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I’m so happy to be out of Berlin. What a relief . It took a long time to save money and I was trapped for awhile, but don’t worry you will get there eventually
At what point did you realize “wait a second, this place is really that bad”.
For me it was this site, when I was able to confirm everything I felt inside .
I let them gaslight me for years. Somehow Germans have this deep feeling that they're better than everyone else and they have some obscure "fact" (usually it's just a general feeling, nothing that can be quantified) they will pull out against any country. If you're British they'll complain about the NHS and racism (look up "In views of diversity, many Europeans are less positive than Americans" and you'll see how Germany has no leg to stand on regarding the latter point). If you're Italian then everyone is poor and in fear of the mafia (look up EU countries and median wage and compare pretty much anyplace to Germany). If you're American everyone is poorly educated and living in poverty (look up OECD's tertiary education rates and national poverty levels for a laugh). They all say this kind of stuff with such conviction I just assumed it was true.
Then by some fluke I ended up studying economics here and I actually started looking at the data. It wasn't really part of my coursework and, to be honest, my professors were mostly your typical German lefty types. As an example, our textbook at the beginning came with slides for most of the chapters. My professor always just used them without changing anything because he was pretty active in academia and was probably busy writing articles for publication or something. Anyway, one day I noticed that a single slide in a presentation was in a different stylesheet. So later I compared it to the official slides I found online. That weirdo created his own table with figures only to "prove" that Germans volunteer more than Americans. It wasn't even relevant to anything in the book really, it was just some random tangent about how many social benefits are not reflected in GDP. It feels like Germans are always trying to massage the public discourse like this.
I never really fit in here or liked it here. But almost everyone I knew, even the other foreigners, seemed to think it was pretty good here. Eventually I realized that's because most of them were from even worse countries (in terms of economics I suppose, culturally I think Germany is hands down the bottom of the barrel). But I did know one girl from my studies who complained about how rude Germans are and how almost every single day she had to see some guy peeing in public when she walked home from the station. The Germans all pretended none of it was true. More gaslighting.
In the end, what really shattered the way I view this place was also finding this website. Until then I thought I was alone here. Over the past few years it seems like public opinion of Germany has shot through the roof. I don't understand why. I think most people from my crappy little hometown would be appalled at the reality of day-to-day life here. Germans really do ruin Germany.
Every once and a while I'll encounter little pieces of truth. A few weeks ago I saw some graffiti at Alexanderplatz that said "Adolf Hitler had more humanity than the whole of Berlin" written in perfect German.
I had one fun summer in Berlin when I was out drinking almost every night. I stayed away from drugs luckily. When I grew out of it and started thinking about important things like achieving a decent standard of living with decent neighbors and considered raising a child here I quickly realized that Berlin is complete trash.
They don’t use streetlights and it’s dark in the winter. Not to mention, the city is full of sketchy butt people and drug addicts. If someone jumped me nobody would come to my help. The only reason why they don’t use street lamps beside their bullshitt “bio” environment garbage is because THEY ARE CHEAP. Considering it is so dark in the winter they may want to spruce some things up? Third world yo
I know germany is third world country because nothing ever functions properly, they never have any money for anything, they are not up to date on the latest technology, they steal all your money in taxes and pay a low wage, and it’s only a few steps away from becoming again a dictatorship . Really I feel these people have just been politely keeping the dictatorship scenario away because they have to to save their international reputation
Long rant, kind of weird I'll admit, sorry in advance. No receipts though, I promise.
Next time you're talking to a German and you mention air conditioning and they regurgitate the Official Domesticated German Response to that topic ("vee dont need air conditiona in Chermany, it is only hot heea one veek per yeeea" or "air conditiona make head huhrt and neck stiff"), then give them a little task to work on. Germans love simple tasks. Ask them to find out how many people die per year in Germany due to heat. Then, because that number is useless in a vacuum, ask them to compare it to the US. A German will naturally happily do this because in a German's mind, Germany is always superior to the US in every way.
A little spoiler for you: On a per capita basis nearly 50x more people die in Germany from heat compared to the US. That's around 8,000 annual deaths in Germany. For context, about 10,000 people die of firearm homicide in the U.S. per year and the gun debate hasn't ever paused over the last 30 years. And Germany has 1/4 the population of the U.S.
To drive the point home further: Adjusted for population, more people in Germany die from heat exposure than people in America die of firearm homicides. And it's not even close. Only if you include all gun deaths in the U.S. (homicides and suicides) do the numbers start to become similar. And, and this is the important part here, based on comparative statistics from both countries, 98% of those German deaths are preventable. Have you ever even heard anyone in Germany suggest air conditioning needs to be more wide spread? I certainly haven't. Even the hospitals in Germany usually aren't even air conditioned.
Of all EU countries, Germany has the second highest residential electricity prices. A kWh in Germany costs nearly 30% more than it costs in neighboring Austria or France. Why? Germany's insane forced environmentalism and the knee-jerk "Energiewende" because of Fukushima. Know how many people died due to the Fukushima meltdown? Between 1 and 2,202 depending on who you believe. How about Chernobyl? Between 78 and 4,000. No need to list every incident here, in Germany more people die every year due to heat exposure than all deaths directly attributable to nuclear energy.
I'll admit here that until recently I didn't know this interesting tidbit. I noticed after looking at a chart of Germany's excess mortality on Destatis where the author was trying to explain away a significant bump in August deaths as heat-related and totally not covid-19. I don't have the data to know if that's true. But I am fairly sure that Germany's 2020 summer wasn't much warmer than the one in 2019, 2018, 2017, etc. And it certainly wasn't warmer than the US's 2020 summer. Is it all a lie? Are heat-related deaths in Germany just an unofficial sundry category to obfuscate death statistics here? I don't know, but if those deaths aren't highly inflated then Germany's really darn callous to allow these deaths to remain so high. 98% ARE PREVENTABLE.
So next time a German tries to casually dismiss the legitimate application of air conditioning, ask them why they don't care about a German health issue that should be as large as the gun issue in the U.S. Another spoiler: You're going to be dealing with a mad German.
Are you talkling about me? Now look how lame you are. Trying to get along better at the cost of someone else. That's the essence of scapegoating. I think you just deserve to be in Berlin very well. And just because you're too dumb to get what I mean doesn't make you a better person. I wrote for example something very wise, it's just how it is you know. To stay with a feel. metaphorically. Of course you dumb sheep don't get what I meant by that. You didn't understand that effectively people are trying to throw you off your feel. You are angry, someone says something and you are thinking what to say. You don't get that there is something to say as a continuous stream of how you feel. That's why you are a little weakling. You don't even feel how you do. And I was to inspire someone like you but all you cared about was to have something to get along better. You were literally blocking every idea I had, that easily could have gotten to something. things need space. You know I don't need your verification. I don't care. But you can really go fornicate yourselves and you know what for. You are just as hypocritical as everyone else you claim to be such. You cannot not agree with that and make jokes all you want, it not gonna ease your shame. You didn't even care what I was getting at. Yoju were just projecting. I mean haha what you are writing is PATHETIC. You are apologizing for me within your own insecurity to say how you feel. Wow, you have great confidence my friend. Maybe you should have read some of the things I wrote, what confidence is. Haha. You see, You should be entertaining me if anything. You don't even get the meaning of that.
What does Reddit Berlin think of this site lol
If you search this site name on there you can see a few hits. A while back there was one that's since been deleted where they were laughing that someone here said German men have "week-old dickcheese". I recall seeing people there saying "yeah, there's some crazy people over there but they're not completely wrong". Funny how that thread was deleted.
www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/frauen-den-handschlag-verweigert-oberarzt-darf-kein-deutscher-werden-li.111944
Zero acceptance of other cultures. The man is a doctor and Germany doesn't want him because he doesn't want to shake hands with people wtf. At the same time some people from other countries don't get thrown out of this idiot for committing crimes. Germans get triggered if you don't do EXACTLY what they want even if you a nice and decent person (I don't know if that guy is though).
Didn't you know? Integration is only for others, NEVER for Germans. It's why you have to renounce your citizenship to become German BUT Germans don't have to renounce German citizenship when they get another one (at least according to the German government). It's why the "German-Russians" were so poorly integrated that 4 generations later they're still allowed to return to Germany. It's why there are German schools scattered throughout the Americas. God I hate Germans.
Since I started drinking bottled water only (about a week ago) I feel as if my overall health has improved. Am I just imagining it or is Berlin tap water just piss?
Can anyone explain what the staring is about, it's freaky and weird. Why do they do it? Berliners are creepy.
Germans lack certain basic etiquette skills that are usually learned in childhood. Certain things about attitude, politeness, interacting with others. My own theory is that their parents/grandparents were too busy building this cement-box world out of the rubble and suppressing their own PTSD, and some lessons just didn't get passed down. If you look at it this way, you'll see more examples than just the staring.
Do Germans from other cities also hate Berlin?
I have no energy, guys. Honestly stoic. Sick of this idiot country and these idiot people. But most angry at myself because I have way more potential than to continue living my life here. These people and this country is like a Dementor, man. Just sucks the life and soul out of you.
"angry at myself because I have way more potential than to continue living my life here"
I feel the exact same way. The first few years I kept telling myself "this isn't real life, I'm only here temporary, soon things will get better" and let myself get stuck here. Get out before your brain chemistry gets completely out of whack and you lose all motivation. I can't even remember the last time I was happy.
So good to walk down the street now and not sea a parade of mincing queens, tattooed and pierced freaks, AntiFa fascists, radical homosexual feminists, drug addicts and alcoholics, never-ending spatis' and casinos, doner shops selling rotten 'meat', spit, piss and poop everywhere, muslims galore, morons, space cadets, boring asssholes, pathetic lefty snowflakes, virtue-signallers, social-justice-warriors, and all the usual suspect rent a crowd Soros lefties. Oh and the know-it-all, obnoxious uni students who have no idea of real life. What a phucking joke Berlin is.
Have you ever had a German “friend” turn on you out of nowhere
Oh wow you shaved your head and got tattoos so edgy so original very risque
Berlin often is a bitch. You're kind to one person and karmacally another one would return it but instead it's someone who won't do so plus worse. While that's also not true. I noticed you can be kind to others by leaving them alone. No ignore, no try to look away but leave them alone. It's true for some. Feelable. Bit funny too when you get those slurpy feet sounds, it means you "won". What I mean is noticing someone and seeing whatever they do, for example standing outside smoking during a lunch break, as alright, normal. This way you don't just walk past them unpersonally, while at the same time you are not intrusive to them. Slurpy feet...What that means...Picture someone walking your way. Person is stressed, probably comes from work. You notice them and the two of you have a few things to manage to not get in each others way, or not at all but it might appear as if. So you are kind of focussed on this person and they onto you. While they don't even want that, nor you. What do you do? Ignore them? Well, no need for that, why would you. Just as wanting to be left alone is not ignoring others, while sometimes it can feel like that. So you'd see someone who clearly wants to be left alone. Even if you wanted to get in touch with them, you'd first would respect how they feel. And likely such people won't expect that at all, and then they make this sound with their feet, like a walking mistake. It's like being personally unpersonal. And those who don't mind more closeness, it's feelable.
Another thing that ties in with that. You probably know ths situation. You walk on the right side, left pavement and someone comes from the other side. You walked there first so it does not feel to want to evade. (btw this is my reasoning when I keep walking...I doesn't feel right to evade at times, while it them does also not feel right to bump someone) continued: But the person acts like they didn't see you, which you could test and it's likely simply true. But you don't even care about such, because it's low. How do you evade without submitting? Treat them as if they were unintentional. Everything intentional can be treated such way. It's capped. Like even if you saw that they saw you, you still should not know this, so you would assert that they have not seen you because this is the only reason you care to know. Obviously I don't mean this in general and surely once they saw you having seen them, it doesn't "work". I mean when some people just passive aggressively try to seek an advantage by a situation. Surely you could also lie back to them, that you didn't notice how they saw you and this natural reversedness is sorts of like an orientation to one's original page.
Today there was actually someone who returned care. I was walking my way and someone came from behind to my right and he was walking faster than me. I did barely make him out but I did notice him and therefore I simply cared. Because I saw him. So I walked a bit over, very casual and especially without any deal about it (distance). We stood together waiting at the traffic lights, both on the right side if you want so meaning the traffic light formed the middle. And I did not feel in a lower position for gotten out of the way since I didn't see it as my way. I was on the left side, he on the right. And he then returned it when he turned left crossing my way. He looked back and actually cared cause it took me a moment to figure I'd actually walk over to the right. Surely seems like such a bug at the same time meaning I don't feel like such every day. It was just that if I was in his spot I'd surely felt angry if someone not walk over. I mean either way, it also has a constraintful touch because in my case I might just had enough of taking care and then it's no ignoring when I just walk on my way. It depends how I feel. While in this case, it was a good experience, and it didn't take much at all, I kinda did it in my sleep.
Shortly before there was another guy who came walking my way. I walked on the right side and he was in the middle but on my side. And he walked strongly and sorts of fast, so if I had kept walking it would have been very narrow. So he caught my attention and I looked what he's doing and intuitively I then walked over to the left because I just don't put up with this situation so to speak. And he did walk also this way, meaning to the right from his pov, but he did this unrelated to what I did. You could say we did so simultaneoulsy. He was simply too slow or not able to care or careless. And then he had to evade me. It's like he crossed the point of someone who would take care and even though he then did he actually didn't take care.
Another situation actually: Two people walking side by side ahead of me on the left pavement. They just crossed a street and I want to walk to the left though. I did not walk around to the right and then around them, I did walk left because I was there way earlier and took the short turn. And what do you know. If I had walked the long turn I had walked right into someone standing in the middle of the way fiddleing with their Iphone and I would have had to walk around them to the left again. Just went with my feel. The other 2 people didn't like that really cause they had to evade me a bit but it was right.
It also reminds me of another situation that also ties in with that. Simple situation. It's a way where more or less only one person can walk and to the side is sand where cars also drive and pretty much whoever walks there first, the other one walks the sandway. But in this case it was rather surprising since I just came around the corner and someone walked there. But you know I was fast and I just walked over not feeling at a disadvantage. But then there were two people in the neighbouring garden putting a beer case on top of another, kinda loudly. And had I walked past that guy, both of us sharing this narrow way, this would have been somewhat irritating and it looks like a bad thing but it was actually part of something good. Because it then caught my attention and this way the guy who walked on the way...he was surprised by this because he felt like all the attention is on him. He assumed I didn't walk over mindfully and he felt sorts of in a 1 up position. But then he ended up looking where I'm looking. So yeah this is pretty much like one theme. I don't mean to preach a way of being or something. There is so many other things. It's just for what it is. You could say it's about having confidence in your feel but also seeing it right or having actually something on your mind that's supposed to be there.
The guy that walked behind me, when I walked a bit over, I forgot to say that it was in the same way of leaving him alone. This was the whole point. I didn't concern him one bit. And just for detail, there was a wall to the right, that's why I walked over. Simple situation. By feel.
And as for the guy on the little way, I didn't get to that. I just did the right thing but I didn't leave him alone so to speak. I'm saying it was a kind thing to not bug others because I also don't like to be bugged. At the same time you gotto be careful with being kind (in the sense of feeling "too good" in a sheepish way) cause there is people who try to dump their shit. While all of this could also be a way to express anger. Do you see that? Walking over there and leaving that guy alone. That could be like a punch. Because he might have been about to blame something. While it was though just my feel. If I see him I see him, why would I walk on and he can't get through then. There's just no point in that and it surely would come back. But you see how often people do it in a "personal" way. You see? They get in touch with you about such a meaningless situation when they could just do their part and probably always meant to.
To balance this out cause it's a bit onesided... There was a guy at a checkout who was rude to others, treated them condesendingly. When it was my turn he remarked about things I bought. He then asked for the receipt and I said "Did you say something?" to which he said: "Na ob Sie den Bon wolln" (if you want the receipt) in this patronizing way. And now comes the point. To stay with a feel (as an orientation). I was saying he's lame so why would I change anything about that. I replied in the same way: "I can't hear you". Obviously because I didn't mean that I didn't hear him, I meant that he's lame and then he acts more lame.
Peoples lives are like a ticking time bomb in berlin
www.reddit.com/r/berlin/comments/jai8kd/update_neighbours_threatened_to_kill_me_what_are/
Jesus Christ, how darn incompetent is EVERYONE in Berlin? Cops called 20 times on these degenerates and nothing happens?
'German here, lived in several cities and I can say that Berlin is a shithole. I saw and experienced things I‘d have never imagined to see. Leaving the city soon hopefully."
"I don't understand how so many people are dumbfounded when i tell them this, Berlin is a dumpsterfire of a city, that's just how it is."
And then this one from Bumonabeach which makes me very happy because that guy is a darn insano.
"Oh you sweet summer child. I am in awe how quickly this came around. I am in a very similar situation - except with several physical attacks on me, plus theft, constant insults, false accusations in front of the police (running a drug lab, bugging the other persons flat), severe damage to the house, etc. - and this may be (or may not be...) only resolved at the end of this month. After almost 2 years. Fingers crossed."