(Image: ezeep on Facebook)
I’m moving to Berlin. I’ve spent nine months travelling the world and here, at the end of it, I have decided to move to Berlin with my girlfriend. Before we went away, we lived and worked in London, but going back doesn’t appeal. We want to carry on that sense of change and adventure and for that, Berlin ticks a lot of boxes. The rent is significantly better value than in London. There are opportunities in young, exciting companies taking advantage of the cheap office space. We can learn the language together (although she’s got a head start, being half German). It’s bike friendly. You can buy a coffee for the same price as a newspaper. The nightlife. The greenery. World-class cake. Yes, we’re moving to Berlin.
Moving to Berlin, Day 1
May 15th, 2013: We’re paying £22 a night for a two-week Airbnb booking in Neukölln. We have no idea how long it might take to find a flat ourselves, although preliminary investigations have revealed that agency fees are typically around €1000 (not bloody likely), and a deposit comes in at about two and a half times your monthly rent. We had both breakfast and afternoon tea at Café Ole at Boddinstrasse 57, which is run by folk who are hard of hearing and therefore an incomplete assignment for my first German lesson. After an early evening run around the Volkspark Hasenheide, I remember the first thing I’ve forgotten to pack: my table tennis bat.
Day 2
We haven’t seen a single person on a bike with a helmet on their head. From cycling in London, giving up that protection has never been a negotiable idea. I feel that anyone who rides in London without a helmet – and this includes loved ones – is mad. In Berlin, the wider roads, lack of hills and better understanding of cyclists make it safer than in London, or New York, or the silly hills of San Francisco. But a concussion is a concussion, bro.
Oh, bought a ‘Cinnamon Snake’ from BioMarkt, which is otherwise a very healthy place to shop. Epic sugar.
Phrase of the Day: Sollen wir essen? -> Shall we eat?
The Berlin Bears. Am I really going to do this? Mebbe.
1/150 (approx.):
Day 3
I’m going to take back what I said about bike helmets, because I saw a fair few today. So, well, yeah. What seems to be true though is that Berliners are more reluctant to cross on a red. Apparently this is true of Germany in general. Gnarly.
Berlin feels peaceful. My girlfriend says that’s because there’s no “snorting, honking bottleneck on every corner”. The roads and pavements are wider and there’s about a 1/3 of the number of people in a (roughly?) similarly-sized space to central London. Went for a stroll around leafy Kreuzberg. Sampled the Banana Bread at Fuchsbau over a meet with British friends of a friend, also recently moved here. Learnt the German for shandy. It’s ‘Alster’, named so after the colour of the river in Hamburg.
PotD: Wo gehen wir hin? -> Where are we going?
Day 4
Day 5
Getting our heads around the rental situation in Berlin. The April issue of the exberliner has a great feature on renting, with some crazy stats for a Londoner.
- 86% of Berliners live in rented property
- On average, Berliners spend 27.4% of their income on housing
- On average an apartment is 70.4 sqm, amounting to 38.8 sqm living space per Berliner
We’ve seen a couple of flats. The first wanted us to buy all their Ikea furniture for €1500 and the second was well located but a top floor apartment with low ceilings and a half-built building nextdoor. Whatever we end up with will still be a steal compared to London, Paris or New York (check out this Tumblr).
Day 6
Forget ‘Phrase of the Day’, that’s going nowhere fast. Time to learn some German.
‘Crutch’ Verbs:
I want to eat – Ich möchte essen
You want to eat – Du mochtest essen
I’m going to eat tomorrow – Ich werde morgen essen
I can’t eat – Ich kann nicht essen
I am – Ich bin
You are – Du bist
I have to eat – Ich muss essen
You have to – Du musst essen
I need food – Ich brauche essen
You need food – Du brauchst essen
I should eat – Ich solle essen
You should eat – Du sollst essen
I have – Ich habe
You have – Du hasst
I can – Ich kann
You can – Du kanst
I go – Ich gehe
You go – Du gehst
That’ll do.
Day 7
2/150 (approx.):
Day 8
Flats, flats, flats.
If you’ve just moved to Berlin, or are moving to Berlin, start here:
- Craigslist & Airbnb
- https://www.wg-gesucht.de/
- http://www.studenten-wg.de/
- http://www.immobilienscout24.de
- http://www.9flats.com/us/berlin-deutschland
If you use 9 Flats, you’ll find that the identity security protocols are easier to navigate than the more watertight Airbnb. That means you can try and cut a deal by getting in contact directly with the owner, which might prove worth the legwork. We’ve been looking around Kreuzberg, but we’ve found competition is fierce, so there’s significantly less value to be found than in other neighbourhoods further afield. It’s a classic trade-off, but if we follow the logic that brought us to Berlin from London, then it should also lead us out of Kreuzberg. But not as far as Poland. We’ll see.
Here’s a more thorough lowdown on the ins and outs of finding a place to rent in Berlin.
Flat out. For now.
Day 9
Well, I suppose this is just another ‘When You Really Live In A City’ blog. Guilty as charged. But then again, I haven’t spaffed this page on social media, so anyone who finds themselves here does so through the divinity of Google. It’s a very unmannerly guest that presses upon someone else’s table and then quarrels with his dinner. A dude called Seneca said that.
Day 10
3/150 (approx.)
Day 11
Two things I like about Berlin:
The U-Bahn. No gates or barriers that make a clapping thunking racket and threaten to break your arm if you dilly-dally, as they do in London. You buy your ticket, you validate your ticket. If you’re caught without a validated ticket, you’re fined. I suppose the difference is that the Berlin system assumes compliance, instead of ramming it down your throat.
Likewise, buying beer: You can happily run up a bill at a bar without leaving your card. Perhaps not in all places, but I just thought, while watching the Champions League Final, that it made a nice change to Britain. Similarly to the U-Bahn, the assumption is that you’re not criminally-inclined.
A third: €2.50 Falafel Kebabs.
Day 12
4/150 (approx.)
Day 13
Every viewing we’ve been to in Kreuzberg or Neukölln (about half a dozen) has been rammed. The popularity of the area means there’s significantly less value in terms of space. It just didn’t seem worth the bolt-on for us, for now. The result is that we’ve found a flat to live in from July to October in Prenzlauer Berg. It was originally advertised on sabbaticalhomes.com, but we were introduced to the lady through a friend and went to meet her to make the deal. So it’s a good short-term solution, which gives us time to learn a bit more about Berlin’s neighbourhoods before committing to somewhere.
Day 14
Oh boy, Berlin. Fireworks, you say? Olympiastadion?
Day 15
This is a Shokkaffee from Cafe Rix in Neukölln.
Espresso, Shokolad, Sahne.
No wonder Berlin’s a city of freelancers.
Day 16
Epic explorer walk today:
Day 17
Been reading about Kreuzberg’s fondness for Bitcoin. I’ve posted a page on how to buy Bitcoin based on a friend’s advice, but it’s early days and the goalposts keep moving.
Day 18
Berlin Emergency? Dial 112. Glad I didn’t wait for an emergency to find that out.
Day 19
I’d been doing fine on just vegetables all week, and then this happened @ Markthalle Neun.
Day 20
Had an exciting, fascinating day talking to startup folk at the Hy! event in Berlin. I’m doing a small piece for the new London quarterly Courier Paper about the conditions and developments that are making Berlin so attractive for tech entrepreneurs.
Day 21
It’s so interesting the way differences in property law can effect neighbourhoods. Check this out, from exberliner.com:
One month after she had moved in, Morgan and her flatmate Simon Schmerling* found out the landlord wanted to increase their rent from €700 to €970. “It was such a shock,” says the Berlin-raised Schmerling. “I’d already moved twice during the previous year and thought I could finally settle, but there was no way I could afford to pay that much extra.”
Neither Morgan nor Schmerling were on the rental agreement, leaving them entirely dependent on the main tenant, Kati Dietrich*, to fight the increase. “The next months were so stressful,” Morgan remembers. “Until it became clear that actually, the landlord just wanted to scare us out.”
The owner had not raised the rent a single cent for over 12 years. While Berlin’s average rent per square metre rose from €6.49 in 2010, to €7.40 per sqm in 2011 alone, to the current amount of €7.85, the Schöneberg apartment remained only €5.30. Schmerling thinks “the owner was slow to realise what he was missing out on, but then wanted to get us out quickly for richer tenants to take over.”
Currently it is only possible to raise rents 20 percent over three years in Berlin. Starting this spring, a new law caps that limit at 15 percent. Owners therefore sometimes bluff to scare out their old tenants, to be able to renovate their property and demand higher rents in accordance with the latest Mietspiegel (the neighbourhood average, on the basis of which rents are calculated).
Day 22
I was supposed to go to a trial German class today, but was offered a game of footy up at Potstadion so went to that instead. Old habits.
Day 23
From überlin. Crikey.
Gentrification’s way too complex an issue to take a bullet-proof stance on, but it’s clear that this video comes from a place of hate. It’s the same place that lazy people go to to spit obscenities at authority and chat conspiracy theories because it’s easier than taking responsibility for their own fulfillment. Your choices are all you can really call your own, and this guy’s choosing to be a dick.
Day 24
Memrise & Duolingo. Never had these toys when I was in school.
Day 25
This is a Tirimasu and Buttermilk Orange ice cream from Eiscafé Fräulein Frost in Kreuzkölln. I’ve started putting together a Google Map Hit List of places I’ve been / places I want to check out in Berlin that are worth sharing. It’ll be continuously edited, so the further you find yourself from today (June 8th, 2013), the more fired with wonder and brilliance it’ll be.
Day 26
I’ve been transcribing an interview I did with Johannes Reck, CEO and Co-founder of GetYourGuide.com, about the differences between London and Berlin for new business:
London is an internationally-known business hub, and Berlin is not. Berlin is certainly an important city in terms of politics and media, but it’s not a business hub. For startups, that means that we have much less competition for talent and for hiring great people than we would in London. That’s a huge advantage. But while there’s less competition for talent, there’s also less talent. I would say that overall the balance is in favour of Berlin for two reasons. The city’s big enough for there to be enough talent that’s not hired off by the big guys. Typically, the talent who are looking for jobs choose a startup because there’s not much else out there, except for working for the government which isn’t so highly paid, or perhaps working for some media outlet.
A lot of people have come to Berlin in the past two years. It’s quite an ironic twist but the Euro crisis has definitely benefitted Berlin in terms of human capital. There’s been a gigantic increase of highly-qualified human capital moving in. We’ve hired dozens of them. The second part of the argument, which is often seen as the main point but I feel is secondary, is that it’s cheap. You pay much less for office space and employees, so it’s much easier to build a customer service call centre and sales organisations, particularly for HR-intensive companies. The flipside is that London has the better universities, a better education system and much more money in the market. When Berlin startups try and raise capital, you’ll see them getting on planes to London, because there’s practically no venture capital in Berlin right now. It’s coming, but most startups in Berlin are financed by East Coast or UK funds.
Day 27
Monday afternoon.
Day 28
Off to France. Staying at The Biarritz. Back in July.
Day 29
July 12th, 2013: I’m back in Berlin and for the first time in over a year I’m not living out of a bag. I have taken clothes and hung them. I’ve put items in draws. I’ve even been to the supermarket and bought a jar of peanut butter (and other stuff). I like that the flat I’m renting has floor-to-ceiling bookcases with everything from Nietzsche to Don Quixote to David Foster Wallace. I like that the taxi I took earlier was cruising along not to a sports report but instead, I think, Stravinsky. I like that on a long summer afternoon in July, you can hear people practising their musical instruments through open windows. I’m here to stay.
