Flea market review 2008: Grefsen, September 13th

Grefsen elementary school at Grefsen in Oslo, in the, what ... northeast of the city.

Driving there is probably easy, but I'm not at all sure about the parking facilities. ;-) To get there on public transport, take streetcar line 12 to the stop called Glads vei. Then walk back along Grefsen Road to the actual street called Glads vei (follow the signs to Grefsen Church) and then just follow that to the end of the road. Half a kilometer or something like that.

At flea markets in the western part of the city you can expect the selection to be good, but the prices to be relatively high, and vice versa in the east. That's a general observation that isn't always correct, but tends to be. Something to keep in mind maybe. ;-) Since Grefsen is sort of between the two - it is in the east, but it's pricey - this market fell somewhere between the two extremes. And of course, with a little bit of luck, you can find good stuff anywhere. ;-)

This was a pretty big and slightly messy flea market. Fun to explore. They had pretty much everything, and quite a lot of it. The prices weren't as high as I expected. Every section I looked at - books, furniture, knickknacks, kitchen, electronics, clothes - seemed to have a good selection of items. There were lots of people around; IMO it's fun to just watch people, too, at flea markets. :-) The food selection was really good - they had a café indoors selling cakes, waffles, coffee, etc, and outside in the yard they had a popcorn machine :-D and a barbecue stall where you could buy hamburgers and hot dogs. So ... something for everyone. :-)

One thing that was really great about this flea market was their posters. Instead of just regular white signs showing you the way to the various sections, they had printed up some posters with info on them and a blank space to write in BOOKS or SHOES or whatever. The flea market was to benefit the school's marching band. Which, incidentally, is 80 years old this year. :-) The posters informed the reader of this fact, listed the various activities the band offers (go on band trips, learn to play an instrument, make your mom bake cakes twice a year, etc), had info on how to contact them (website and phone number) and on when & where to show up if you wanted to join. That was such a cool idea, which I've never seen anywhere else. Kudos.

Anyway. The book selection was pretty good but not very good. Far from the best I've seen, but good enough to entice me back next year if I get the chance. There was a pretty good variety, both hardcovers and paperbacks and old titles and new titles and classics and ... etcetera ... but not a huge amount of books. Not a confusing amount; it was pretty easy to go through everything. Which, of course, I must ...

My loot:

I know, that pizza basket's creeping you out, right? Me too, kind of ... but I'm going to try and scrub it and soak it in something and what not. I have good childhood memories of those, because my parents have one ... or at least they used to, I haven't seen it for years now. And anyway it cost hardly anything, just a few crowns.

I'm going to do something with those coasters. Watch this space (and feel free to remind me).

In the book room I saw some books that were just so beautiful that I wanted to buy them even though I would never read them ... a set of the complete works of Jonas Lie. They were such lovely old books. I didn't buy them though. The set wasn't complete, I think, and the contents were in the original language version ... very old-fashioned ... they would have been hard to read. If I was even going to read them. And where would I put them, I have too many books already. I so hope someone bought them, that they weren't just thrown out this afternoon ...

Eager though slightly blurry book shoppers:

Various random strangers out in the yard. Check out the guy in the middle there - he bought a banjo at the auction ... :-D

The furniture section, with the kitchen/knickknack section to the right at the bottom. The weather was better than it looks in this picture ...

There was also another flea market going on at the Volunteers' Center in the church basement next door. I stopped by although they were pretty much closing. And look what I found:

More pieces for my Chinese china collection which is too big already, yay ...