When you decide to move overseas you will no doubt do a bit of research beforehand to find out what to expect. No matter how much research you do however will prepare you for everything! Berlin is no exception and here are the Top 10 things you might not know about Berlin before living there!
#1. When dealing with Government departments, you should plan on going three times before you get what you want
Studies(*)
show that on average it will take a foreigner three attempts at a Government office to successfully complete their business! No matter what you want to achieve, if its a Government department or somehow required by law, then the process is not going to be as easy as it should be.
(*) not a real study.
As a foreigner that intends to stay in Berlin for a while, one of the first things you need to do is get an 'Anmeldung', which is a basic registration of where you are living. This should be a straightforward process, but it is most likely going to be your first attempt at dealing with German government departments and the surly 'Beamters' (German civil servants). The Anmeldung is critical in doing anything else official in Berlin, such as for visas, health insurance, drivers license, signing up for pretty much anything and you are also supposed to carry it around with you at all times as identification.
The Anmeldung process is done at the Burgeramt, the district registration office. Being your first time there you won't have any idea of what to do, no one will speak English to you and you will most likely not have everything you need to get the process done. Make a new appointment (or line up on another day), come back and try again. There will probably be another problem the second time. Make another appointment and hope for the best!
You can read about our first Burgeramt attempt here and the second successful attempt here.
You can read about our first attempt to get a residence permit at the Ausländerbehörde here and the long conclusion to success here and here.
You can read about our effort to get a German drivers license here here, here and here.
#2. Your ability to speak and be understood in German may take longer than you thought
So you have learnt a bit of German before coming to Berlin - good start. Once in Berlin, however, you will soon find that you will need to do a bit more work on your skills. All the TV is dubbed into German and this will probably be your first most frustrating revelation - 'I CAN'T UNDERSTAND TV!!' The second frustrating revelation is that the Germans will have trouble understanding you if you try to speak German - speak English and most of them will understand you fine. (Speaking English and being understood is not a quality exhibited by Beamters however, see #1 above).
In an effort to mitigate the frustration you will seek ways to learn German properly. A popular first step is to enrol in one or several back to back intensive language courses. They are pricey and some people like them, some don't.
Once you have finished your intensive language courses and try out your new skills you will see that you still have a lot of work to do in order to understand and be understood in German. It is frustrating but you can't give up and things will get better...apparently.
You can read about our German Intensive Language Course experience here, here, here and here.
#3. Some tourists think they are the only ones that can speak English in Berlin.
It's easy to look down on tourists and their naive ways in a foreign country, but chances are you've been one yourself at some point!
The striking thing about some tourists in Berlin is that they don't realise that lots of other people can speak English as well. Particularly evident is conversations in enclosed public spaces (lifts, buses, trains) where the tourist will make very loud negative comments about others and think that speaking in English gives them some kind of secret code to do so...not so!
#4. Checking out at the supermarket can be a stressful event.
The supermarket checkout space simply is not big enough to conduct your transaction as you would be used to in your home country. Pathetically small packing areas, no one to help you and a line of impatient Germans that know how it all works watching your every move.
Bring your own bags, grab a box (they are usually lying around somewhere), try and chuck everything in as fast as possible, fumble through the currency and get out as quick as you can. You might have to repack on the street. It can be stressful.
You will get better at it.
#5 You might become a frequent street drinker
Okay, street drinking and drinking in parks, buses, trams and trains may not be 100% legal - but any laws against it are never enforced and everyone does it. If everyone does it does it make it right? Absolutely!
Alcoholic drinks in Berlin are cheap in bars and clubs, but you won't believe how cheap the beer is in the supermarkets (as low as 17 cents a bottle, but usually around 50 - 99 cents for 500mls of quality stuff). In between the bars and the supermarkets are the 'spätkaufs', kwik-e-mart type places where you can get a cold beer for between 1 - 2 euros. Spätkaufs are the enabler of the street drinker.
Street drinking, however, presents a conundrum of what to do when nature calls. There are some public toilets and many of them require payment. I've never seen a male use one. Male Berliners prefer to water the plants or wash down a wall instead.
Our dog wrote about street drinking when he came out on the town with us, read about that here.
#6 You will probably acquire a taste for 'Club Mate'
Following on from '#5-Street Drinking', drinks are likely going to play a bigger part of your life than they did before. Not everything has to be alcoholic and the big new drink in your life may well be 'Club Mate'. Derived from the leaves of the mate shrub, it is a carbonated ice tea type drink. Popular with the party set, office workers and rockstars due to its natural energy drink qualities of 20mg caffeine / 100ml. There are several varieties of Club Mate, and the newest, Club Mate Granatapfel (pomegranate) is a hit with the public.
The drink is an acquired taste and most people think it tastes crap on the first try.
#7 You will make friends and then they will leave
The good news is that making friends is not as daunting as it may first seem. As a foreigner you immediately have a common bond with other foreigners and friendships can happen quickly.
The bad news is that so many of these people you are going to meet are not planning to be long termers in Berlin. You will find students, holiday makers, people on sabbatical and gap years and others that have taken up internships or temporary job contracts in Berlin. Inevitably, sooner than you expect you will be saying 'Auf Wiedersehen' to your new besties...sad face.
So - get used to it, your friends will leave. Enjoy the time spent with them and then make some new friends!
We farewelled one of our friends at the Berlin International Beer Festival, which you can read about here. Several more friends have left since. :(
#8 The recycling system in Berlin will change your attitude toward empty bottles
Maybe you recycled in your home country, but did you get paid to do it? In Germany, the 'pfand' system charges you an extra fee (the 'pfand') on top of the price of whatever bottle of something you bought at the supermarket, which you get back later when you return the empty bottle. In this scenario you are just getting your money back (and recycling of course).
The sport comes into it when you begin to realise that empty bottles left out on the street or in your apartment complex bin area will MAKE money for you. You will also realise that some bottles have quite a high 'pfand' attached to them, the maximum being 25 cents. Get four of those High Value Pfands (HVP's) and you made a Euro. Stalk a festival with several trolleys and you could make a few hundred Euros.
The 'pfand' can do funny things to people.
You can read about our pfand experience here.
#9 Your great artistic project about Berlin may not be as unique as you thought!
Berlin attracts free spirits and artists, and you probably already knew that. You want to be part of the scene and that's why you decided to move there. You might have a great idea for a blog perhaps?
Once you get to Berlin and get started on your project you might find that someone is already doing it, or its been done many times before (and probably been done really well too!).
You could get discouraged and feel there's no point in contributing further to the ubiquity of online narcissistic musings - but there is no need to and you can turn the existing work into inspiration. You are already creative and just because your idea was already 'taken' doesn't mean you aren't allowed to be a creative in Berlin any more. Pick yourself up, get inspired by your new artistic cohort and create something!
Okay, so we have three blogs, this one vagabondbohemian, a photographic portfolio theintentionalinstant and our dog also writes infrequently at barneybites.
You can also read about Berlin bloggers talking about their work at Social Media Week Berlin here.
#10 Berliners have seasonal personalities
Depending on when you get to Berlin, you are either going to meet a Winter Berliner or a Summer Berliner.
In winter, Berlin is cold, snowing and dark. The sun comes up at midday and sets at 1pm (not really). The trees are just sticks, there's dog shit frozen on the footpath and everywhere is slippery and sludgy. Going outside means putting on every piece of clothing you own, and you will still be cold.
People on the street aren't happy. At all. You might be accustomed to saying 'hi' to people as they walk by you in your home country...don't bother in Berlin, you won't get a response other than maybe a look that says 'Why are you talking when it is so cold, come back in Summer'.
But then summer happens. The city moves all its grumpy people somewhere and replaces them with 3 million super happy and friendly people. Rejoice!
In summer, Berlin comes to life. An outdoor culture springs into action, parties everywhere, outdoor dining and drinking, beach bars, summer festivals, shorts and sunglasses, picnic grill season is in action, the city lakes are hot destination and the nude sun-baking begins. So much stuff is going on in Summer and Berlin is the place to be!
Barney, our dog, enjoyed the picnic season and you can read about it here.
We also enjoyed the concert season with a rock and roll mega weekend, which you can read about here.
