Fortunately a not too early start this morning but the day is still very rainy and we decide to do some very leisurely sight-seeing on our way to the train station before heading to Malmo in Sweden where our roller derby bout will be tomorrow.

We begin by walking through the shopping areas and browsing in many delightful shops full of colourful Danish design. I'm a big fan of Danish design so it was nice to see it all. There were lots of colourful items for sale and I took lots of photos which I have put on my Colour Blog.

One of the highlights of the day, if not the whole trip, was coming across the amazing jewellery shop Rock 'n' Gold. Run by a lovely man called Erik The Red (when not making jewellery he is being a Viking). The shop also contains Erik's studio so you can see him work and I loved being able to see all his tools and works in progress in addition to finished pieces. We chatted about wax carving, skulls and repousse work and whilst I would have loved to hang around and watch him work we had to get going. If you ever get to Copenhagen be sure to visit Erik.

Next stop was the Danish Design Centre where we wandered around the shop and exhibition before sitting and enjoying coffee, cake, ice-cream and sandwiches. We were all so worn out from the cold, rain and lack of sleep that just being able to sit in the dry was very appreciated!

Then it was a walk past Tivoli Gardens to the main train station where once again we were amazed by the helpfulness of everyone we spoke to (in stark contrast to the lack of help Kate McKinnon and I experienced in London).

But one shocking thing was the amount of cigarette butts we spotted on the train tracks. It seemed so out of place in this beautiful, clean town. I know we have the smoking ban now in London, but I'm sure we never had rubbish like that on our tracks despite not having rubbish bins in stations because of terrorist fears. But maybe before the Kings Cross Fire and the bans on smoking on public transport which came in after that we did?

After an short train ride we were in Malmo and, as proved to be incredibly useful, we were met by the lovely Vix Viking who runs SwedeVix skate shop, and her gorgeous baby daughter. Vix explained the bus system, taught us how to travel around and made a joke about the hotel we had all booked into being 'hooker central'. Well, we took it to be a joke...

Fast forward to a bus ride and a walk later and we realised that perhaps she hadn't been joking. We tried to remain optimistic as we crossed the busy express-way and ignored the men sitting outside. We even gritted our teeth when we saw other customers inside complaining. I mean, it was only for 2 nights, how bad could it be? But by the time we saw the rooms and realised there was only 1 not very clean toilet and bathroom per floor we decided it was time to move on.

Cue major panic as whilst there were only 6 of us needing a bed that night, tomorrow there would be 18 of us and that's a lot harder to suddenly find rooms for. But Swedish hospitality soon took over and before we knew it we all had beds for the two nights.

Tired, but pleased to have warm and dry beds for the night, (did I mention it was STILL raining) we headed off to a dinner we'd been invited to where we were fed hot Mexican food, got to meet amazing Viking looking men all, saw a whole suit of chain maille our host for the evening wears for middle-ages re-enactment and generally got to relax before we began worrying what the next day would bring...