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Expats, how is your quality of life in Berlin?
What i struggle with is, feeling nice when i socialize with my fellow citizens. Through the years i realised that jobs can be tough or tough to find nowdays anywhere you are. You have to stand out and fight for it, and every social system has its flaws, like for example, i find Germany's social system very slow when it comes to processes.
So, what i am interested in is how do you feel when you step out of your home and become part of the neighbourhood, what is your feelings when you go to a cafe, or a restaurant, or when doing a hobby, like let's say a pilates course. I personally feel that although i am around people i don't feel connected with them, i feel a coldness, a distance coming from not just Germans.
I have tried to be very considerate and compassionate with everyone i meet, wveryone goes through something, but then if we all become more compassionate with each other we might start feeling more connected. This is my subjective view when i compare my experience with the Meditteranean, which is where i come from. So i am a bit biased, what i experienxe though, for years, has affected my mood since i moved in Berlin, no matter what i earn and in what kind of phase i am in my life, it keeps making me depressive and i am losing my faith in even trying for a connection.
Maybe i am missing something, maybe i don't see thinds clearly or i see them through my filter and subjective reality. What i miss is to have the chance to create strong bonds, which i have been trying to do since i moved here without much success . What are your experiences. Thank you!
the thing about berlin is that it rewards routine but punishes spontaneity in social connection. i've been here since 2014 and what finally clicked for me was accepting that i'd never get the med-style warmth where strangers just talk to you at a bakery. instead i leaned into the german approach of scheduled consistency - same cafe every saturday morning, same table, same order, and eventually the barista started saving me a seat without asking.
for the coldness you're feeling, try a neighbourhood with a dorf (village) vibe within the city. prenzlauer berg is too polished, but parts of moabit or even steglitz have that thing where the same people are at the same kiosk every day. i'm in schöneberg and my pharmacy guy knows my allergies by heart now, which sounds sad but actually feels nice when you're having a rough week.
also worth considering that the social system being slow isn't just your imagination. i waited 11 months for a burgeramt appointment last year. that kind of bureaucratic friction wears on you in a way that makes everything feel heavier, even when you have a good salary. it's not just you being sensitive, the city can be structurally exhausting.
honestly, i get this so much. been here since 2015 and that feeling of walking into a cafe and being invisible to everyone except the person taking your order is real. for me what shifted things was finding a verein, not a pilates class. i joined a local laufgruppe that meets at tempelhofer feld on tuesdays and the social dynamic is just different when you're all sweaty and focused on not dying.
the coldness you describe isn't just you, i think it's a berlin thing where people are polite but protective of their inner circle. i've found that the longer you show up to the same place at the same time, the more that wall cracks. there's a späti near my place where i went daily for three months before the guy behind the counter said more than "das macht dann 2,50". now we chat about his garden. it's slow but it's real.
maybe try a different neighborhood vibe? i lived in neukölln for years and felt exactly what you describe, moved to wedding and people are more direct and less performatively busy. not saying it's a cure but the street-level energy matters a lot. also if you like the med vibe, there's a greek place on pappelallee where the owner will prob invite you to sit with his family if you go enough times.
ngl the verein tip is solid, i found the same with a bouldering group. but also i think the key is accepting that deep bonds in berlin take years, not months. i've been here since 2012 and my core friend group is like 3 people, all
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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