus was somewhat erratic in its schedule, but in the good 'coming more than it should' way- and Andy bestowed upon it the title of 'Bus NineAnarchy'.




We joined up with a walking tour group- one of the free ones from Sandeman. Andy and I have done a couple now- in London, Amsterdam etc.- and they're usually a pretty nice way to get a look around the city, to orient yourself and to learn a bit of the (slightly exaggerated) history of the streets.

This one went for a couple of hours, and lead us through some very picturesque areas, eventually ending up at the royal palace, somewhere in the vicinity of the Little Mermaid.



The building to the left was one of our favourites. It's the stock market, and the spire is actually made up of the twirling tails of dragons (can you make them out at the bottom of the spire sitting with their bums in the air?). Apparently, like all great cities of its time, Copenhagen had some issues with flammability, and the dragons, while representing strength, are also supposed to act as protection from the fires.





Copenhagen is a pretty good place for elephant spotting: they're the symbol of the city, representing strength and ... possibly wisdom??


All good long walks should end in a large meal. And all large meals should end in a long walk. Herein lies the mystery of life (in my family).

We sat down for a rather splendid picnic in the park, and dined on fresh bread, cheese and meats, and a punnet of cherries.






European cities do very very fine botanical gardens. This one is quite central, rather large, and free (which, given that we're in Copenhagen, is quite something!)







I suspect there's a turtle somewhere in that photo, but I can't for the life of me find it.




Look Ma! I found some tobacco (the plant I work with everyday).










Our plan to find the place where Andy's sister once ate a rather nice duck sandwich led us to a beautifully cluttered indoor market place... but we were all too full of cherries (and was there icecream in there somewhere too?) to eat anything else.



It seemed it was time to do a bit more exercising (output) before we were allowed more input.

Tower Climbing Time!






When my sister and her friend did a eurotrip many years ago, they made a point of climbing the tallest building in every city. I think I see their point:





I feel there should be a cross indicating negation in this warning sign. Right now it's just egging me on.



We seemed to have arrived at Mahlzeit again





And the day ended as all days should. With Andy sliding down a giant parrot slide: