Weird & wonderful things abroad and share your books!

Back again! Sorry for the wait, which was a bit longer than just a couple of weeks. Just too busy! And no vintage finds from Perth either. But beautiful views from the plane taking off...

 

Though I had a good poke around Perth's Northbridge, which has lots of second hand and vintage shops, I didn't find anything exactly vintage.

But there was also no time to visit all such shops. However, Fi & Co in William Street had super-cute dresses by Elise Design, who do very cute retro inspired dresses, and one of those went home with me! Northbridge has lots of restaurants, bars and old-fashioned or strange little shops:

 

 Kakulas Bros. - the old-fashioned way to shop for imported food and spices of all kinds. Loved it!

 

The Butcher Shop - it is an old butchery, but now sells, (spray) paint, clothes, cards, small art works and other things.
But the CBD has interesting - or weird - things too if you keep your eyes open - even in busy Hay Street Mall: 
Or of course the monument to Percy Button, which you can barely photograph without people though. I got lucky on early Saturday morning.

 

  

St. Georges Terrace holds quite a few interesting views... like the oddity that is London Court. It's been there for a long time already, and remains one of the things I clearly remember even from my first trip to Perth as a kid - 21 years ago now!

 

Yes, the flowers are all plastic, and most shops in there are souvenir shops - and it is "just a façade", it's been kept in good shape and I kind of like it. If this were in England, I'd call it cheesy, but in Australia, it's something else. Also, seeing how it's surrounded by high-rises now. I hope they never get the idea to tear it down! 

Speaking of St. George's Terrace, just a two blocks further on, there is another small oddity between all the glass and concrete. It's so small, you might in fact even overlook it, but if you're looking for a nice breakfast around there, this is the way to go: the Greenhouse! They serve beautiful, thick home-made toast with raspberry jam.... yummy!

Note the façade is all covered in small planting pots! Water is being served from watering cans, and the door pull is made from a spade!

Over the last four weeks, I have acquired more vintage though than I ever thought. Quite a bit of it has made it to my Etsy shop now, so check it out! One of those weeks I spent in Vienna, and our scouring of six different Humana and a few other thrift shops brought even more success! I'll be blogging those as we go a long. But speaking of oddities, Vienna is of course a pretty good place for those too! 

 Read this one carefully... someone must have had a good laugh when they put it up!

 Fish or sausage, anyone?

One thing I particularly like in Vienna is the Offener Bücherschrank - literally an "open bookcase" where people can leave their old books for others to take - and of course take books for free. Don't ask me how many times we stopped by there! Its's just fascinating to see what might be there. I must say though, it is also being well run. It's obvious the books are being sorted regularly (as in at least once a day) and stamped, so that nobody gets the idea to sell the books on. I think it's a great idea! This time I picked amongst others two trashy-looking books that may be interesting or not, but their covers already looked so great that I had to take them:

Not so trashy, but unusual was this book of what seemed to be Arabian stories or fairy tales, and which was printed in 1942 in Munich (which I find most remarkable as a fact!).

I researched the author's name, and her story is one of those that sounds more incredible than anything you'd think Hollywood could dream up - check it out here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djavidan_Hanum .
This place is also being used by Bookcrossers, which is how I was introduced to that great idea! I have since released a book that my friend had picked up for me there, and one of mine that already has an interesting story! Zurich sadly doesn't have an open bookcase, but it has an official BookCrossing Zone and some it seems quite active Bookcrossers, so I'll be paying a visit there soon. But I admit, a whole case ful is more fun. The thrill of the hunt is a big part of the fun, no question!

Well, that's all for today. Lotsa vintage fashion coming up soon!