Hannah Swithinbank

Narcissism, Vanity, Selfies.

I promise, I’m not about to fall in a pond and drown or anything.  I got bored of just plotting further travel and decided to take some self-portraits.  At the moment I’m the only person who’ll pose for me, so I’m the only model I can practice on.   And right now, I like being curled up on the bed reading, so that’s my modelling location (also, right now I seem to only like photos with only bits of my face in – clearly full-frontal portraiture is not my thing).  I have Jasper Fforde’s newest, Shades of Grey, and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point on the go.    I’m also reading the Lonely Planet Encounter Guide to Berlin.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BERLIN.

OK. Shrieking done.

I have just over two months left in Germany before the lease on the apartment is up/the scholarship money stops coming in and I have to head back to the Cornwall (where I plan to carry on exactly the same way I am now – writing, job hunting, and taking photos, except with less wurst and more roskilly’s ice cream).  So I’m trying to make the most of it.  I’m going to Trier for a couple of days at the end of the week to see Roman stuff. Trier’s nearly three hours by train, so a day trip is pushing it, giving me an excuse to stay overnight, hurrah.   Then, before I finally head home the Maternal Unit is coming out to visit so that we can go down the Rhine to Mainz, the Loreley and Koblenz – and so that she can give me a hand yanking my hefty suitcase on and off the trains on the way home.  Aaaand, Berlin.

I’m going to Berlin for six days.   I’m a little nervous.  Berlin’s always scared me off a little – it always sounds like it’s Way Too Cool for the likes of little old me.  I don’t much go in for partying either, especially not when I’m travelling solo, so a bit of me feels like I’ll be wasting something big that Berlin has to offer.   Still, I *do* want to see all the historical stuff – after years of modern history in school and university I’m ready to put faces to names, as it were.  I’m itching to see the Pergamon Museum and the altar – even though it’s clearly only going to make me want to go to Turkey all the more and actually see the ruins of Pergamon.  I’m going to go up the Reichstag dome, and photograph the Brandenburg Gate at night.  I might go to Schloss Charlottenburg. Or I might go to Dessau to see Bauhas stuff.  I’m going to take a day trip to Sachsenhausen, because yes I am that kind of traveller.  And the nerves are starting to become excited nerves rather than slightly scaredy-cat nerves.  I’m reading the guidebook and thinking, ‘I want to see that, and that, and that.’ And this is why I like Lonely Planet’s Encounter guides – they work around neighbourhoods and atmospheres and sights that aren’t necessarily the big things that you go into and ’see’ (though they do cover those things), and I like to walk when I’m visiting cities. Rather than just going from highlight to highlight on buses and trains, I like to walk my little feet off (seriously, I think seeing Tokyo might have actually stress-fractured every bone in my feet, they hurt so much) seeing what the city looks like as a whole – and taking photos of course.

So, internet, tell me – what should I see in Berlin?   What areas should I explore (or not explore, y’know, if there are those)? What neighbourhoods have funky hidden away bits?  Where can I get a good cup of coffee and a cheap meal? What one piece of architecture will make my camera spin?  If I have to choose between Schloss Charlottenburg and Dessau, which should I choose?  Where can I get a truly fantastic bag?  Advise me!

Tags: Berlin, photos, planning, Travel