![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Why do I want to move to Berlin?
3 Apr 2011 11:58 amIt's a good question, and an important one, and one I haven't really addressed in detail. It's hard, because all I have is this vague longing to be there, as opposed to a nice list of reasons, like a job or something.
I've been to Berlin 3 times now. Once for 3 days during my year in Germany (1997), when the city was still scarred from the division and you could literally see when you crossed on the S-bahn from former West to former East. I thought then that Berlin was the sort of city I could live in. It didn't feel too crowded, like New York does, though wikipedia tells me they have similar densities.
The second time was for a week at Christmas (2007), which was cold (approximately freezing the whole time) and dark (sunrise: 8 am; sunset: 4 pm) and rainy, the sort of foggy mist you get on a cloudy winter day. The clouds broke regularly, but the fog rolled back in at 2 pm every day that week. It was miserable weather to be a tourist in, but that's what you get for traveling at Christmas, really, unless you're going to the Caribbean or Mediterranean or something. That's when I had my first notion of moving to Germany and being a tour guide. I said it to Ben after we finished our guided walking tour, though I doubt he remembers.
The third time was almost a year ago now, May 2010, for a course at the Goethe Institut. There were two ways that could have gone. I could have gotten it out of my system, or I could have confirmed that I didn't want to leave. Considering that it was with a heavy heart that I got on the overnight train to Vienna, it seems to have gone the latter way. (I did look forward to seeing Ben again, once he got to Vienna, so leaving wasn't quite as melodramatic as it could have been.)
The weather that whole month was variable, frustrating, cloudy, rainy, and cold (40s-50s F), with periodic breaks of sun and warmth. I'm told that it was the rainiest, coldest May they'd had in quite some time. I blame the Iceland volcano.
But I found more in Berlin than I'd known was there, and now all I can think about is being there, which I can't afford at all right now, with this not having worked in a year thing. And we can't uproot soon, because of Ben's job and our many cats. Finding an apartment that is big enough for 5 cats, let alone allows you to have that many pets, is just not happening. Aside from that, Señora Crankypants has diabeetus and is allergic to grain, so she needs insulin and a special diet, and traveling with her on a trans-Atlantic flight...no. Claire has PKD, hyperthyroidism, and an anxiety disorder, and continuing to medicate her properly (and get her special food, too) is daunting.
What do I love about Berlin? If I had to quantify this nebulous emotion, I'd start with the fact that it's never the same city. It's always changing. One of the most famous quotations about the city is "Berlin ist eine Stadt, verdammt dazu, ewig zu werden, niemals zu sein" (Berlin is a city damned to always be becoming, never to be). Another, not on the wiki page, is from Frenchman Jack Lang: "Paris is always Paris, and Berlin is never Berlin." I love things that are in-between, that are both and neither, that walk the line of belonging and not-belonging. Berlin very much is.
There's so much history there, and as someone for whom the Cold War and its end is a source of great interest, how can I not be drawn there? The scars are still there, as well as the scars from WW2, in bullet holes remaining in façades. Berlin is a city concerned with its past, as much as it tears down the old and builds the new.
But Berlin has a reputation for being unwelcoming, dirty, and awful. It's not undeserved, but I'm with Ms Boedecker on this one.
It's a city you love for what it is as much as despite what it is. It's a city that gets under your skin and hooks you with its claws and doesn't let you go. It's a horrible, beautiful place.
I live on a quarter acre, half wooded, in suburban Raleigh-Durham. Winter is mild and short, summers are appallingly hot and long. I have a nice garden outside my rather large house which I've invested a good bit of time and effort into. (The lawn is a different matter entirely.) I've got the American Dream! Why would I want to give that up and move into an apartment in the middle of a city in Europe? (I'd want to live in Prenzl'er Berg, Kreuzberg/F'hain, or Mitte, possibly Wedding if prices are OK, maybe Pankow depending on transit options. Not Charlottenburg; too bourgeois for me.) That's an even harder question than the one I opened this post with!
I'd miss my herb garden and my gardenias (grown from cuttings from a 100-year-old bush that was being torn up when the house was sold to become beach condos) and my Yoshino cherry. I wouldn't miss the lawn and nastygrams from our HOA telling us to fix it up, and I know Ben wouldn't miss mowing it. Depending on the apartment, I could still grow herbs in pots on the balcony or in a hanging pot over the balcony rail (a very popular technique in Germany!) I wouldn't have my gardenias or the tree, obviously. Where can you plant an ornamental cherry in a city? I don't know if Yoshinos can even survive up there, though I guess they have them in Hokkaido? While I could possibly take a cutting of my gardenia and put it in a huge pot, I don't think I want to deal with the agricultural end of customs. It seems unpleasant and annoying.
I wouldn't miss having to drive everywhere. If we lived in Berlin, we might not even have cars! I'd keep my drivers license/get a German one, in case we need to drive anywhere in a rental car or something, but there's not much point in having a car (and paying for a parking space, insurance, $6+/gallon gas, upkeep, etc) in a city with 24-hour public transit and a country with extensive train service, even if they strike occasionally or there are maintenance or service issues. When I see Germans complaining about DB or the like (which are still valid complaints, don't get me wrong), I wish Amtrak were half as good as DB.
I guess I've realized that the part of the Standard American Dream where you have a 2000-sqft house in the suburbs is among the things I don't want in the Standard Life Script, much like the 2.5 kids part. I like the college education and marriage part (even if we have a non-standard marriage), but the rest of it I want to shake off.
There are cities in America where I could live more like the way I want to - New York, DC (sort of), Raleigh (kind of), SFO - but those aren't places I want to live. I like DC; I grew up near there. I can't afford DC. I'd be closer to my family, which is both good and bad. DC is kind of like Berlin, in that it's a capital city with a lot of varied cultural things, but it's definitely not the same. Maybe Berlin's a hybrid of NYC and DC. I don't know; I haven't spent significant time in NYC, and my main experiences in DC are the Smithsonians.
This is already quite a book, and I have to go to a meeting this afternoon, so I'll end this here. But feel free to comment or ask questions in comments. I haven't had a chance to address missing my local breweries, farmers, restaurants, Mexican food, etc, not to mention my friends.
I've been to Berlin 3 times now. Once for 3 days during my year in Germany (1997), when the city was still scarred from the division and you could literally see when you crossed on the S-bahn from former West to former East. I thought then that Berlin was the sort of city I could live in. It didn't feel too crowded, like New York does, though wikipedia tells me they have similar densities.
The second time was for a week at Christmas (2007), which was cold (approximately freezing the whole time) and dark (sunrise: 8 am; sunset: 4 pm) and rainy, the sort of foggy mist you get on a cloudy winter day. The clouds broke regularly, but the fog rolled back in at 2 pm every day that week. It was miserable weather to be a tourist in, but that's what you get for traveling at Christmas, really, unless you're going to the Caribbean or Mediterranean or something. That's when I had my first notion of moving to Germany and being a tour guide. I said it to Ben after we finished our guided walking tour, though I doubt he remembers.
The third time was almost a year ago now, May 2010, for a course at the Goethe Institut. There were two ways that could have gone. I could have gotten it out of my system, or I could have confirmed that I didn't want to leave. Considering that it was with a heavy heart that I got on the overnight train to Vienna, it seems to have gone the latter way. (I did look forward to seeing Ben again, once he got to Vienna, so leaving wasn't quite as melodramatic as it could have been.)
The weather that whole month was variable, frustrating, cloudy, rainy, and cold (40s-50s F), with periodic breaks of sun and warmth. I'm told that it was the rainiest, coldest May they'd had in quite some time. I blame the Iceland volcano.
But I found more in Berlin than I'd known was there, and now all I can think about is being there, which I can't afford at all right now, with this not having worked in a year thing. And we can't uproot soon, because of Ben's job and our many cats. Finding an apartment that is big enough for 5 cats, let alone allows you to have that many pets, is just not happening. Aside from that, Señora Crankypants has diabeetus and is allergic to grain, so she needs insulin and a special diet, and traveling with her on a trans-Atlantic flight...no. Claire has PKD, hyperthyroidism, and an anxiety disorder, and continuing to medicate her properly (and get her special food, too) is daunting.
What do I love about Berlin? If I had to quantify this nebulous emotion, I'd start with the fact that it's never the same city. It's always changing. One of the most famous quotations about the city is "Berlin ist eine Stadt, verdammt dazu, ewig zu werden, niemals zu sein" (Berlin is a city damned to always be becoming, never to be). Another, not on the wiki page, is from Frenchman Jack Lang: "Paris is always Paris, and Berlin is never Berlin." I love things that are in-between, that are both and neither, that walk the line of belonging and not-belonging. Berlin very much is.
There's so much history there, and as someone for whom the Cold War and its end is a source of great interest, how can I not be drawn there? The scars are still there, as well as the scars from WW2, in bullet holes remaining in façades. Berlin is a city concerned with its past, as much as it tears down the old and builds the new.
But Berlin has a reputation for being unwelcoming, dirty, and awful. It's not undeserved, but I'm with Ms Boedecker on this one.
Die Berliner sind unfreundlich und rücksichtslos, ruppig und rechthaberisch, Berlin ist abstoßend, laut, dreckig und grau, Baustellen und verstopfte Straßen, wo man geht und steht – aber mir tun alle Menschen leid, die nicht hier leben können!
Berliner are unfriendly and inconsiderate, abrasive and opinionated; Berlin is unsavory, loud, dirty, and grey, construction sites and stopped-up streets, where you stop and go - but I feel sorry for everyone who can't live here!
It's a city you love for what it is as much as despite what it is. It's a city that gets under your skin and hooks you with its claws and doesn't let you go. It's a horrible, beautiful place.
I live on a quarter acre, half wooded, in suburban Raleigh-Durham. Winter is mild and short, summers are appallingly hot and long. I have a nice garden outside my rather large house which I've invested a good bit of time and effort into. (The lawn is a different matter entirely.) I've got the American Dream! Why would I want to give that up and move into an apartment in the middle of a city in Europe? (I'd want to live in Prenzl'er Berg, Kreuzberg/F'hain, or Mitte, possibly Wedding if prices are OK, maybe Pankow depending on transit options. Not Charlottenburg; too bourgeois for me.) That's an even harder question than the one I opened this post with!
I'd miss my herb garden and my gardenias (grown from cuttings from a 100-year-old bush that was being torn up when the house was sold to become beach condos) and my Yoshino cherry. I wouldn't miss the lawn and nastygrams from our HOA telling us to fix it up, and I know Ben wouldn't miss mowing it. Depending on the apartment, I could still grow herbs in pots on the balcony or in a hanging pot over the balcony rail (a very popular technique in Germany!) I wouldn't have my gardenias or the tree, obviously. Where can you plant an ornamental cherry in a city? I don't know if Yoshinos can even survive up there, though I guess they have them in Hokkaido? While I could possibly take a cutting of my gardenia and put it in a huge pot, I don't think I want to deal with the agricultural end of customs. It seems unpleasant and annoying.
I wouldn't miss having to drive everywhere. If we lived in Berlin, we might not even have cars! I'd keep my drivers license/get a German one, in case we need to drive anywhere in a rental car or something, but there's not much point in having a car (and paying for a parking space, insurance, $6+/gallon gas, upkeep, etc) in a city with 24-hour public transit and a country with extensive train service, even if they strike occasionally or there are maintenance or service issues. When I see Germans complaining about DB or the like (which are still valid complaints, don't get me wrong), I wish Amtrak were half as good as DB.
I guess I've realized that the part of the Standard American Dream where you have a 2000-sqft house in the suburbs is among the things I don't want in the Standard Life Script, much like the 2.5 kids part. I like the college education and marriage part (even if we have a non-standard marriage), but the rest of it I want to shake off.
There are cities in America where I could live more like the way I want to - New York, DC (sort of), Raleigh (kind of), SFO - but those aren't places I want to live. I like DC; I grew up near there. I can't afford DC. I'd be closer to my family, which is both good and bad. DC is kind of like Berlin, in that it's a capital city with a lot of varied cultural things, but it's definitely not the same. Maybe Berlin's a hybrid of NYC and DC. I don't know; I haven't spent significant time in NYC, and my main experiences in DC are the Smithsonians.
This is already quite a book, and I have to go to a meeting this afternoon, so I'll end this here. But feel free to comment or ask questions in comments. I haven't had a chance to address missing my local breweries, farmers, restaurants, Mexican food, etc, not to mention my friends.
