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Petition to re-name Berlin “curs-ed vortex”
"indianer"
www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/episodes/searching-for-winnetou
I left Berlin last year. Best decision of my life. Never felt so incredibly unhappy living in a place. Berlin has a weird energy I guess, a collective depression... a demon that has grown over centuries of horrible things that happened there... I don’t know. It is weird... as soon as I left, I came back to myself again. And still today when I tell people how bad it was, most people don’t believe me. “But it’s so great! Such a creative city! So progressive...” Yeah - try to live there and fornicate off!
Totally true. A weird energy, maybe from past horrible events. But also from clear sources. It's pretty dingy/trashy for a capital city in a wealthy country. Overgrown lots with graffiti, trash. Building/construction projects that are so slow they might as well be abandoned. Homeless people everywhere. Unreliable businesses. Simmering racism in the working-class white districts. And I'm convinced their "boomer" generation carries an intergenerational trauma, that makes them pessimistic and overly fearful. All of it contributes to a general lethargy and depression. And it that won't do it for you, the winter certainly fuckking will.
Where I am now?? Salzburg in Austria! Here’s the deal: I am Austrian but lived in California for a decade. Wanted to move back to Europe and the idea was - when Europe - then a progressive and cool place. Well, try trading California with Berlin! Two places that are the polar opposites... it was a tremendous shock experience for my psyche. What was I thinking?? Berlin (or Germany as a whole) only has this facade of progressiveness... it’s not! Might as well live in an Austrian village. I hated this pretense of a liberal, open minded Berlin... well, it’s not. Ausländer bleibt Ausländer - Even in “liberal, open minded” Berlin... its a joke! And I couldn’t take the staring and extreme social awkwardness...
Now I live in Austria again where I grew up. It’s not California; it’s narrow minded as f.u.c.k.! That’s for sure! But having lived now in several countries, the Austrians do seem friendlier and more chatty than the Germans. At least, nobody expects Austria to be open minded and liberal etc... Salzburg isn’t cheap either, but there are mountains really close by and the city is really beautiful. But planning on going back to the US, not now, but definitely some day.
Date rape is so common in Berlin that they sell bracelets at the drug store that you can use to make sure that no one has put drugs in your drinks. There is enough of a demand for this product in Berlin that every drugstore carries it in their very limited product selection. This is a mainstream product. Think about what that means.
Germans are all exactly the same. Every German thinks Die Ärtze is a cool band. Every German thinks Stefan Raab is funny. Every German watches soccer. Every German will sing the theme song to the Gummy Bears cartoon if you sing the first line. Every German hates AfD and any party that has ever cooperated with AfD in the slightest. Every German loves döner. Every German watches Tatort on Sundays. Every German owns a stupid book called "Europa" that they received from school when they finished 8th grade. Every German will laugh if you say the word "Maschendrahtzaun". Every German either goes biking or hiking on the weekends.
It’s funny how people think Berlin is a place they can “be free”. Really it’s not illegal in most developed countries to where whatever outfit you want or party hard. That’s your personal decision. But there are many MANY limiting and broken up thinga about the German government and system that will oppress you that you can’t opt out of. Not sure why this city is STILL being hyped
What are divorce laws like in Germany? Do they give custody to the German? Ugh
It’s funny how white trash American can go to Berlin and thrive because literally anywhere in Europe they would not last. You cannot dress like that anywhere else. Germany is like freaking texas
I may have to go in and out of Berlin to get something. I’m scared. I’m worried something bad will happen. Something will go wrong. Maybe someone will punch be in the street again randomly. I cannot feel at ease in that place.
Random piles of dog poop on the floor
You sure it's from a dog? German girl I used to date told me once that when she was a kid and outside playing with other kids from the neighbourhood that if they had to pee or poop they'd go underneath the stairs INSIDE of their apartment building. Why they wouldn't go up one flight of stairs to actually use a toilet is beyond me but welcome to Germany I guess.
I don’t believe anyone who says they are “the best”. I’m surprised a country with such a dark history STILL declares itself to be the best and STILL talks down to foreigners. To apologize for the holocaust is one thing. To change your interactions is to actually do something about it. Except many of them don’t actually care and even enjoy making foreigners life a living hell. Talk is cheap
Anyone else notice that Germans love doing the same things over and over and over again and never seem to get bored ?
When I graduated from university here I applied for about 100 jobs and only managed to get ONE offer. Then I applied to ONE job in France and they contacted me the next day for a phone interview and made me an offer an hour later. If there's anyone else here who is in the same situation I was in a year ago then keep your head up and try applying in another country. Germany is truly a... unique place.
I remember when I was looking for internships and I was turned down at one because they had had a negative experience with a Pakistani woman (I am a man from South America).
I also remember when I got fired from another internship because of not having experience. Isn't that the point of doing an internship, though? Gaining experience?
Why and how do Germans always manage to engineer situations in which someone ends up being naked in public? Even when I'm on holiday in other countries and I see someone changing clothes in the middle of a crowded beach it is always 100% of the time a German. Why do Germans refuse to use provided changing rooms like civilised humans?
Germans seem to lack a sense of shame. That is why they don't mind being smelly, behaving like retards while on vacation, wearing t-shirts with dumb captions on them, being in open relationships, pretending to be "ghetto", hating on the USA in spite of the USA being the country that helped Germany rebuild itself and brought democracy to that country.
Let me put it this way: Look at the reform of the German penal code for rape and sexual assault of 2015. Look at what they changed and then consider that somehow to the German mind it was entirely okay to coerce someone into sex by use of force and THE ONLY REASON the law was tightened was because of foreigners.
Yeah I would imagine people that actually pioneered gay rights would look at the excuse for debauchery that is CSD in shame. If you're fighting to be treated as an equal then why the hell would you dress like that and f-ck in public? Even someone whose brain has been addled from drugs and AIDS must be able to see that 1 + 1 = 2