I hate all the ex pats who are living there and can't even speak German. Why go to a forgien country/ city when yo make no attempt to even be part of it, instead you turn it into what you want and push the real people out who have spent generations there. in my 3 times of being there I have NEVER met an actual Berliner, they are all social outcasts vying for attention in a dismal worn out town. Berlin is Borlin
If you want to meet "real" Berliners head to the areas in the East, past the expat-backpacker-filled F-hain, P.Berg, Kreuzberg, etc. I'm a Canadian who speaks German, lives in Koepenick with my German spouse & child and experiences the hateful xenophobia of real Berliners every single day. Leave your comfort zone & pop on down for some real Berliner unhospitality...
See, this is what it pis\ses me off about Germans in Berlin. Always whining about how foreigners "make no attempt" at integrating. That is utter bulls\hit. Go say that to millions of Turkish living in Germany. 70 years after their arrival and Germans still don't consider them Germans because they "don't try hard enough".
no attempt to be a part of it? I have experienced so many times humiliations when i tried to speak Deutsch with germans, they laugh and make fun of you or answer in English. Once a woman told me "Do not even try to speak my language if you are not able to"
-one tries to speak German, result: be ridiculed.
-one speaks in English, result: be ridiculed, "y u no attempt to speek ze German, see how I talk ze English language perfectly".
-one spends 25% of one's life mastering German. result: meet xenophobia in their native language and be ridiculed nonetheless.
BERLIN LOGIC.
Total failure or total mediocrity. Those are your choices in Berlin.
All of your museums are closed on Monday. And your art museum's plaza is ugly as hell, and the only mature tree nearby was trimmed to within an inch of death. And your ugly glass dome requires pre-registration. And your "central" bus station is at Westkreuz. And your train stations have such poor information design. And your canal walk is totally disjointed by a lack of pedestrian crossings, so you have to cross the road three times to continue walking along it. And everything is under construction. Even poop that is done has little bits of construction fencing left around like a bleak decoration.
I realized that this obsession with continual construction may come from the fact that you are perhaps still being rebuilt from being bombed so badly.
And your parks have no bathrooms. And your train station charges 1 Euro to use the toilet. And it's overcrowded. And your train station refugees didn't have anyone to help them.
All in all, everything I tried to do in Berlin failed, except the christmas market. 1/10 will not go back. I would never live in such a pooping city.
Despite the fact I now live in another country my male genitalia still detaches itself from my body and throws itself under the wheels of the nearest train whenever I hear the words "German Woman".Come back dear Penis,you are amongst friends now..I promise I will NEVER let a German Woman touch you again.P.T.S.D and a witness protection program for my male genitalia are now helping me regain my joy of life and love of women after my Berlin dating experiences.Peace.x
I've been here for 8 years and trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage to a German man for the last 5 (the Hague Convention means leaving the country with our child is impossible without his written consent)...will there ever be an escape and a healthy life after Berlin ever again???
this city is filled with attention whores who make me cringe all the time.
Is putting a picture in your CV so important even if you leave them personally? For Fuck's sake
oh that's because HR in Berlin is a joke. 80% of the times I dropped a resume at any office in Berlin females in HR looked for features that they'd want in a boyfriend instead of an employee (also total disregard of actual skills). I'm sure the same happens with male HR scanning for potential female employees.
Yes.. They want to see what colour you are. Why else would you require a photo for a job?God forbid you may even be third generation Turkish German with the best qualifications,the brightest star.the way forward with innovative thinking..FORGET IT..The job will go to some lame jerk...Please take your skills and intellect and go to a place that understands that these qualities are what makes the worl a better place. Honestly.These people will destroy you.
I'll start with some good points before the carnage.
-Low population density
-Excellent public transport
-Food: price/quality ratio is generally very good
-Infrastructure is great
-Green spaces in the summer are beautiful
I have stayed in cities made of chrome and glass, all the way down to places which have no plumbing/electricity. The one thing I can conclude from my travelling, no matter how nice everything is, if the people are terrible, everything is ruined. Berlin could be wonderful, it really could. We have a city where I never see traffic, where you never have to wait for public transport, where you can idle away whole days under trees and escape everything. This tranquility comes to an abrupt end, when dealing with most demographics in Berlin. Want to file your VAT? bam! you'll do it every month because they don't trust you. Want to go a house party? bam! prepare to enter a room with a set of chairs poisitioned in a horse shoe... yes, everyone will stare at you, upon entering. Want to go on a date (male version) prepare yourself for a heart of coal. Want to go on a date (female version) you must be a domanatrix. Those German boys are to meek.
We must look at ourselves as well and accept some of the blame. The majority of us expats are clueless humanities graduates, thick rimmed glasses, combined with superflous posturing and naval gazing. You'll walk the streets and see important issues reduced to selfie loving moments. Tinder profile snaps of some female hygene product climbing a pillar in the holocaust memorial site. Some chick in a Neokolln bar with second hand furniture, playing poop '80s electro, keeping the family who lives above the bar awake... forever. The terrible terrible art which would never cut it in any other major city. The 'startup bros' who learn't javascript off Codecademy and now think their 'social app' is unicorn status.
It may just be me, I may have grown old and bitter. I long to see a smile and talk about anything which is not related to social justice issues to raise one's social profile, that new LP on Hard Wax, the new art project made of semen or that new organic coffee place, which does vegan pastrami pananis. Berlin is the city of people who came last in their school's 100m. They had to adopt quirks to get attention.
I apologise to all the hard working Germans, people who are here out of family reasons or those who are genuinely stuck here. May God have mercy on all of your souls.
Right, I'm off to bed. No doubt I'll hear my neighbours having sex again.
perfectly written. I visit it avery 2 or 3 months now for a couple of days fortunately, full of correct points down to the very last one. Its a good place for those that can live transient lives, a few months here a few months there,but for life, jeezus what a dark thought.
Elena Fahr cheap Romanian bar hussy that will fornicate any foreigner . she gave me crabs and a STD. Avoid her
wanna be cool types. but just boring no hopers
This is one of the worst places in Europe,only War Regions are worse.
Berlin is indeed over rated, dull and so yesterday.
Wow..Quite a rant and very entertaining.The line"I'd rather be kicked in the teeth at a petting zoo"was terrific.The rest was a little on the too much red wine side.Nevertheless..all good fun.
yep. but even this is coming to berlin east side. i held out for the long haul --10years on the old contract and got a luxury renovated apartment, paid for by the government no less since i managed to convince them i´m insane. im not, just a born actor/smartass. but its what they want if they had their way i know perfectly well, so look at it as a form of protest. rent went up 2.5 times in the last 5 years. if you have the stamina, go for it. berlin is investment potential now and ever changing. creatives all vying for a post of the proverbial log.. If you haven´t a portfolio you need not apply.
The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer same as everywhere else-- poop that use to lay curled up in the proverbial toilet is now being shuffled to the outskirts thanks to the gang of baby raping politicians the cops can´t touch. i mean alcoholics, the psychologically disturbed and other human detritus..char burg is run by the russian mafia, so yeah in places you can´t pass out anymore without them taking your kid and/or nuts...
prenz berg is pretty much like was posted above. except even better now there is a new racist wave of germans against other germans i love it when that happens. nothing like an arrogant hippie stuttgarter telling the berliner they´d be better off having their wall back! I´d rather be kicked in the teeth at a petting zoo...
Alcoholics esp. Like to blame nasty gentrification by the corrupt politicians or whatever but you ever think maybe they got what they deserved and got swept to the outskirts for a reason. maybe if you feel socially isolated you should do something about it besides drink. Like go to therapy to talk about your problems get a real job education direction maturity and relieve your jealousy toward hard working people on the whole.. the problem is opportunity. People have no chances anymore
Needless to say most moms are in the dark, leave their double decker kid carriage parked outside the dm waiting for a sadistic psychopath human trafficker kidnapper to pass by.
to make a long story short, i actually enjoy the new kinds of people with money and positive attitude in the lineups that join me in making fun of the negative disrespectful jaded disdained welfare bum washed up in the trendy cafe bitching i jumped the line when i didnt actually and everything costs 30 cents more....bitch female dog female dog sexual act sexual act wank
BUT, there are dangers that go with the money, the more money you have the less freedom. Do not leave junior unattended. Especially in a berlin east side supermarket or shopping mall. Berlin has a freaking seedy underground ask any schizophrenic. They all know but just don´t talk to each other
the foreigner refugees coming here nowadays have more money than me make no mistake about it. its more of the same shit. We live in a false democracy here same as everywhere else. if they dont find you useful you get wiped out. russian and china are coming and berlin is losing its charm of being a free place to live where you can walk around topless with a beer in hand smelling the smoke of weed on the breeze and grill fires in the park...welcome to the future. You have to hustle hard to live here and weigh the balance of whether or not it is worth it to you and for what reason. And protect your nuts and or children from being sold from 10 to 30 grand on the black market.
Dating is particularly hard. Yes, quality people are hard to find. Watch out for cokeheads who spread syphilis. It´s getting better in some ways and worse in others...you have to weigh the pros and cons and come up with a balanced argument. Attorneys do well here i expect...
FYI: i racked up five grand on lawsuits i won against shitbags over the years, but lost another five grand likewise to rip off artists. So berlin, so far, i´ve broke even...
I called it, Germany Is Turning Away Syrian Refugees Once Again news.vice.com/article/germany-is-turning-away-syrian-refugees-once-again
My best wishes to those of you stuck in Berlin.I got out after 6 years..Life has never been better..Germans scare the poop out of me.xx