LONDON WANDERERS

Wowww I have really been slacking on the blog posts here. I've been pretty busy with family and exam stress recently and so the inconsistency with my blog will probably continue a little longer unfortunately, but I will endeavour to do my best! Anyhow, I have in fact put together a few outfit snaps from the other day out chilling in London.

My boyfriend and I are constantly wandering the streets of London, its our favourite city in the world and we're lucky enough to live practically in it (although we'd like to move further in). We of course love the main attractions, but we also love simply wandering round backstreets and seeing where we end up. The other day we happened to wander into Mayfair, where of course the buildings and houses were to die for.

 

Here I'm wearing my very new and very adored Adidas Gazelles. I love these so frickin' much! I wanted to invest in a pair of low trainers for summer, and these seem so subtly cool and perfect for matching with almost all of my wardrobe.

 

I wore a simple black outfit, Topshop black jeans and an M&S black roll neck, along with my fave Topshop coat because the weather is crazy here in London and although a couple of weeks ago it was boiling, we're now back to coat weather!? I don't know why I'm pretending like that is surprising however, I've lived in England all my life and I'm quite used to our temperamental weather! My sunglasses are also a new purchase I am loving. They're simple black lenses in a nice rounded shape, but what really caught my eye was that they in fact have faux leather around the rim and on the end that goes over the ear, thanks Urban Outfitters!

P H O E B E. G R A C E //

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TRAVELS IN BERLIN // DAY 4

This was our last day of our short trip to Berlin, and so we wanted to spend the afternoon shopping and milling around in the shopping centre before we got on our flight home, and so there is not a lot of content I have to share with you about that. The morning however, we spent at the Jewish Museum of Berlin, and I can honestly say it was one of the best museums I've been to! I keep mentioning how much I enjoyed the architecture in Berlin throughout this trip, and this museum did not disappoint. In the cleverest way, the designer of the museum had split the building into sections, and the first part was laid out in a style that tries to represent the struggles of the Jewish population throughout the Nazi regime and especially in the holocaust, although the museum is not solely dedicated to the Nazi persecution of the Jews only, but to the struggles of the Jewish race through history.

The ceiling of the first part of the museum was all black, which created a sense of being vulnerable as the Jewish people may have felt. Additionally, none of the walls were actually straight, nor was the floor completely even and the different corridors got smaller or wider as you walked along, all contributing to the sense of confusion and uncertainty which represented the struggle. The lights on the ceilings represented what the museum called 'the axis of the Jewish struggle' and the ways in which all the Jews came in, but all came out in different ways, and in fact of course, not all of them did come out. At the end of one of the corridors was a room pictured a couple pictures above. This room had four completely black concrete walls, with no design or pattern. They were extremely tall, it was very cold and dark, and in the highest corner there was a very small slit in the wall, through which light from outside the museum was streaming through. This was there to try and recreate just how lost the people who suffered in the holocaust felt, and how although they may have had hope, they ultimately knew that the chance of their survival or freedom was very limited, and there was no possible way they themselves could do anything to reach that hope; their lives were completely under the control of others.

We then made our way upstairs following our tour guide, and stopped off half way up the stairs. I didn't take many pictures of these rooms as I was quite engrossed in the tour itself, but generally speaking this museum was not only one of the most fascinating museums I have been to, but was also very well laid out and presented all the information easily and interestingly. On this floor we saw and heard about more stories from the Jewish perspective of the Nazi regime, including some personal stories from young children. We then wandered up stairs and viewed some of the other parts of the museum which were focused on the history of the Jews before the 1900s and way back into biblical times which was although irrelevant to our course, quite interesting.

After we had all finished roaming the museum we returned to the entrance where there was also a really lovely café. I don't know about you, but the one thing that makes a good museum even better, is a real good café... with real good cakes..

As I explained for the rest of the day we mostly did some shopping and then got our flight home very late at night, only arriving home at around 1 or 2am. All in all, my trip to Berlin was so wonderful, and not only did I learn a lot and see some amazing sights, but I got to do it all with some of my closest friends too. I would definitely recommend going to Berlin if you have an interest in history (the history geek in me woop woop) as it was so interesting, but also a very nice city to visit and I wish I had slightly longer to visit more of the city area too.

Hope you've enjoyed reading about my little trip, and thank you so much for taking the time to be here! See you soon!

P H O E B E. G R A C E //

TRAVELS IN BERLIN // DAY 3

Day threeeeee! On this day most of us were already quite tired, yet this day was our biggest yet with a lot of visits to fit into one day, and no coach! We were up and out of the hostel early and made our way via the Berlin underground system to our first stop, the German Resistance Museum.

After this the weather took another turn for the worse and started pouring with rain, but we still managed to run from the museum to the Reichstag and make it on time. The Reichstag is the government building of Germany, and is a key monument of history due to the Reichstag fire that occurred in 1933. Most of the exterior was rebuilt to match the original, and we got to go to the roof and see some very good views of Berlin.

The dome of the Reichstag has a spiral walkway and a very modern feel which I loved. The beautiful mirror sculpture was in the centre of the dome and was what we were walking around, and the ceiling of the dome had some lovely architecture too. I couldn't stop taking pictures so I had to limit how many mirror pictures I included, along with a few sneaky snaps of myself in the mirror and a couple of my pretty friends.

After this we got back onto the underground and made our way to the famous Berlin Olympic Stadium. This stadium was used in 1936 for the Olympics that were held in Berlin under Nazi Germany. We had a tour guide for our trip there, and got to see not only the stadium but the VIP and guest lounges, as well as changing rooms and the ice bath room. Much of the original architecture of the stadium is still there which is (although reminiscent of bad times in Germany) an amazing design! The interior however was redone for the 2006 World Cup, and so gives a nice contrast between old and new.

The group of us then travelled back to Alexanderplatz (after a good half an hour of searching for toilets) and finished off the day with a little look around the shops and markets. I've heard that the German Christmas markets are amazing, and these little huts reminded me of ones we have in London. If this market is here all year round then I can imagine the Christmas ones would have been incredible! After this we all had a huge tapas meal together and returned to the hostel for our last night.

P H O E B E. G R A C E //