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How are you with bitter, bone-chilling cold during the winters? Which is offset by pleasant (though short) summers, where you can ride your bike as far as you p

How are you with bitter, bone-chilling cold during the winters? Which is offset by pleasant (though short) summers, where you can ride your bike as far as you please or enjoy the excellent metro system, and partake of the extensive creative and social events. I've only spent short periods of time in Berlin but it always struck me as having a significant amount to offer, if you can deal with the winter.

good_vibes 9y ago
I don't actually mind winter after living an entire year in Northern Utah. It's refreshing after growing up in the Southeast where it's 100 degrees and humid in the summer and there is a very mild winter with no snow. Are people in German nice to Indian people? Not sure with all the politics of the EU at the moment, the media makes things confusing. Utah was a little weird for anyone who isn't LDS AND white or married to a white person. There is what I call a fake niceness about many people there, a few are genuinely nice though. I've heard German people are very friendly and intelligent, what was your experience?
- majewsky 9y ago
  > Are people in German nice to Indian people? If you have an Indian accent, that should be pretty recognizable. If you don't speak, though, expect people to think that you're from the Middle East, a region that's (to say it lightly) not that popular with a certain part of Germans. Which isn't to say that you won't be able to make friends. Quite on the contrary. The outspoken racism of a small part of the population (catch phrase: "I'm not a nazi, BUT...") has made another part of the population even more willing to embrace multiculturalism.
  - good_vibes 9y ago
    I speak clear English, as I was born in the US. However, all my friends have called me Kumar for the longest time. I can talk about music, film, books, tech, science. I think Berlin will be okay for me because I'm working on a platform that aims to solve a few environmental issues. Germany is very progressive in that arena, Utah has been in the news around the world for the whole Public Lands fiasco.
zurn 9y ago
Sounds like you are from a very warm climate. A lot of people consider Berlin winters mild and summers hot.
- BjoernKW 9y ago
  Berlin winters and mild? I've never heard those two words next to each other before. Berlin winters are sometimes described as Russian. While I've never been to Russia I think it's a fitting description. They tend to be very cold and dry. -20 degrees centigrade is nothing unheard of.
  - romanovcode 9y ago
    Yeah, because in Moscow you have only 1-2 weeks of snow per year. You crazy.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    -20°C (which would be -4°F) sounds highly unlikely for Berlin. I live in Dresden (about 200km south of Berlin), and the lowest we had was maybe -10°C on a single day last winter. It hovered between 0 and -5 for a while (maybe two or three weeks), resulting in an unusually persistent snow cover. (I'm not used to seeing snow for more than a week at once.) Before Dresden, I lived north of Berlin, near the Baltic Sea, and I don't recall -20°C there either. (Well, maybe it happened a few times over the course of my childhood, but I cannot recall anymore.)
  - zurn 9y ago
    Here, have some data from the coldest month: http://www.accuweather.com/en/de/berlin/10178/january-weather/178087 http://www.accuweather.com/en/de/berlin/10178/january-weathe... (tl;dr - hovering around 0C)

good_vibes 9y ago

I don't actually mind winter after living an entire year in Northern Utah. It's refreshing after growing up in the Southeast where it's 100 degrees and humid in the summer and there is a very mild winter with no snow. Are people in German nice to Indian people? Not sure with all the politics of the EU at the moment, the media makes things confusing. Utah was a little weird for anyone who isn't LDS AND white or married to a white person. There is what I call a fake niceness about many people there, a few are genuinely nice though. I've heard German people are very friendly and intelligent, what was your experience?

majewsky 9y ago
> Are people in German nice to Indian people? If you have an Indian accent, that should be pretty recognizable. If you don't speak, though, expect people to think that you're from the Middle East, a region that's (to say it lightly) not that popular with a certain part of Germans. Which isn't to say that you won't be able to make friends. Quite on the contrary. The outspoken racism of a small part of the population (catch phrase: "I'm not a nazi, BUT...") has made another part of the population even more willing to embrace multiculturalism.
- good_vibes 9y ago
  I speak clear English, as I was born in the US. However, all my friends have called me Kumar for the longest time. I can talk about music, film, books, tech, science. I think Berlin will be okay for me because I'm working on a platform that aims to solve a few environmental issues. Germany is very progressive in that arena, Utah has been in the news around the world for the whole Public Lands fiasco.

zurn 9y ago

Sounds like you are from a very warm climate. A lot of people consider Berlin winters mild and summers hot.

BjoernKW 9y ago
Berlin winters and mild? I've never heard those two words next to each other before. Berlin winters are sometimes described as Russian. While I've never been to Russia I think it's a fitting description. They tend to be very cold and dry. -20 degrees centigrade is nothing unheard of.
- romanovcode 9y ago
  Yeah, because in Moscow you have only 1-2 weeks of snow per year. You crazy.
- majewsky 9y ago
  -20°C (which would be -4°F) sounds highly unlikely for Berlin. I live in Dresden (about 200km south of Berlin), and the lowest we had was maybe -10°C on a single day last winter. It hovered between 0 and -5 for a while (maybe two or three weeks), resulting in an unusually persistent snow cover. (I'm not used to seeing snow for more than a week at once.) Before Dresden, I lived north of Berlin, near the Baltic Sea, and I don't recall -20°C there either. (Well, maybe it happened a few times over the course of my childhood, but I cannot recall anymore.)
- zurn 9y ago
  Here, have some data from the coldest month: http://www.accuweather.com/en/de/berlin/10178/january-weather/178087 http://www.accuweather.com/en/de/berlin/10178/january-weathe... (tl;dr - hovering around 0C)