Marita Brukthandel

Marita Brukthandel
Drammensveien 64A, 3050 Mjøndalen

I found my new favorite second hand shop :-D. Its called Marita Brukthandel, located in Mjøndalen about 25 minutes drive from Kongsberg. Open 3 days a week, Tuesday, Thursday from 17-20 and Saturday from 11-14. I like it because its very convenient: the distance, the opening hours and the variation of the goods they have.

Here you can find almost everything from books, kitchen stuff, CDs, DVDs, LPs, clothes (some are new and still have the tags!), shoes, furniture and accessories. In comparison to the price, Marita is cheaper than Fretex (in my opinion).

One thing i love about second hand shops is that you will never know what you might find. I found this collection of old recipe books for 20 Kr.

Inside one of the books there are a few additional notes. as you can see on the picture below. It said on the top page Middag/Dinner 17-4-23, i assume its April 17th, 1923??. Look at the price of the egg (second from the bottom) in that time, it cost 0.60 Kr for 3. Now days, the cheapest you pay for 1 egg is 2 or 3 Kr.
Vintage/old stuff fascinates me :-).

More picture from Marita Brukthandel.

Camden Markets, London

I never knew this place until my boss came to work one day with a satchel bag i couldn't take my eyes off. When i asked where he got the bag, he said Camden market, London and the rest is history.

The main reason we flew to London is to get my bag :p, but i got more than that!. It turns out Camden market is a shoppers paradise, many stalls and shops that sell dresses, crafts, shoes, foods, souvenirs, vintage items, etc but i must admit some stalls sell tacky stuff aswell.

Custom Leather: Where i bought my satchel bag

Amongst all the stalls, the food stalls were my favorite. So many different kinds of foods from many different countries i had difficulty in choosing what i would like to eat. At the end i had a Vietnamese chicken lemongrass and hubby had a crocodile burger. yes! a crocodile burger!!

Vietnamese chicken lemongrass

A selection of Kangaroo, Camel, Crocodile or Zebra Burger

few of the food stalls

Camden Market consist of several markets actually, we walked between several of them without even realizing it. It was only i got home and started to research that i discovered this.

If you intend to go to London, you really should consider Camden Markets. We enjoyed it so much and already decided to go back as i am sure you will once you have been there!.

Langedrag Naturpark, Norway

Langedrag Naturpark

Langedrag is a mountain farm and wild life park located in Nesbyen, around 2 hours driving from Kongsberg. This farm lies 1000 meters above sea level and has a fantastic view of lakes and mountains. Besides seeing the animals, the main attractions are when they feed the wolves and the Lynx. Hubby and i went there last summer with some friends, it was a nice experience for me to see the animals in close proximity.


For more information about Langedrag Naturpark, please visit their website here.

Wolf is waiting to be feed

Lynx

Reindeer

Highland cattle

The pictures above are only few different animals at Langedrag. They have around 22 different species with 250 individual in total. It´s worth the visit :-).

Ski day

Wednesday and another day of skiing at Kongsberg ski center. We had very nice weather and the snow on the slope was gorgeous. I must say i am a beginner but i am getting better, just still need more practice. Unfortunately, this winter has been pretty mild so we didn't have much snow so i guess i need to wait until next winter for more practice.

The Kiddy´s slope

and that was me :-)

Postcard from Vatican

The Vatican City (Holy See) is the smallest independent state in the world that have their own post office and postmark. So while i was there, i took the opportunity to send postcards to my parents in Indonesia and of course to myself :-). Since i also collect stamps, i bought myself some Vatican Stamps. 

The Vatican Post Offices

Hey, I got the postcard a few days ago and it was postmarked 11-11-11 :-).

11-11-11 postmark

The Vatican City Stamps

Italy: A treat from hubby (Part 2)

Day 3

From the moment i woke up i was so excited to finally be going to Pompeii. For many years i knew about this place and always tried to imagine what it would be like to see it with my own eyes, now i was on the way there!.

Mount Vesuvius as background

It took us 3 hours to get to Pompeii from Rome. We arrived at the hotel just before lunch time. Without us knowing the hotel was just only less than 10 minutes walking to the Pompeii ruins :D. We paid €11 each for the ticket and it was worth it. Prepare for a long walk so better use a good shoes and bring extra water :-). There is big a café inside the grounds.

Porta Marina and the city walls

Pompeii is a city near Naples. according to Wikipedia, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. The eruption buried Pompeii under ash and rock. It was rediscovered in the 16th century, but the exploration did not begin until 1748.

Road in Pompeii

Thermopolium of Vetutius Placidus

One of the beds in the brothel

Garden of the Fugitive

Temple of Apollo

Day 4

Today is Sunday. We hit the road as soon as we finished breakfast and were again lucky with the weather. From Pompeii to Pisa took around 6 hours driving and it was a nice drive through the country side with views of many vineyards along the way. We arrived at the hotel early evening. After freshening up we decided to have a look around. It took us 25 minutes walking to Pisa tower.  

Day 5

Ready to climb the Pisa tower!. We bought the tickets online for €17 each from this website in advance. Actually it is cheaper to buy the ticket on site €15, but we prepaid to guarantee a time slot otherwise it could be a long wait. The visit lasts about 30 minutes.

The spiral staircase to the tower has about 300 steps and it includes narrow and exposes passageways. It was a very strange experience to climb. Even though you are physically climbing upwards it appears that your going downwards, whilst on the other side the steps are actually pointing downwards slightly and that makes it very heavy climbing (this is only adjacent to the lean). On the other two parts of the steps it appears normal except you are leaning to the right or left. Overall its a great experience and worth a visit.

Slippery Steps

On the top of the Pisa Tower

Narrow passageway

We continued driving to Rome at lunch time. This time we took a route via Florence so we could visit and at least see Ponte Vecchico or the old bridge. Unlike all other bridges in Florence, Ponte Vecchico is the only bridge that survived World war II. It was hard to find parking there, so hubby had to park illegally so i could run and took a picture of the bridge from a distance.

Ponte Vecchico

We arrived in Rome in the evening and back to Norway early in the morning. 

     

Italy: A treat from hubby (Part 1)

A trip to Italy 2 weeks ago was a treated from hubby after left me home alone for almost 3 weeks, i would love to go back again. It is such a beautiful country with so many places and things to see. 5 days just wasn't enough!. 

The Piazza di San Pietro

Day 1 

We spent walking around Rome and The Vatican City. It has always been a dream of mine to visit the Vatican and attend a sunday mass with the Pope standing in front of me :p. Half of my dream has now come true, i did visit the Vatican but did not attend the mass. Maybe next time :-).

We stayed in the hotel just a few minutes away by bus from The Vatican City, after we checked in we went there straight away. It was 4 PM when we got there and we were too late to get tickets to the museum. Instead we went inside St. Peter´s Basilica, luckily the queue was not so big at that time. To get inside you had to pass a security check and you have to be dressed properly, ie no short skirt or tank tops and men are required to wear long trouser. From the moment i stepped inside i was never failed to be amazed, everything was SO beautiful!!.

Inside St. Peter´s Basilica

Michelangelo's Pietà

Day 2

Our first target for the day was to visit the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. We were lucky again for not having to wait so long to get in. We paid €12 each for the ticket and it was totally worth it. The ticket is valid for both Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Everything in the museum is AMAZING, the art work, the sculptures, the architecture, the paintings, EVERYTHING!. Amongst everything that i saw, the ceiling was my favorite.

The ceiling inside the museum

The spiral exit

And its not yet finished. I got a shiver down to my spine as soon as i entered the Sistine Chapel. Words can not describe the feeling when i saw Michelangelo´s masterpiece: The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgment for the first time. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed to be taken there but you can see the virtual tour of Sistine Chapel here. I could just stay there for hours if we didn't have any other places to visit.

Afterwards we took a bus from Vatican City to Rome. Even though we had limited time and my feet were aching, we managed to see few other attractions in Rome. 

Arch of Constantine

Inside the Colosseum

Colosseum in the evening

Trevi Fountain

The Spanish Steps

National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II

Pantheon