wow

Check this out!!! A picture taken by my lovely Richard on Dazed and Confused’s website!!!! Click here to read the full article about the amazing Girls on Film zine. (I submitted his photo without him knowing so he was totally surprised yesterday when I showed him…SO proud!)

the photo is from our trip to Berlin…truth be told it was at lunch when I felt super sick and I was probably rolling my eyes at him taking the photo. Now I’m glad he did! 

Berlin/4

It sometimes can feel like the holiday ends once you check out of the hotel. Even though we had hours to spare and our bags were locked away I couldn’t shake the feeling like we were just waiting around to get the S-Bhan back to the airport on Friday. We set out nonetheless, not wanted to waste time being bored, and headed for the Jewish Museum. After that rather confusing and disorientating experience—the museum has an interesting ‘pathway’ to follow—we headed back towards familiar territory on foot. After stumbling upon check-point Charlie I convinced Richard to have a currywurste because well, we were in Germany and we might as well act touristy if we’re hanging around the most touristy part. It looks gross, the chips were ok and he somehow ate it all.

Another thing we happened upon by chance was this automat. I was sooo excited and spent ages wondering if we’d actually find one after I saw this post. Then as we were walking back to the hotel to collect our bags one just appeared out of the blue. It’s €2 for a strip and we did two ’cause as soon as you put that money in it takes the photo…which we were not expecting. They’re total duds but also hilarious and lovely.

Thank you Berlin for being so kind. We had such a great time. 

(and thank you to anyone who actually read these posts…I wanted to have a proper sort of diary written for myself, I hope they didn’t bore you to tears!)

Berlin/3

After missing our hotel breakfast we went and bought some crazy amazing but probably really bad for you pastries next door and set out for the day. It was no longer raining, thankfully, but the cold had yet to subside. We headed further out towards the suburbs where google told us the junky camera shops and vintage bargains were to be had. We were not disappointed.

This camera place was crazy, old man shop-keeper included, and Richard bought a polariser for cheap and I played with the old cameras and marvelled at all the old photographs and treasures to be had. We left, with promises to return later, which in the end we didn’t get a chance to do. We continued our hunt and found some pretty amazing vintage finds.

 Including this grey pure wool coat! Which fit like a glove and was certainly warmer than my little tweedy jacket. We went back to the hotel for a bit after lunch and then headed in search of a polaroid—which I was determined to come home with—which we found in a lovely little shop in a pretty nasty district. We went to a lovely little Italian restaurant, which was bursting with Germans drinking and eating and laughing, for our last meal.

(our waitress liked the look of my camera so we persuaded her to take this only photo of two of us!)

All photos of me by Richard, as before.

Berlin/2

On Wednesday morning it was raining when we woke up. The rain persisted and so did we, after an-all-we-could-stuff-ourselves-with breakfast we headed out in search of umbrellas and adventure. We climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom—it was wet and slippy and the stairs were small and windy. My legs turned to jelly and my heart began to pump faster. I wanted to get down, which we did…eventually. It was beautiful though, from the inside, which didn’t feel as high.
(second last photo credit: Richard Barrett)

Then we walked and walked and walked, taking in the Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, The Guggenheim Museum—we saw this exhibit and it was fantastic—The Reichstag and sections of the Berlin Wall until we gave in to hunger and went in search of food. The Pizza place we found had no seats, just high benches that we, along with other hungry folk, stood at and casually wolfed our food without talking. It was delicious.

It was cold, which is nothing we weren’t expecting given our friend’s warning. Just how cold it could be was something I was unprepared for. I had to buy a new cardigan in H&M to wear over the jumper I was already wearing and it was still freezing. Even Richard was cold. We walked and keep warm and eventually gave in and spent a while going in and out of shops, keeping warm and eating chocolate and trying on ridiculously priced shoes.
After toasty hot showers at our hotel we went out to a cool Japanese restaurant just five minutes from our accommodation. It had thousands of, what appeared to be, chopsticks hanging in a cloud like formation from the ceiling and the wine was delicious. Richard had ‘the best meal of his life’ while mine was lovely until a dish of barely cooked cold prawns arrived…which needless to say I did not eat.

Altogether it was a great day. (Just cold!)

(All photos of me by Richard)

Berlin/1

We arrived into a tiny airport, with just one luggage reel and fairground-like booths where our passports were checked. After a short walk we descended underground to find a train, where we met a friend, by chance, returning to the airport having spent the weekend in Berlin. Chance is nice. She warned us of the cold, I laughed it off thinking of the little jacket I had brought. Accidentally forgetting to get off the S-Bhan meant we stayed on the train a lot longer than expected, mesmerised by the hoards of shanty-like tenement buildings that look as if they had grown out of the ground, swings, slides and line after line of washing hung.
We arrived at the hotel exhausted and hungry. After refueling on giant sandwiches we headed out to explore and get our bearings. The day was mild and we walked up and down streets figuring out where we were, where we’d been and where we would go. After a spell we returned to the hotel and collapsed into fits of sleep. I woke up disorientated, unsure of where we were, and suddenly starving. We enjoyed a proper German meal that first night—shnitzle for him, some German stuffed pasta thing for me and strudel for dessert; it was delicious—sitting across the table from my love, I was blissfully happy.

Day two tomorrow. x

Tomorrow

…I am going to collect my freshly scanned pictures from the shop!

insta-germany

I didn’t blog this week (or last week really…oops!) because Richard and I went to Berlin! As you can imagine it was amazing and as I did not at all imagine it was freeezing. So freezing I had to buy a coat. I haven’t got around to developing my rolls of film yet but be prepared for an onslaught of Germany photos and stories next week friends! For the mean time here’s some uber hipster instagrammy shizz (we had to fit in, Berlin is like hipster capital dontcha know?!).

From top to bottom, left to right;
-Packing, I love packing, this time (unlike most times) I brought too much stuff!
-Some lovely things I bought on the trip, including some cool washi tape, more film, handcream and the chewing gum I used to chew when I little.
-The bubblegum pink cafe we ate lunch in one day in Mitte; so cheap and so delicious.
-The cardigan (and drawing of the cardigan) that I had to buy in H&M on day two because I was so cold.
-Some amazing lindt-balls-come-chocolate-bars.
-Cameras galore, Richard bought me the polaroid as our third-aversary present.
-WE FOUND THE AUTOMAT! Needless to say I was uber excited and made us take two strips of photos!
-And lastly this little baby was yellow and shiny and SO beautiful and she had a note on her windscreen that said ‘I am very loved and well looked after please don’t do anything to hurt me’. Ha!

I can’t wait to see how our negatives turn out and share the rest of our black-and-white Berlin film photos with you. Enjoy your weekend everybody x