People

In Berlin, anything goes.

There’s no pressure to conform.

People dress how they like, and do what they want.

Open-minded is an understatement.

You’ll rarely see anyone wearing a suit in Berlin.

And there’s no “look” like there is in say, Manchester, or Liverpool.

It’s not unusual to see a hipster wandering barefoot around Kreuzberg. Not that this is necessarily a good thing!

In the winter you don’t see many people out on the streets, but in summer, suddenly crowds and crowds of people seem to crawl out of the woodwork, and the city comes alive again.

Sometimes it can seem as if nobody actually works in Berlin. In the daytime the parks can be full of people. Whether they are students, artists, musicians or freelancers, there are a lot of people around during nine to five.

One of the things I really miss in Berlin, is that it’s not an ageist society. People of all ages seem to go out to the bars and clubs, and socialise together. People in their 50s don’t look out of place, as they sometimes can do in London.

Single friends in Berlin in their mid to late 30s are not fretting over marriage and children in the same way as they are in the UK. It’s different, and people seem a lot more laid back.

Germans are known for being sticklers to rules, but at the same time, Berliners make their own rules, which is great. Germany bans smoking in bars, and Berliners simply boycott this. They even smoke weed in some bars.

I also miss the real characters in Berlin. The people who make this city unique. Some, like the “Karaoke man”, have now been carved into history on the side of buildings.

A couple of my favourites are “Frisbee man”, who I think looks a bit like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons! He’s to be found playing Frisbee in Görlitzer Park, almost every day, all year long.

Then there’s “Blanket lady”, often found drinking coffee at Markthalle, her whole outfit made from an array of different blankets.

And not to mention “Bubble man”, an older man with a long white beard, who pops up at parties and festivals dancing and blowing bubbles at the crowd.

U-Bahn

Apart from the horrible shock of being caught by the Kontrollieren (inspectors) on the U-Bahn without your Fahrschein (ticket), the U-Bahn in Berlin is great.

I miss having a seat on the train. I miss having space to breathe without someone’s hair or armpit in my face. I miss not having to queue to get on the train. I miss travelling without the barging and the shoving, and people actually being pushed off trains!

In Berlin, you’re never packed in ridiculously like sardines. No need for that with a transport system with a capacity for 10 million and a population of only 3.5.

Not only that, but it runs all night over the weekend (and not just mythically like in London).

Paying on the U-Bahn is seemingly discretionary – there are no ticket barriers – but anyone who’s been caught, and slapped with a now 60€ fine knows only too well that this is not true. It’s best to get a ticket, or your journey will be a nervous one.

I also miss that unlike in London, people haven’t been banned from drinking on the U-Bahn. In fact, the “weg Bier” is pretty much customary in Berlin, particularly on the U-Bahn. Almost everyone, male, female, young and old, carries a beer. Whether they are happily drinking away on a night out or swigging away as you’re on your way to work in the morning.

And there is no end to what you might come across on the U-Bahn, from a pony to a striptease, someone playing drums to someone camouflaged against the seats.

Literally, anything goes. It’s not out of place to see a huge rave going on at one of the U-Bahn stations, complete with DJ and decks, on a weekend night.

In fact the BVG made a funny video to show that they are ok with you being weird. “Ist mir egal” (“I don’t care).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvcpy4WjZMs

Things I miss about Berlin

After a two-year hiatus, and now living in London again, I’m back here to even the score, and balance out the rants with: 28 things I miss about Berlin.

And there are literally loads, as Berlin is an awesome city. Yes, I’ve always thought that - despite the many things that made me want to rant.

People say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it’s true.

I’ve loved Berlin from the first time I set foot there, but there’s nothing like some time apart, to truly make me really appreciate it, and all its crazy eccentricities. 

Guest Rant 3: Playgrounds.

Many foreign moms in Berlin will tell you that they secretly dread going to the playground because when the children are mean and aggressive to one another so many parents don’t do a damn thing about it.

This seems to be a popular philosophy among parents in Berlin: don’t intervene in the children’s play because they need to sort it out themselves. While it’s true that children need to learn how to resolve certain problems themselves and play independently (I am certainly not a proponent of helicopter-style parenting nor do I coddle my child), they need to be equipped with some basic social skills like sharing, “playing nice”, and (most importantly for those us with younger children), showing respect and consideration for children who are smaller or weaker than them. Otherwise you are applying darwinistic principles to your child’s socialization.

A typical visit to the playground involves shielding your child from older kids as they shove past/push your little one aside as he/she struggles to play on structures that are designed for older kids—in Berlin they don’t seem to take children under age 4 into consideration when designing playgrounds (for example: there are almost no baby swings). I have had seven and eight-year-olds (i.e. children old enough to know better) block my two-year-old on the slide, scream “NEIN!” and throw sand toys at her head if she came too close to the sand castle they were building, or jump wildly up and down on the little bridge she was precariously crossing to try to make her fall. In all of these cases there was a parent or Kita teacher looking on and doing absolutely nothing. I have spent enough time on playgrounds in other cities/countries to know that this is not normal behavior.

If you are one of the few parents actually supervising your child, you will be put into the awkward position of having to discipline children who do not belong to you. A simple, forceful command like “Platz machen!” or “Nicht hauen!” almost always does the trick because most kids know when they’re behaving badly and are subconsciously yearning for discipline. But you will also experience the opposite: adorable little children running up to you and asking you to watch them do something cool or help them onto the swing as their useless parent/caretaker sits nearby staring vacantly into a cel phone or smoking on the bench with friends (newsflash: smoking on the playground is socially unacceptable in other societies).

Sometimes I think the parents keep their distance to avoid social contact with other parents: if you are a mom from a country where chatting with strangers is normal behavior, you will be sorely disappointed to learn that in Berlin you will definitely not be making any new friends on the playground, nor will you come to expect a friendly chat now and then (on the rare occasion that it does happen, it feels like a gift from the gods). I made the mistake of trying to make polite small talk (nothing too personal, just something like “how old is your daughter?”) with the parents of children who my daughter would be playing with and more often than not got suspicious looks in return, like I was trying to initiate a life-long friendship or something! If you are already feeling lonely and isolated as a new mother, a trip to the playground will only reinforce this feeling.

But back to the aggressiveness: I would really love an explanation as to why so many parents in Berlin are so hesitant to teach their children to play nicely and to be considerate. (Maybe I should reread Lord of the Flies…?) For now I try to go to the playground whenever possible with nice mothers I know and their equally nice children. And then it’s really great fun!

Written by michicevedo.

Guest Rant 2: Snow.

Germans are good at many things. Snow removal is not one of them.

When I moved to Berlin from British Columbia (where it rarely snows) in 2008, I remember feeling really excited with the first snowfall that year. But as it kept snowing, it became increasingly difficult to walk. I was surprised to see that nobody ever shoveled it. At best, someone might sweep a little and throw a handful of gravel on it, neither of which was very effective. In more extreme cases, there was no human intervention at all.

Now I grew up in Georgia, so I won’t pretend that I have ever shoveled snow in my life. But I spent ten years living in the Northeast, and never once did I struggle to walk in 6-inch-deep snow or fear breaking my neck (or hip) on the sidewalk once that same snow had frozen over. In most American cities with snowfall there are strict laws about snow removal—it is almost a matter of pride, as my friends who did grow up shoveling snow have pointed out. A more cynical person might say that the sidewalks are cleared quickly in American cities to avoid lawsuits. Whatever the reason may be, no matter how much it snows, most sidewalks are always clear and walkable.

Not so in Berlin. And if you ask a Berliner why nobody bothers to shovel the snow, they will likely claim it is because the city is too poor to deal with it. Right. The capital city of the one of the richest countries in the world doesn’t have the funds to deal with snow. But anyway, this is beside the point, as it not the city’s responsibility to clear snow, but that of building owners. If you look at your lease, you will probably see that Winterdienst is included in your rent, so if the sidewalk in front of your building isn’t being cleared regularly, you’re getting ripped off, and so is everyone walking by your building.

Property owners who do assume their responsibility to clear the snow will hire these little cars that go around every once in a while and shave off a layer of snow while leaving a trail of gravel. This is not very helpful. The gravel will end up in your apartment and you will be sweeping it up all winter long. If you have a baby crawling around, he/she will likely swallow some, and it’ll end up in his/her diaper. I’ve heard a lot of people defend the gravel because they say that salt (which is what is used in the States and Canada) is bad because it contaminates the groundwater. I’m not sure why this is a problem, as Germans generally refuse to drink tap water anyway. I would also think that the millions of cigarette butts and tons of dogshit on the sidewalk might prove a bigger threat to the groundwater.

On those bits of sidewalk that the property owner hasn’t bothered with, you will have to fend for yourself. If you happen to have a child who likes napping outside (like I did), you’ll be pushing your stroller through what feels like really dirty, really cold sand for hours each day. You will be cursing yourself for having decided to live in this godforsaken place while commending yourself on getting such an excellent upper-body workout.

Meanwhile shop owners (too lazy to shovel the snow in front of their shops) will spend all winter mopping up the mess their customers track in from the rocky, filthy slush outside. Some will even get really annoyed at their customers, like the owner of a children’s clothing shop that hosted a music class I attended, who angrily forced every parent to clean the snow off their stroller’s wheels before coming in.

Needless to say, I am really happy it only snowed a couple of times this year!

Written by michicevedo.

Guest Rant 1: Pernickety.

You may or may not recognise the phrase 'wanting to go to the far end of a fart'. This effectively means, wanting to go into superfluous and unnecessary detail and sums up exactly my experience of Germans proofreading anything I write.

As  an 'eingedeutschte' Brit, I often take it upon myself to write letters, emails or texts in German. In fact, this is something I do on a daily basis, working in a German company. In some cases, when things require a particular formality or need to be absolutely mistake-free, I ask a real German to have a read over and more-often-than-not, this is how things go:

E.g. Me to my native German boyfriend: "Hey, can you listen to this text a minute please and let me know if my grammar and word order is correct?"

Him: "OK"

Me: Reads out text that I already somewhat corrected for a British friend

Him: "Hmmm, what's the context? Where will it be displayed? I'd leave that bit out and change that because the Germans wouldn't go for that. Why is the described process so long? I mean, if she did it like [blah, blah, blah], it would be so much easier!"

Takes laptop and looks concentrated

..... half an hour later.....

Me, looking at 'corrected' text: "I just wanted you to check my spelling and grammar, not change the sense of the whole damn thing!"
*Sigh*

We have a word for this where I come from: Pernikety.
....

Written by L: 

http://cuppateaanyone.wordpress.com/