...
Some acehole stole a bungee strap from the basket on my bicycle, a miracle the bicycle wasn't stolen.
Spotted two gypsy pick pockets at Mauer Park flea market on Sunday, followed them and made it obvious I was watching them and videoing their movements, they eventually left, while giving me dirty looks.
This week I had 27 beggars ask me for money, mostly alcoholics and drug addicts, that's why they are homeless.
Had to avoid stepping in vomit, spit, piss and shite.
Dealing with BVG shop staff is the worst.
10 mumbled hellos from neighbours this week alone.
Can't find reliable staff.
Thought a computer at a flea market might be stolen, so I tracked the guy who owned it by data left on the computer to et him know where it was, but when he answered he sounded like a typical rude Berlin acehole, so I hung up the phone.
Spoke to a woman who said her neighbours downstairs had a flock of chickens in their apartment and the rooster would wake her every morning at 4.am-ish.
Saw a Berliner smile on Wednesday.
Everywhere I go, I see women with their heads covered in scarves, to remind me how scarily easy it is to brainwash humans with religion.
politics make strange bedfellows...Berlin encapsulates this...you have gays, feminist women Communist atheists who hate Christian European civilization living literally next door to anti Women rights , anti gay, profoundly religious Turks and Arabs...both voting for the Greens , Linke, or SPD, one group with no kids paying for the many welfare babies of the other group...all the while the first groups media censoring the crimes of their pets
I was getting ripped off for insurance until I stumbled across this site www.care-concept.de/krankenversicherung/auslandskrankenversicherung/auslandskrankenversicherung_care_expatriate_einleitung_eng.php
Let’s face it, all of western civilization is more or less screwed… plagued by greed, materialism, destroyed family values & religion but not replacing it with something that provides people with as much stability as religion/god/family/tradition did, removing tribal identity to create the nation state… now the nation state is turning into the globalist’s playground as pretty much every single western country is being flooded with non-western immigration. You can use your own imagination to picture what the western world will look like in 1 generation, maximum 2 generations time, on this trajectory. So yeah, all of the west is screwed… but in Germany, specifically Berlin, you can look at the dragon right in it’s eye. It’s a place where there is no values, meaning, no ideas, no hope, no peace… unless you want to be in an open relationship drinking a Berliner Pilsner, having no friends or any meaningful relationships in your life, no real career, no real life, just move on. Stop in Berlin, but don’t stay. Don’t fall for the illusion of freedom & hedonism in Berlin… the freedom & hedonism comes with a big price, the price of your mind and soul. I have never met a single person in Berlin who has been here for a long time and is not broken. It also doesn’t take 10 or 15 years for Berlin to break you… it can take only 2-3 years if you live “hard”. It’s a very seductive, manipulative city that makes you question your own sanity and own self-worth, because it makes you feel like something must be wrong with *you* instead of a city of 3.5 million. Because it doesn’t seem logical that there can be something wrong with a city of 3.5 million… rationally, it must be YOU that is wrong.. Because in other cities, you will find good, bad, beautiful and ugly, and you make of life what you will… but Berlin is unique, trust me. Maybe the place is cursed from Germany’s dark history, who knows. And this feeling of “what’s wrong with me” is insidious, you don’t just think it in one day. It slowly creeps up in your head that you are defective and something is wrong with you. Pretty soon you turn into an emotionally, mentally, spiritually broken person who has almost zero chance of recovering, even with all of the therapy in the world. You cannot recover once you go too far, because you will not be able to accept that you wasted years of your life for NOTHING. So if you live in Berlin for 5, 10, 15 years… you become 1) numb and 2) even when you have moments where you are lucid, you quickly go back to being numb again, because the realization that you just wasted your life is too painful to think about. So you’d rather just close your eyes and go back to Berlin… a psychopath waiting to embrace you in their arms, with all kinds of alcohol, drugs, partying, empty people & things to soothe your pain and make you feel numb again. If you don’t have depression, anxiety, personality disorder, mental illness, addiction problem or autism in Berlin you’re actually a minority, and you must either be a newcomer or you live in a very protected bubble in Berlin. I know some good people in Berlin. But they are very, very aware of how screwed up Berlin/Germany is and they live in a mental/emotional fortress, surrounding themselves with only a few people they can trust to not f-ck their psyche. It’s not an easy place to live.
Also, I want to add, the people I know who are good people and live in an emotional/mental fortress, are stuck in Berlin for reasons outside their control. They do plan to leave when they can, but for now they are trying to survive. That's how serious it is and that's how dark Berlin is. If you somehow found yourself on this site (you rarely will find criticisms of Berlin on the internet for some reason), consider yourself very lucky, read the stories and I know it sounds dramatic, but don't waste years of your life just to learn lessons that people here are sharing with you.
Also - I know people who really thrive in Berlin. Like my ex boyfriend. He has been there for 7 years, loved it since day 1 and still does. You know why? Because he is a narcissist (personality disorder). It took escaping that relationship (just like escaping Berlin) to see him for what he really was, because there was so much manipulation, gaslighting, illusions, psychological warfare going on. You don't see those things for what they really are, until later, when you connect the dots. So as a narcissist (high functioning, intelligent and hides it), he LOVES Berlin... an absolute paradise for him. If you are the opposite of a narcissist (empath or empathic person), you will suffer in Berlin, just like I suffered.
I feel grateful everyday for escaping that relationship and that city, without losing too much of my time. I only spent a year in the city and in that relationship. I don't think I could psychologically recover if it was 10 years instead of 14 months.
I've lived here for the past six years, solely to raise my six-year-old daughter. There is absolutely no other reason I would live here. I find the lack of empathy and basic emotional intelligence in mainstream Berliners depressing to be around. The lack of empathy is everywhere in this society, from the way organizations and government is run with no consideration for employee happiness, to the way older Germans stare and scrutinize at anyone different, because they are objects on the landscape after all, not people. There's a saying here: "to not be reprimanded should be considered reward enough". So you've got a passive-aggressive generation of people with a victim mentality who look for anyone they can bully. I've gotten pretty tough from living here (and martial arts since I was a little kid, and my daughter loves it too), but I do get sick of having to assert myself with obnoxious Berliners. Seeing friends of mine who aren't as assertive getting walked on a lot.
I want to move away from europe especially berlin because of third world migration. it will only get worse with time. Middle east and north africa are reproducing at an exponential rate without resources and infrastructure to suppprt such a population. All of them will just continue coming to europe and turning it into a garbage. Eventually european countries especially germans will elect hitler 2.0 or stalin 2.0 to solver the problem.
Another worry for me is muslim fundamentalism. As secular european become a minority, muslims will take over and create shariah rule.
Berlin ideas in one video:
www.facebook.com/anonews.co/videos/1626049667406586/
OMG, that's so what Berlin is about. Scary stuff, but thanks for posting. The only shame on you is that it's on FACEBOOK, Mark Schmuckerberg's little baby, that disseminates all this type of left wing garbage, if anyone needs to be in that box, it's him. FK ALL LEFTIES, YOU STUPID FKING MORONS. I hope you all bore each other to death.
I lived in Berlin for 14 years. I came with great enthusiasm that went off in the years until I fell down, almost and disappeared. Non-existent jobs, competition for less paid, budget-free projects with the promise to succeed, reduced to living in a light idiot with a window in the "coolest" neighborhood. Disposable lives and disposable relationships, disposable friendships, the struggle of the poors with fancy Tshirts, but always "cool". "Being in Berlin is a privilege," they keep on saying to themselves , a voice of somebody who is imprisoned in a city jail. On the threshold of 40 I found myself poor, alone, but "full of friends with a great social life ". Until the day of 3 years ago, the bell rang, and meet my son's mother. The next day we get our suitcases and leave everything behind, from that moment in succession: great work, a beautiful baby, a fantastic home in the center of two floors, a mini cooper, vacation and all the rest is a memory of a shitthole.
everybody advertise himself hying reality. Nobody is what they claim to be. Whether musician, actors, photographers or so called "creatives", they want you believe they are professionals when they make zero money with their craft. They refuse to deal with reality and get a real job, wake up, go to work, get committed and struggle for a real life. Arbeitsamnt give them 35o euros to pay their evening drink and involve you in the next project, "project" that has no money but "it will make it big". I live there 12 years, never met anybody who made it.
everybody advertise himself hying reality. Nobody is what they claim to be. Whether musician, actors, photographers or so called "creatives", they want you believe they are professionals when they make zero money with their craft. They refuse to deal with reality and get a real job, wake up, go to work, get committed and struggle for a real life. Arbeitsamnt give them 35o euros to pay their evening drink and involve you in the next project, "project" that has no money but "it will make it big". I live there 12 years, never met anybody who made it.
i can't take it here anymore. The poverty, arrogant and rude germans, too many migrants from third world countries, too many arrogant and entitled muslim thugs, too many tourists, too many hipsters, and too much bureaucracy.
I don't want to live in Turkey, Africa and the balkans. I am not a xenophob. I just don't like multicultural second world cities with poverty, alcoholics and dirty streets.
I can only see a future Berlin degrading into a hellhole with too much crime, terror attacks, poverty and mainly third world migrants.
The only nice thing about Berlin are the surrounding lakes that you can enjoy in summer.
i hate turkish people who play their music loud for us to hear everyday starting from 6am. entitled fxcks.
I came to Berlin for a job in a startup. No professionals, just some average bit entreprenorial darlings that think they're hot shots. Not generalising, but most of the startups are bullshit. A lame ripoff and stolen ideas brought to this Sillicon Valley wannabe city. Also, the angel investors are the new gamblers. I cannot believe that people are funding crap ideas and execution without being infected with some sort of microbe. Also, "everyone is unique, just like everyone else" seems to be the best way to describe Berliners. Same style, same artsy fartsy concept. Overly vegan, overly feminist, overly gay, overly cool. Everyone is trying to find themselves & shit. I am still giving it a chance for now... let's see. If not going back to EasternEurope, man. They're genuine there!
Came here for the hate. Thank you
Your LOL does not make sense, because that is exactly what "genuine" in this context means. There is no migration background in the past 20 years in that part of Europe I was talking about. Conclusion drawn according your statement.
Try again and LOL back later when you make sense on the topic. Cheers!
You stated "genuin" as a thing you like in other (eastern Europe) cities. If you wanted to find authenticity, Berlin is the worst city in Europe for this. Not only because of the Fall of the Wall and the last 20 years, also the history before, starting with the Gruenderzeit in the mid 19th century. In the mid 19th century the population of Berlin doubled within 20 years and 4-fold until 1900. Only 40% of population in late 18th century was born in Berlin, similar to the situation now. Than the WWII and the cold war. A place of continuously change and challenging developments.
With the start-up scene you are right. Overrated and pampered by politics. Maybe also typical of Berlin...
That sounds about right now. I assume it was misunderstood in the first place as I meant exactly what you explained now. No people "authenticity" here... only a bunch of "liberated free spirits" that militate for a "fast-forward" thinking. Try to go in a club and ask people to piss on you like in Berghain somewhere in EE. They will "fast forward think" the poop out of you until you find Jesus again. Exagerrating now, but maybe it's a more sane not to leave everyone exercit they dark deep desires in society under the Berlin label of liberation. My ass!
Honestly the concept and definition of Migrationshintergrund is just thinly veiled propaganda the left can use to talk about how diverse Germany is and how hard working "foreigners" are while the right uses it to lament about crime and unemployment statistics (people with Migrationshintergrund also get to fill out a nice, lengthy questionnaire from the job center if they ever collect ALG1). It includes everyone who has at least one parent who wasn't born in this trash hole. Even if one of their parents, whom they have never even met, moved to Germany from Austria when he or she was three years old. Really strange of destatis to collect statistics like that, especially with the much espoused free movement of people. But we all know you can never become a German, even if you literally become a German (through naturalization).
I need no definition of "Migrationshintergrund". Enough, when in my - ok, fancy, not poor and very popular - neigborhood I am hearing lots of more languages than German. It is not about statistics, it is about daily life and personal interaction - and this suckz in Berlin..
Yeah, no matter how you use the term Migrationshintergrund it ends up really discriminating. For instance - at the university, you have this standard phrase for applications for student jobs, that people with MH are favored, especially women. In a way, Mh sounds like being disabled. What about the competences of the applicant?
Do not, whatever you do, give Berlin a chance, pack your bags and run away as fast as you can. Berlin is a psychopathic lover who keeps dragging you back with empty promises, she will take away your self respect, your money, your optimism and positivity, run, NOW, don't stay, because you WILL regret it. In five years time you'll look back as say to yourself "WTF was that all about".
Just reposting this incase anyone had forgotten or missed it that wants to come!
Lets meet at www.happycow.net/reviews/bamerang-berlin-75888 tonight and have a chinwag. It's a very friendly bar/cafe near EberswalderStr U2. Let's say, between 7.30-8.30 start.
We can know each other by placing a piece of fruit on the table, apple, banana, orange etc
what the hell is this
www.iheartberlin.de/de/2017/02/15/berlin-%E2%80%93-a-portraits-in-words/
This comment from that page is so bad:
Berlin is my hometown and growing up in this city really shapes who you are as a person. I lived in many different places like Melbourne, New York or Mexico City and none of these places touched my heart as much as Berlin did. I always thought it is because it is home and I would never love another city like I love my place of birth but reading this article and the comments shows me that my love for Berlin is not only feeling home but really feeling the character of Berlin.
Notice all of the comments are from people from less developed countries like Egypt and other places in Africa and they all say they were just there for a brief time. Even the person who posted the article was only there for a few months and judging from the photos, looks like it was probably last summer. There's a lot to dislike living there long term, but in the short time, it's not surprising people like it (unless they came during the winter), but this is true for many cities.
my first time visiting germany, trying to appreciate that Leitkultur:
"oh wow, it's so cool and down-to-earth how the women in the bakeries just touch all of the good with their bare hands but keep up this pseudo-distance and will not directly take your money but instead make you put it in a dish"
well there are some people who like berlin and think it offers oh so much, because for them, it does. for others it's a poop hole. I have a friend who admires all the super ugly buildings and the broken poop and the dirt and all, and who takes all kind of courses and goes to all kind of parties. She loves Berlin and somehow manages to stay positive here. I don't care for all of this crap and hate Berlin.
What do I hate about Berlin, firstly and mostly, the pseudo anarchists who are the biggest conformists and rule makers of all :o))))))) They are a total joke they are. What a miserable bunch. I'll stick to capitalism thanks, if that's the best alternative you brain-dead morons have to offer.
Don't let them define your beliefs. The ones you can identify are more a subculture and you're right about having to fit their image and attitude to be accepted. There are probably many more who believe in more decentralized decision making but don't strongly align as "anarchist" and don't advertise their beliefs in their appearance. You would never know unless you had a deep political discussion with them and they trusted you.
Just think about humans outside of current civilization, which is a very tiny spec in our history. We evolved making decisions as needed in groups. The top down structure we live under now is not at all in tune with how we evolved, which is why there is so much political and related tensions. If we made decisions as needed without interference and political parties, we wouldn't be talking about people as "far right", "leftists", "anarchists", etc. Of course, there will always be disagreements and wrong choices can be made, but that still happens the way things are now and the division among people is far beyond that.
www.zeit.de/video/2016-07/5048920154001/besserwisserei-das-ist-aber-der-fahrradweg - a good article to add comments.