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I moved eleven years ago because I loved the party scene. Took me less than a month to find a huge apartment for under seven hundred a month from a nice neighbo
by pimeys 3y ago
I moved eleven years ago because I loved the party scene. Took me less than a month to find a huge apartment for under seven hundred a month from a nice neighborhood.
Now I cannot move out anymore without doubling or tripling my rent. Also chose to study Rust instead of German, and been having so much work afterwards that I still haven't started my German studies. My husband speaks good German so that helps.
The weather is awful, our landlord only listens to us if we sue him, the internet seems to always be bad and expensive without hope for any better, the parties are way too crowded and dealing with local bureaucracy is not a great experience.
At least the rent is still cheap, if we don't move out. Lots of great art is happening every weekend. Nowadays you have some of the best restaurant scene going on in Berlin. The city is super relaxed about beer and weed, and the parks are great. It is easy to travel around the city with public transport, bike or quick rental cars. But now it is impossible to find apartments, all prices are going up and people are getting angrier every year.
My feelings about Berlin are super mixed. But, at least one thing makes me a Berliner: I love to complain about the city.
- m_fayer 3y agoI could have written this word for word. Maybe we should do a cranky-HNers-of-Berlin meetup. Some uneasy food for thought: we're not that far off from the brave lucky weirdos who moved to NYC in the 1970s and bought decrepit flats for a song, who now find themselves aged and bewildered among the billionaires, trying to afford groceries. Hopefully it won't progress quite that far, but NYC does show that capital isn't deterred by a little dysfunctional urban chaos.
- pimeys 3y agoAnd more rich people from outside move in, everything changes into a more boring, but expensive new reality. At least Berliners revolt all the time and the government is so dysfunctional. Change in the city will take a few lifetimes. It might feel like a good idea to invest, but then you face the German and especially the Berlin bureaucracy and how slow it works. Everything takes forever to finish. I hope this will save Berlin from becoming the next New York. It still is so much more colorful than any other German city. P.S. the running joke amongst my friends is how CDU will finally make the ringbahn go on time...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ricardobayes 3y agoUh, yeah Berlin is definitely a mixed bag. To me it's like a bigger Glasgow - a local epicenter for everything but has really unkempt and outright scary parts. It's sort of cheap but not really. Public transport is great but in every one seems to be someone smelly or just too weird. Maybe some kind of re-urbanization programme would help the city, so they would rethink some areas.
- nibbleshifter 3y agoI don't think the city needs, or wants, to be "helped".
- fransje26 3y ago> the internet seems to always be bad and expensive without hope for any better [ .. ] > dealing with local bureaucracy is not a great experience Living in Germany at more or less the furthest point possible from Berlin, I can still confirm those two points..
- CRConrad 3y agoLanguage note: > find a huge apartment for under seven hundred a month from a nice neighborhood. Wait, what, find things from -- is this a...? And then I looked into the darkness: Yup, that's where you're from.