As a native Urberliner I am both flattered and confused by the fact so many young Americans choose to live in my home town. I always wondered what makes it so attractive to you. I mean, winters are miserable, the city is ugly compared to many others in Germany, the people are rather not friendly to each other, the German language is difficult to learn, our history is troublesome, German immigration laws still difficult to surmount and Berlin is becoming very expensive to live in these days compared to 20 years ago.
Edit: Perhaps I‘ve got the typical love/hate relationship with my home town and don’t see the forest for the trees we keep saying around here ;).
I moved eleven years ago because I loved the party scene. Took me less than a month to find a huge apartment for under seven hundred a month from a nice neighborhood.
Now I cannot move out anymore without doubling or tripling my rent. Also chose to study Rust instead of German, and been having so much work afterwards that I still haven't started my German studies. My husband speaks good German so that helps.
The weather is awful, our landlord only listens to us if we sue him, the internet seems to always be bad and expensive without hope for any better, the parties are way too crowded and dealing with local bureaucracy is not a great experience.
At least the rent is still cheap, if we don't move out. Lots of great art is happening every weekend. Nowadays you have some of the best restaurant scene going on in Berlin. The city is super relaxed about beer and weed, and the parks are great. It is easy to travel around the city with public transport, bike or quick rental cars. But now it is impossible to find apartments, all prices are going up and people are getting angrier every year.
My feelings about Berlin are super mixed. But, at least one thing makes me a Berliner: I love to complain about the city.
I could have written this word for word. Maybe we should do a cranky-HNers-of-Berlin meetup.
Some uneasy food for thought: we're not that far off from the brave lucky weirdos who moved to NYC in the 1970s and bought decrepit flats for a song, who now find themselves aged and bewildered among the billionaires, trying to afford groceries. Hopefully it won't progress quite that far, but NYC does show that capital isn't deterred by a little dysfunctional urban chaos.
And more rich people from outside move in, everything changes into a more boring, but expensive new reality.
At least Berliners revolt all the time and the government is so dysfunctional. Change in the city will take a few lifetimes. It might feel like a good idea to invest, but then you face the German and especially the Berlin bureaucracy and how slow it works. Everything takes forever to finish.
I hope this will save Berlin from becoming the next New York. It still is so much more colorful than any other German city.
P.S. the running joke amongst my friends is how CDU will finally make the ringbahn go on time...
Uh, yeah Berlin is definitely a mixed bag. To me it's like a bigger Glasgow - a local epicenter for everything but has really unkempt and outright scary parts. It's sort of cheap but not really. Public transport is great but in every one seems to be someone smelly or just too weird.
Maybe some kind of re-urbanization programme would help the city, so they would rethink some areas.
I'm British by birth, I chose Berlin after Brexit because:
1. Friends here
2. Alternative countries were Luxembourg/Switzerland (more expensive); Canada (worse weather); Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time); USA (weird culture, guns); Australia/New Zealand (too far from the old country to visit regularly); France (I find the language harder than German); Belgium (saw a police officer with a long barrelled gun at the train station and noped out of even visiting it during an Interrail exploration trip); or somewhere where I hadn't even started learning the language.
That left Austria, which was an option, but Germany was bigger and I didn't want to risk having to move country for work before getting a permanent right to remain in the EU, which I think I need another 6-12 months for depending on what exactly counts.
Alternative cities within Germany: many pretty options, but the tech scene is mostly here, and also the friends.
> Belgium (saw a police officer with a long barrelled gun at the train station and noped out of even visiting it during an Interrail exploration trip);
Sounds like you visited not too long after the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. I've seen the same in London at times though.
I was at a book reading in a cafe in Berlin once and there was some sort of loud noise outside, firecrackers I believe. Some people flinched, some didn't. The reader said something to the effect of "watch the Americans in the room, when they duck, you duck too".
> Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time
Just to be clear, this basically would never happen with most people. Now, the North of Ireland (the part still in the UK) might be a little different, but most Irish (i.e. republic) people couldn't give two sh*ts about where you're from as long as you're good craic.
Comedian Dara O'Brien wanted to name one of his shows something like "Good craic", but was told he couldn't because the British would colossally misunderstand.
It was bigger and scarier-looking than the ones I've seen anywhere in the UK, and if I'm now actually remembering those of St. Pancras rather than just imagining some, those were small compared to the ones in the airports.
Same here. But the way they just this week talked a foreign friend out of filing a PV is absolutely shameful. They fully abuse they fact that she doesn't know her rights that well and isn't as likely to push as a Dutch person might. Disgusting.
Ah, but that is a common trope I think. Is there any state, where police is held in high regards (and shows competence?). My experience with police in germany was a time waste as well.
I certainly considered the Netherlands… «maar ik kan een beetje maar Nederlands spreken» and I'm not even sure I'm supposed to use "maar" twice in that sentence or not.
(Sadly I don't even get to use the wonderful «Ik ben groot», because I'm only tall by non-Dutch standards).
> «maar ik kan een beetje maar Nederlands spreken» and I'm not even sure I'm supposed to use "maar" twice in that sentence or not.
“maar” can both mean “but” or “only” but you have to use it like this: «maar ik kan maar een beetje Nederlands spreken» literally translated as: «but I only can speak a little Dutch». A native speaker would use it twice.
Australian here, living in Austria (lived in Germany for a few years too).
You're missing out. Austria is so close to so many wonderful, foreign things. In Germany its very easy to introvert and never leave the village, mentally or physically - in Austria, its the same - but you can drive an hour in pretty much any direction and get the cold culture shock you need to make you appreciate what you've got.
A stint to Italy or Czech Republic or Hungary or Slovakia or Croatia for an afternoon will shake your bones loose of their cultural chains.
>Tech scene in Germany
Don't underestimate the Ruhrpott. Many ex-pats in Germany do, but its a mistake. The tech scene in Essen/Bochum/Duesseldorf is pretty hot, too ..
If you travel to NRW, you will get the special forces police units using those kinds of guns on train stations, specially in days where critical football matches are taking place.
That one. It's the only Bundesland commonly referred to by an acronym and I guess we are lucky that the English toponym still matches.
The other three-letter candidate (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) is more commonly just shortened to Mecklenburg which isn't an option for NRW because the non-Westphalia part is the more important by far but "north-Rhine" wouldn't really work as a standalone name.
Acronyms for our various Saxonies would be rather awkward because both prefix-Saxonies would collide
prominently with an acronym already taken by nazism.
I'd say you see RLP in written form from time to time, but yeah, not "commonly". Also BaWü isn't an acronym but you're right, compared to other countries we're not really big on abbreviating the states it seems.
Yes. The official/technical abbreviation is apparently NW because German Bundesland abbreviations are two letters, but colloquially (and even formally on most occasions) everyone calls it NRW.
Incidentally when GP said the police "use" the guns at train stations, what they meant was "carry". The German "einsetzen" is more ambiguous about whether something is part of the loadout or actively used (I guess "deploy" is the closest equivalent). I'm fairly certain the guns aren't actually loaded (they're just too big to holster) but at times the Bundespolizei (the federal police responsible for train stations and ports of travel) will indeed carry H&K machine pistols.
Language barrier in both cases. Since moving to Berlin I've picked up tourist-grade Spanish — without looking at Google Translate, "Hola, una mesa para dos personas, por favor. Un hamburgar vegetario y un café. Graciás." — but not enough to function outside a holiday.
If I even know a single word of Swedish that's not a loan-word, I'll be surprised.
I don't know which country you're from, but the normal thing in the UK (where I'm from) is no gun at all, and when I've traveled abroad previously the most was a pistol.
There have been occasional exceptions in the UK, as noted in other comments, but in the case of what I saw in Belgium it was the combination of armed police being a rare experience for me plus the gun in question looking exceptionally large.
I've seen officers with SMGs (or something like that; I'm no expert) in the UK more than once. E.g. in an airport.
Better than that, though, I remember going to a cash machine in India and there was a security guard sat next to it with the longest, biggest shotgun I've ever seen. He gave me an incredibly relaxed nod and smile, and I got my money.
As a new Berliner who immigrated here I can answer some of those:
- Berlin has a reputation for its artsy party scene and lax enforcement of drug laws. People come here in their 20s to let themselves loose.
- German universities are good quality and free for all (excluding the Semesterpauschale, but for my American or British friends this 300€ is basically nothing in comparison - especially when you count in the public transport ticket that comes with your student card).
- Immigration is hard, but you are entitled to permanent residency after you've contributed into the pension system for 5 years total within a continuous period of stay in Germany. People are willing to play the game with the Ausländerbehörde for some time if they know they will eventually become eligible for a permanent stay.
- Free, good quality healthcare. Agreed that Berlin is not the representative example in Germany, but for many people coming from places where healthcare is unaffordable or outright dangerous (I'd never want to go to the hospital in my hometown again), this is a huge change for the better.
- You can "get by" in Berlin with English only by now, although you'll be highly dependent on others. I know people who've been here for 5+ years and still struggle to order a beer. Not the best way of living, but definitely possible with so many other expats around.
- Prices/earnings ratio is still better than in many places in the West.
I chose the city myself because I already knew the language (mandatory second language after English at school in my home country), and I don't regret it. You can navigate around the coarse edges and live a good life in here.
I now what you probably mean when you say "free", that you don't have to pay for it, but in reality, the universities are paid by everyone. Same for health care. I pay 400 euros per month. Of course, then I don't pay much else. But the cost is distributed, they are not "free". Maybe I am sensitive to the word, because in my home country, Argentina, populism has made people believe that everything has to be "free".
I mean, the money has to come from somewhere. Yes, in terms of government-provided services "free" tends to mean "socialized", but if I compare it to a market-driven healthcare system in the US where the majority of effort goes into creative billing to milk people's insurances, the overall lifetime cost of healthcare appears to be much lower. Especially that with German insurance, there's no copay for treatments, only for prescription drugs (and even then, it's between 5-10€ per item, which can be further refunded if you are eligible).
With universities, my argument for public funding is that it theoretically makes higher education accessible to people actually interested in the subjects, instead of people who can afford it and go for the prestige of it. I feel that elsewhere, big name universities serve more as a platform for networking rather than actual educational institutions; here, I do not even know which universities are more or less prestigious. A degree is a degree.
I understand your perspective, but it is still mostly free for the people who need it (there are always fees and things so it is never completely free, but it is still very cheap compared to the actual cost).
In case of education, young student typically don’t earn enough to pay income tax, if they have any salary or wages at all. To them, it’s free. I now pay for them through my taxes and I am happy to because I was in their position and if uni wouldn’t have been so cheap, I could not have attended. It’s not free for the overall society, but it is free for those who use it.
Same for healthcare. We all pay but when you need heavy surgery or long-term care that would cost tens hundreds of thousands of euros, it’s close enough to free as to not make you bankrupt. Again, free-ish for those who need it.
This is an accounting trick. Taxes do not cover the same services everywhere. Of course, taxes are higher in Sweden than in the US, but then you don’t pay as much for your children’s education or your parents’ health care. So sure, the young and healthy people without children are better off in the US. Or the very wealthy who would nominally pay more taxes, though they have other tricks to use.
On average it’s much more nuanced, though. Comparing at one given level of service, public services are actually good value for money.
It's about mentality. Americans strive to attain the ideal of a "self-made man"; prizing work ethic and self-sufficiency. Germans (Europeans is too broad of a label) are okay with learning a trade and then doing their job consistently for the rest of their lives - that's why the employment conditions in Germany are tuned towards long-term, stable employment.
You're not kidding about lax enforcement of drug laws. In Kreuzberg I'd often see people obviously offering to sell drugs to passers-by as police cars would drive down the road practically next to them.
On the other hand the police does occasionally decide to make a show out of its enforcement. I think it's more appropriate to call it "selective" than lax, at least by German standards.
If you're a POC in the Kreuzberg parks, you will get searched by the police eventually. As a white kid going to clubs, it is very rare if you behave.
Try to do the same in places like Munich. The police can stop your taxi, search your pockets and bag, and if finding some illegal substances you lose your driver's license and need to go to the court. This will (hopefully) change for weed this year...
It is a show, that's true. However at least in my circles drugs - or at least talking about them - are so normalized that I have to remember to censor myself whenever I meet my friends who don't live in Berlin.
You can get a PR faster (3y) if you’re here on a blue card (which is likely true for all non-EU tech workers).
Universities are not all free for non-EU citizens and some programs (generally English-speaking) Masters are (properly, not the 400€) paid for citizens and non-citizens alike.
Possibly, I'm a EU citizen myself. To be fair, in my home country courses taught in English had actual tuition even if it was a public university as well. Quite a few people who did not do well on their high school graduation exams would opt for those courses just for the prestige of studying at a public uni.
The healthcare is not "free" - health insurance is mandatory, and its quality varies massively depending on your insurer, the hospital/doctor you go to, etc.
Bowie. It all goes back to Bowie. He's really the one who made Berlin so attractive to young Westerners.
We think Berlin is a lovely city, with lots of tolerant people and a diverse set of cultures providing a rich and interesting outlook. Of course, the reality is, Berlin is as much of a shit-hole as any other major European city, but the fantasy of meeting an intelligent, inspired, enlightened 'newly free' young German thing in the streets of Berlin is just too enticing to a lot of us romantics.
I live in Vienna. I love to visit Berlin just so that I can come home to Vienna and appreciate what I've got, even if the effect wears off after a week of interacting with Vienners ..
> ...but the fantasy of meeting an intelligent, inspired, enlightened 'newly free' young German thing in the streets of Berlin is just too enticing to a lot of us romantics.
(East) Berlin (along with the rest of East Germany) was 'newly freed' over thirty ears ago, so none of the people who actually experienced that liberation are all that young any more.
That sounds like typical German pessimism. Rents are up but compared to some other major cities around the world? And why would the "troublesome" part of our long and rich history prevent people from moving here in 2023? Berlin is safe, cycleable, in the EU, the language not an order of magnitude harder than, say, French and people are speaking English anyway.
Berlin is still cheaper than other major European cities, is big enough to have lots of things to do, has a good nightlife, is very international (as in you can live there without knowing too much German) and, more recently, has developed a good tech scene.
On friendliness, I found Berlin more welcoming than Hamburg and Munich. I felt people were friendlier in Köln (apart from the police that wanted to fine me for jaywalking), but it’s much uglier than Berlin.
If you stay a few years you will have made and lost touch with a good few friends from all over the world who will have come, partied hard for a year while working for Zalando or N26 or some shit, and fucked off.
As a long time expat living in Berlin, it's actually a nice place to live. The city actually has some charm compared to other cities in Germany and it's never boring here. I've spent some time in Munich as well and that caused me to seriously wonder what else there was to do after a few weeks. Not an issue in Berlin. And I've been here for fourteen years.
German is completely optional here. I know that's not appreciated by the natives. But I don't actually deal with a lot of those. Almost everyone I know in Berlin is from outside Berlin. And that includes most Germans. A lot of those move to Berlin for many of the same reasons that foreigners do that. I do meet actual real Berliners once in a while and by and large they are actually quite friendly. But the fact is that they are a minority in this city.
I moved to Berlin about 10 years ago. In my opinion Berlin was attractive because:
- Friends and people from all over the world
- Culturally and historically interesting: clubs, events.
- Capital of the biggest economy in Europe
- Cheaper (not anymore). Also, clubs because of the particular history.
- Slight barrier to entry. A bit of German is a higher barrier to entry, compared to English speaking options.
Having said that, I find people friendlier in Köln, although this has improved in Berlin. Also the payment with card has improved in the last 10 years.
I think one major plus compared to US is how easy it is to get around. The trains still run (at least weekend nights), and if you’re partying on a day they do not they start up fairly early, so partying til first train is alright.
The Uber rides in a city in America at night can get more expensive than the total drink bill I remember spending out in Berlin.
I have an acquaintance that moved there for the electronic music scene, DJ’d regularly at Berghain, and has an Essential Mix. She probably would not have been that successful had she stayed in SF.
it's the capital, large, already has a big international presence which tends to in turn attract more migrants and it has a great nightlife. The clubbing, music and arts scene in Berlin is vastly better than any other city in Germany in my experience. After that maybe Munich and Cologne? But given the size of our country there's surprisingly not that many cities that are fun.
Edit: Perhaps I‘ve got the typical love/hate relationship with my home town and don’t see the forest for the trees we keep saying around here ;).