One key thing visitors often fail to notice is how difficult this city can be on an interpersonal level. Berliners, and Germans in general, are more petty, rude, condescending, pushy, cold and joyless than almost any other people on earth. It's a big reason many who move here don't stay more than a few years.
On the positive side, Berlin is surrounded by beautiful lakes and forests, which are easily accessible by public transportation or bike. It's a nice antidote to the bleakness of the city's built environment, as you see it.
1. Even beforr WW2 Berlin wasn't a particular beautiful city, just a decent one by European standards. While obviously better looking than today.
2. This "cash no card" stuff was way worse before covid. Since then card payment skyrocketed by popular demand. Way more businesses offer card payment now, Most of them would have preferred staying cash only.
Ofc it's still not near Anglo/scandi levels.
3. The main reason for cash no card is simply tax evasion in the service sector
4. The privacy obsession point still true for lacking in other areas digitalization.
5. Robert Schumann lived in leipzig too.
6.I doubt though the printing press-> composer explanation. Austria was famous for that too. I simply suspect parts of Germany have a higher musival ability than other Germans. (e.g. Prussians, North Germans)
E.g netherlands were highly developed as well and gave us zero composers.
Thanks! Yes, I was told the situation with cash/cards was much worse before COVID. Also doesn't help that the main obvious way of getting Euros is through those Euronet ATMs with their absurd exchange rates.
Dutch culture appears to have been extremely loaded in favor of the visual arts (and just capitalism). Indeed, an interesting question why.
uhh... cola zero is definitely available in berlin, and also the rest of germany.
and i can believe you didn't like berliner currywurst, especially the curry61 version, because it's drastically different to the usual currywurst you'd get in literally any other part of germany. sorry for missing out, because they are clearly delicious and your opinion is objectively wrong if you say otherwise.
sorry.
and about your disco visit...
was it the berghain? lol.
most germans talk mad shit about berlin.
among other things, IIRC it's the only capital in europe that negatively affects the GDP of the country it's in.
years of left/green governance with some CDU incompetency sprinkled in made berlin the way it is. great city for holidays. not so great for actually living there IMO.
> 4) There is a sense of this in Berlin as well - its population peaked at 4.5M in 1943 and never recovered, and now sits at 3.8M, though the metro area is around 5M
I suspect this helps the city a lot. Many cities have their economy hamstrung by growth limitations, and empty city is in some ways better than even unrestricted land would be.
> 5) German “constitutional purists”
Is it EHC to wear a waiters dress or medieval gown to a protest?
> 12) This isn’t really true in Berlin; the typical time is 9 pm.
> 18) I can see how this would make foreigners with more conservative worldviews uncomfortable.
The sauna is overwhelmingly geratric activity here. Sexual thoughts are quite muted when its 5:1 hags.
> 21) “When you tell a German to do something, he does it; when you tell an Austrian to do something, he does it too, but then asks why,”
Thats not how I would describe it. An engineer can build a bridge that barely stands, and we austrians can build a society that barely doesnt turn into endemic corruption. It resists short-term or hands-off occupiers quite well. Spot on about the germans though.
>got a letter from his German classmates nonchalantly inviting to attend a class reunion - and a request to send them coffee - as if nothing had happened in the intervening decade.
Mustve been easterners, if theyre asking for coffee.
Interesting but also some things are plain wrong. Grafitti are everywhere because its part of the culture of central Europe - same as u will see in capitals from Germany all the way south to Greece. Annoying and ugly, but its part of it and 90% aint political anyway.
Leipzig is booming because of ton of economic investment in the area not because its more white than Berlin.
On cash/card - Germans love privacy yes. But its broader than that. Cash is harder to lose than money in the bank. Thats what all of us living in authoritarian societies learned. Considering Norway and Sweden are moving away from cashless society due to fears of Russian hacking (google it), they might end up being right. I know that your vision of the future is very different but for average joe, future aint blockchain, its money in a sock, better to be prepared for anarchism and chaos post some light ww3/hyperinflation future.
In its mid to late 2010s heyday: Gentrification/SWPL'zation, cheap cost of living, Russian in a way that say London or Paris are not really English or French these days, no political Wokeness, complete set of First World metropolis amenities, effective transport, beautiful architecture in the center.
One key thing visitors often fail to notice is how difficult this city can be on an interpersonal level. Berliners, and Germans in general, are more petty, rude, condescending, pushy, cold and joyless than almost any other people on earth. It's a big reason many who move here don't stay more than a few years.
On the positive side, Berlin is surrounded by beautiful lakes and forests, which are easily accessible by public transportation or bike. It's a nice antidote to the bleakness of the city's built environment, as you see it.
Some comments:
1. Even beforr WW2 Berlin wasn't a particular beautiful city, just a decent one by European standards. While obviously better looking than today.
2. This "cash no card" stuff was way worse before covid. Since then card payment skyrocketed by popular demand. Way more businesses offer card payment now, Most of them would have preferred staying cash only.
Ofc it's still not near Anglo/scandi levels.
3. The main reason for cash no card is simply tax evasion in the service sector
4. The privacy obsession point still true for lacking in other areas digitalization.
5. Robert Schumann lived in leipzig too.
6.I doubt though the printing press-> composer explanation. Austria was famous for that too. I simply suspect parts of Germany have a higher musival ability than other Germans. (e.g. Prussians, North Germans)
E.g netherlands were highly developed as well and gave us zero composers.
Thanks! Yes, I was told the situation with cash/cards was much worse before COVID. Also doesn't help that the main obvious way of getting Euros is through those Euronet ATMs with their absurd exchange rates.
Dutch culture appears to have been extremely loaded in favor of the visual arts (and just capitalism). Indeed, an interesting question why.
Go to Belgrade, brother. Not perfect but somewhat like "organized chaos." You'll come alive in all the smog. It's like London in the 60s.
I liked this essay. You should do more travel writing!
uhh... cola zero is definitely available in berlin, and also the rest of germany.
and i can believe you didn't like berliner currywurst, especially the curry61 version, because it's drastically different to the usual currywurst you'd get in literally any other part of germany. sorry for missing out, because they are clearly delicious and your opinion is objectively wrong if you say otherwise.
sorry.
and about your disco visit...
was it the berghain? lol.
most germans talk mad shit about berlin.
among other things, IIRC it's the only capital in europe that negatively affects the GDP of the country it's in.
years of left/green governance with some CDU incompetency sprinkled in made berlin the way it is. great city for holidays. not so great for actually living there IMO.
> 4) There is a sense of this in Berlin as well - its population peaked at 4.5M in 1943 and never recovered, and now sits at 3.8M, though the metro area is around 5M
I suspect this helps the city a lot. Many cities have their economy hamstrung by growth limitations, and empty city is in some ways better than even unrestricted land would be.
> 5) German “constitutional purists”
Is it EHC to wear a waiters dress or medieval gown to a protest?
> 12) This isn’t really true in Berlin; the typical time is 9 pm.
That is unusual. Where I live its 7 usually.
> 13) Coffee shampoo is oddly prominent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpRtwu8q-s0
> 18) I can see how this would make foreigners with more conservative worldviews uncomfortable.
The sauna is overwhelmingly geratric activity here. Sexual thoughts are quite muted when its 5:1 hags.
> 21) “When you tell a German to do something, he does it; when you tell an Austrian to do something, he does it too, but then asks why,”
Thats not how I would describe it. An engineer can build a bridge that barely stands, and we austrians can build a society that barely doesnt turn into endemic corruption. It resists short-term or hands-off occupiers quite well. Spot on about the germans though.
>got a letter from his German classmates nonchalantly inviting to attend a class reunion - and a request to send them coffee - as if nothing had happened in the intervening decade.
Mustve been easterners, if theyre asking for coffee.
Interesting but also some things are plain wrong. Grafitti are everywhere because its part of the culture of central Europe - same as u will see in capitals from Germany all the way south to Greece. Annoying and ugly, but its part of it and 90% aint political anyway.
Leipzig is booming because of ton of economic investment in the area not because its more white than Berlin.
On cash/card - Germans love privacy yes. But its broader than that. Cash is harder to lose than money in the bank. Thats what all of us living in authoritarian societies learned. Considering Norway and Sweden are moving away from cashless society due to fears of Russian hacking (google it), they might end up being right. I know that your vision of the future is very different but for average joe, future aint blockchain, its money in a sock, better to be prepared for anarchism and chaos post some light ww3/hyperinflation future.
No fucking clue what DeSci is.
Why Moscow 10/10?
In its mid to late 2010s heyday: Gentrification/SWPL'zation, cheap cost of living, Russian in a way that say London or Paris are not really English or French these days, no political Wokeness, complete set of First World metropolis amenities, effective transport, beautiful architecture in the center.
I wrote about some of that in an (very uncompleted) guide from 2020: https://akarlin.com/russia/moscow/moscow-guide-2020/