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Ah, Berlin/German customer service:
Sent package to Canada, been 3 weeks, still hasn't arrived, customer service replied that they cant do anything and wont do anything because theyre not obliged to anything and that even mailing them might have extended the delay.
The sad thing is that these women are forced into super unskilled part time jobs by the uber-conservative rules of society. Most women never get back into a career after having a child, some only jump from one menial mini-job to the next menial mini-job. Germany is a famous 1 or 1.5 "breadwinner per household" country.
This situation is probably what is causing so much angst and aggression in the women in the workforce - it's not a glass ceiling anymore, it's a heavy iron door.
They really are FemiNarzies, that's the worst part, they go on about glass ceilings and pay-gaps etc because they need an excuse for their lack of self-confidence to go out and make something of their lives. Every second woman is working to help "refugees" (opportunist drug dealers) settle in. If I see one mroe Refugees Welcome sign, I'll scream. Who do they think they are kidding with all this "Oh we're no longer Narzies, look we're really kind to scumbag refugees, coming here under false pretences, because we hate each other so much we are not making enough babies, which has created zero-population-growth and need more cheap workers to create unemployment to keep the wages low".
Germans altruistically helping refugees, what a laugh :o)))))))))
Fellow berlin haters,
Was there ever a time at which you did not hate this city? Discuss.
The day before I left was incredible, it was almost like a joke. I had to cancel different contracts, go to places, etc. and everyone with no exception acted super friendly and positive - for example the postman was emptying the post boxes, and he saw me going towards the stamp dispensers and then he offered to WAIT for me to buy stamps so I could catch his shift. Then, some girls at a cafe where i ordered smth to eat and drink SMILED at me from the heart, and some other POLITE encounters with clerks., taxi drivers etc. It's sounds like nothing special, but believe me, for Berlin this is exceptional.
Oh poor foolish person.Filed with hope and the right attitude as an immigrant to this fair land .They hate our guts.As you have discovered.An awful experience so terrible that you thank god you kept your homelands passport and get the fornicate out of Germany./Berlin. Let the locals rule the culture..sit back and see them squander every chance they get.Its downhill for them.Not you my dear.Walk away with your head held high.
Haha, no. I actually think it was because of the east-west thing. I used to live in the last months before I left in charlottenburg and that's a different story. I mean, it's not okay what's going on there but at least in the west it's much more decent.
self righteous arrogance IS their talent
It's depressing and infuriating to see that Berlin has turned into a second-rate Bourbon Street full of drunken, drugged-out phony students/so-called "artists," whose arrogance far exceeds their talent.
How many Berliners does it take to build a new airport?
apparently a few more than there is. What a joke that is. I came to Berlin in 2002 and the airport was in the planning just a few years from opening. I came back in 2004 and they were getting ready to break ground. Now it feels like Auschwitz at the BBI
COME TO BERLIN FOR THE CLAP, no, i don't mean applause.
Berlin is a city for sad losers.Go to Hell and fornicate you Berlin :)
I was just a tourist passing through last week, but was shocked that Europeans still listen to techno, which is considered garbage non-music for tweakers in North America. And curry wurst was disgusting. Nothing in Berlin really impressed me. I sensed heavy psychological damage from the communist era. Now you're being Islamized. Not interested in returning.
Do you want everyone to follow the same US/UK music trends? What a crappy world that would be. We hear enough of that crap all the time as it is. Also, people listen to other music besides techno, sounds like you're basing what everyone listens to on your experience at night clubs.
It's that time of year again: throw out your blanket in one of the many parks in Berlin to enjoy a nice picnic. Just make sure you pretend not to see the men (and women) pissing three feet away from you, the homeless Pfandsammler who meekly ask the party kids if they can have their empty bottles, the shady drug dealers (hey, I mean even the police here can't see them) and the undergarment-clad (or, let's face it: nude) sun-worshippers (read: exhibitionists) ubiquitous to any public area with more than 2 sq. yard of grass.
Berlin. Du bist so wunderbar!
meet a French woman today.Now I remember what it is like to have a hard on,thank christ.A beautiful woman who I actually want to fornicate without some sick Berlin garbage thrown into the mix.xxxx
I went to germany thinking of nietzsche, bauhaus, thomas mann, and I discovered a cultural wasteland instead. I often wondered how it's possible for a country to have such a rich cultural heritage and develop into a conformist society like that.
this is because in some areas the scum gathers. Especially in Berlin you have those ghettos and these kind of people everywhere (chavs). It's a cultural shock also for Germans. I didn't grow up seeing this and living next to this, and when I came to Berlin I was surrounded by worn out looking, dumb, cheap, toothless Jaquelines and Kevins everywhere with their stupid caps and fake nails and tans, wearing ugly tribals and huge prints and cheap jewelry, behaving like morons. In England they're called "chavs", they're not a representation of the average person, even though in Berlin there are so many of them because it's so cheap they surely become more average than elsewhere.
Even people here who are called"middle class" surely are not. They often are also narrow-minded and braindead, just on a different level. What is worst is that they often feel like they're something better but then have the same terrible taste, take everything super serious, think they're so above everyone because they have a big car and think poop like 50 shades of grey is a masterpiece. When I look at the scum that lives next door, I can immediately see they're not bright, interesting or ambitious at all, and when I see their parents supposed to be "middle class", I see dumb and cheap looking people who have their cars and houses as facebook header pictures, go to Justin Bieber concerts and like Twilight and the Kardashians
Here is my experience living in Berlin for almost a year. I wanted to write this, because I meet so many people just passing through Berlin or visiting, and they fall in love with the city, because it feels so “free” and liberating. It’s only free and liberating for a few weeks-months, and after that, it becomes the exact opposite— a prison. So my post is a sort of “warning” for those who are considering uprooting their life to come here.
Work/lifestyle/energy - Really high unemployment rate + lack of industry here for a city it’s size/population + a culture of glorifying poverty and laziness… rising prices for everything but little to no rise in pay, jobs or opportunities. The arts scene is a farce… lots of crap, grungy postmodernist trash… the kind of thing you can put together in 30 minutes while in a drunken stupor and call it art. Nothing that requires talent, vision, hard work… xenophobia (for all kinds of foreigners), including Western foreigners who come here with money to support themselves (like me), down to the most desperate refugee. If you are a foreigner who can support themselves, you’re a gentrifier and ruining their “culture”, if you’re an immigrant from the 3rd world or a refugee, maybe the leftists have some fake support for you, but the rest of Germany resents you. Then the Germans will demand to know why you haven’t “integrated”… it’s a bit hard to integrate into a culture that openly and passive aggressively resents you, sees you as inferior, etc. I am white, Western and even I could never “integrate” in Germany. It’s impossible to integrate here! All you can do at most is just *exist* here… real integration is impossible.
Germans - I could write forever on this. I’m American, for reference. I’ve actually had a German lecture me about economic inequality in the US while there were homeless people collecting glass bottles right next to us. I have no problem criticizing my country when criticism is needed, and Germans also have no problem criticizing the US, UK or Russia (it’s one of their favorite hobbies in fact, to criticize other people/other countries), but they have so little self-awareness when it comes to themselves. Even when they talk about WW2, many do it in the context of how they’ve learned their lesson so hard & now they’ve developed this moral superiority so they can lecture others about the dangers of x, y and z. Their deepest belief, which you will eventually get to you if you keep scratching, is that Germany is for Germans and that everyone else can leave if you don’t like how we do things or how we are. So whatever discussion or debate you are having with them is actually meaningless, because deep down they believe you shouldn’t even be here.
Friends - Good luck. Really you will need it. I made 2 friends in about 9 months and I actually consider this a success. The first few months I was here I had absolutely no one here in this city, and it was very difficult to even find anyone to connect with. It’s a pretty terrible feeling. Now I at least have some people I’d keep in touch with after I leave Berlin, but I’m telling you, it’s RARE to find people like this. And both of these friends are not German… one was born/raised in Berlin but not German, the other is a foreigner like me. I have a few more casual friends here who aren’t as bad as the typical person in Berlin, but still not what I’d call a friend. You will have lots of success having acquaintances or casual friendships here, but none of these people really care about you or are interested in you. If you have extremely low standards for friendship, this won’t be a problem for you, but otherwise it will be.
Dating - There is no dating, romance or intimacy here. It’s all about casual friend-like “relationships” (no romance), sex, open relationships. You either have to be single for a long time/forever if you refuse to accept a low commitment relationship, or if you get lonely enough someday, you’ll settle for one of these Berlin style casual and/or open relationships. Berlin would be a paradise for someone who just wants to have lots of casual sex and/or for someone with commitment issues who cannot be monogamous and/or is emotionally damaged. For anyone who wants a real relationship, it’s hell. Just like with friends, if you have very low rock bottom standards, it won’t be a problem for you.
*side note on dating: I’m speaking from a straight female’s point of view. I would advise women to avoid German men. You’ll just end up feeling like there is something wrong with you or that you are defective, by getting involved with them. They have no social skills (many of them even seem slightly autistic), are boring, dull, have no sense of humor, are insecure, passive aggressive and just awkward. Sometimes they say hurtful or terrible things disguised as a “joke”, like an 8 year old bully, but they have such a thin skin themselves. The foreign/expat men here aren’t great either, many of them are hipster peter pan types who are here just to party and drink cheap alcohol. The “best” men I’ve met here were ones just passing through for a few weeks or months.
Sorry this was so long, but I hope it helps some people out! I know not everyone hates Berlin and some even love i here, but I feel this city is a trap for so many.
Actually it's improper to use the term "integrate", because there s not much going on to integrate in - no sense of micro or macro community, and first of all, come one, germans have so low social skills, that there is no connection between germans themselves. For example, this is how a german home party (of "creative people" :)) that I've been to looked like: there were discussions between 2 or max 3 people, no real communication, new people were not introduced to each other by the host, everybody seem to talk only to the people which they already knew. What I noticed was also the division of friends of the host: bicycle "friend", yoga "friend" , work collegue, "cinema friend"etc. ok, that's normal, that people come together from different backgrounds, however I witnessed that in germany, this structure stays like that forever. I always find it very amusing when they speak about integration - by that they mean of course just the adjustion to the established rules - which is actually called obedience, they even coined a proper word for that : Leitkultur.
I agree with most of your points, except finding close friends in major western cities if you're not a native to that city is always a challenge. Just don't want people to think this issue is specific to Berlin and find they run into similar issues elsewhere. Obviously, if you speak English fluently but don't speak German well and move to an anglophone city, you'll have an easier time overall. I think most adults in busy cities only have time for a few close friends and will be maxed out already if they grew up there. Meeting other foreigners can be easier if you stand out equally enough and share a common language, but then you don't feel as integrated and there's a good chance many of your foreign friends will leave within a few years of meeting them.
Totally spot on about integration and hostility towards foreigners.
I had the same "critique the poop out of X" thing happen to me. I'm American. After 3-4 conversations about this, I just gave up because all of the discussions are exactly the same. It's as if they give out a booklet about this in school and everyone memorizes it. The worst thing is, there are people who have either never been to the US or have been to NYC for 2 weeks. And ditto on the irony of a german telling you how bad the US is when a german is picking up bottles, pissing/shitting, injecting drugs like 1 meter away from you. It takes a special kind of mind to be able to live and breathe this joke: "We are the best, you are the worst, that man isn't picking up empty bottles, he's keeping the glorious fatherland clean! That woman isnt taking drugs, she's elevating culture to higher levels!" Etc.
Also, yes, the integration here is a joke. Go anywhere else (Poland, Ireland, Greece, etc.) and people will welcome you with open arms, ask you about your home, what you eat, what you do, they will buy you beers or bring their home made food to share. None of this will ever happen in Germany because: they hate your country, they already know everything about your country, they will never share food because food is expensive (plus, would you like to eat stale potatoes?), they will even start lecturing you about your own country because theyre an expert on it.
Anyways, I'm out of here next week, good luck everyone!
"Go anywhere else (Poland)"
Can confirm. Went to Poland once and got treated better there than I ever was in Germany. It was unexpected, as I don't speak Polish and am far from being white. But in Germany, my fluent German and academic background was not enough for me to deserve respectful treatment.
I want to leave so badly for the exact reasons that you have listed. I have wasted 4 years of my life here with nothing to show for except ptsd from all the trauma and mental abuse. In Germany, there is no future for most immigrants especially women without marketable skills. In addition to dealing with passive aggressive xenophobia, you will face sexism. The dark winters will eventually get to you and when summer comes you will not be able to appreciate it due to massive Berliner crowds from every annoying demographic imaginable. The summer will be over in a moment and the gruesome heavy grey will set in all over again.
Entitled muzzies playing their loud techno/prayer music 24/7 in their bar.
The female reproductive organ German police did not do anything because how can they bother muslims. This city makes me want to become a terrorist. I swear that before I leave Berlin, I will throw molotov cocktails. That's how you deal with entitled muzzie with horrible taste in music. Why the left embraces this criminal Muslim scam? most them ruin neighbourhoods with their petty crimes.
I'm female, and I avoid taking the U8 because of this. The aggressive staring, sexual harassment etc isn't something women should have to deal with in Germany. But people here like to pretend everything is great and fine... it's all worth it for the cheap beer right?
I live in Australia now but due to family I must deal with an extended German family.If you are sick of Germans just send me your e.mail address . I am very normal,artist and will no longer deal with Germans unless I sell artwork to them.I plan to spend the rest of my days in the Asia -Pacific region.
Yeah..We know you just love the smell of burning flesh on a nice spring day. In Poland.(You never do your own dirty work on your own soil). So come on guys.Lets get creative and not let down little Adolf below.