The Pros and Cons of living in Berlin

hello vet spett my name is Evan Eder and welcome back to my YouTube channel where I like to compare things from different cultures and anything else I find interesting now today's video comes to you from my lovely flat in Frederick's Hine in Berlin where I've been living for the past month and I thought it'd be interesting to talk to you about some of the pros and cons of living in this lovely city of Berlin it's not all it's cracked up to be now I've lived in Munich before and I've also visited Hamburg dorf and Dresden but there's something about Berlin that feels quite a bit different let me explain all right so the first big Pro of living in Berlin is that the city just feels so alive it's really hard to explain but it just feels like the city design is how cities are meant to be whereas most all US cities currently suffer from issues revolving around zoning laws meaning parts of the city are designated only for residences and other parts of the city are designated only for commercial areas meaning that if you want to travel in between those two places they're usually quite a distance away and the only way of actually getting in between them is through using a car I feel like Berlin is the perfect melding of the two residences and Commercial areas for example no matter what part of Berlin you're traveling around you are going to come across an outbow most likely which is an old building these are buildings that have an architectural style closest to the art Novo period built before the 1940s and what makes them so special is that usually they are apartments that are 5 to six stories high with the ground floor reserved for businesses it also doesn't hurt that every single apartment is like 3.5 M High ceilings there's a lot of space and these things are everywhere every street is just lines and lines and lines of five to six-story buildings with loads and loads and loads of accommodation places to live so not only is there a lot of different places for people to live meaning that it's not as expensive to live here but also the ground floors are full of loads and loads and loads of local businesses and you pretty much don't have to walk more than 5 or 10 minutes to get any of your basic necessities just walking through my neighborhood it's been so lovely to just look through the windows and the ground floor and see all these different local businesses thriving it feels so open like everybody has a different thing going on and it's just really nice now if you're from the UK you might kind of be confused and be like I don't understand what you're talking about we have a high Street as well yes but just imagine if every street in your town was a High Street that's basically what Berlin feels like every neighborhood is pretty much a 15minute city here and I guess the closest comparable thing you can say that London has that's similar is if you were living in super Central places in zones one or two but the issue with those places is that because London is so outrageously expensive and the way that you can buy properties there to invest rather than live in most neighborhoods that are like that are mostly dead because no one's actually living in any of those flats and zones one and two they're just owned by oligarchs and Rich Property Owners from abroad hoping to cash in on all of our pain but from my experience Berlin's many vibrant neighborhoods House people from all different walks of life all different age brackets all different wealth brackets all living and working together so it just feels like such a healthy Community but I did touch on this next Pro in my previous section which is Berlin is very affordable having a place this massive for 600 to 700 a month is just unheard of to me and maybe that's The Londoner and me who's just thinking if I got just this room in a house share with other people this size mate that would put me back like 1,500 quid a month minimum and that might be in an outskirts area for this size but Berlin oh my God it's just so cheap even comparing prices from within Germany when I lived in Munich I paid more for that room than this one and that was 5 years ago Berlin just is super super cheap that being said the prices have been going up steadily over the last 5 years but it's still quite a bargain and speaking of affordability in terms of food shops Germany is the one that created things like little and ALDI that we use in the UK so much really discount groceries there's a lot of different opportunities to shop at different price points and even when I shopped at the nicer ones like rev I found my shop was so much cheaper than buying them in London so H not bad and if you're someone like me that enjoys going out for a good coffee it's really annoying for me to say this but Berlin's coffee game is just on a different level than London's I used to be so proud that London had good coffee until I came to Berlin where you can just walk into any Cafe on the side of the street and oh what's this it turns out to also be a roaster oh they also have pourover coffee 360 Aeropress and it's amazing delicious when they ask you what type of bean you want when you order a flat white I have to seek those places out in London I have to go to those specialty roasteries it just feels like everyone in Berlin has good coffee and I don't even think they know how good it is here all right but I think I've buttered you guys up enough let's start with some cons the easiest one first shops are closed on Sundays I know I've had complaints about things closing early in a lot of places but Germany takes it to the whole Next Level considering that Sundays are rest days it means that you must be quiet grocery shops are not open if you haven't bought your groceries or you want to make something and you don't have the supplies well you're kind of out of luck unless you go to a very specific place that is allowed to be open now Berlin is not anywhere near as bad as my experience in Munich when it comes to shops being closed because they are a little bit more religious about it there where shops have to close at 8:00 p.m. no mat what at least in Berlin they repealed that type of law in 2006 allowing for places like bait coughs or late buys to open up so you can still go out and buy things in shops in Berlin late at night at least compared to Bavaria but forcing citizens to have a rest day on Sunday could be viewed as a pro or a con con you can't mow your own lawn on a Sunday Pro your neighbor can't either you know it's a cultural difference that I think is important to consider but also I feel like some people might grow to appreciate the longer they live here but now it's time for the first actual big con ask anyone who's been to Berlin for more than a day and they'll probably agree Berlin is a really really dirty City and I'm not just talking about dirt this place is filthy there's dog all over the sidewalks there's broken bottles there's litter there's garbage everywhere it just feels like nobody cares in my first week in Berlin I literally stepped on broken glass twice and stepped in dog poo once the classic Berlin experience I was walking across the street in Alexander plats watched a guy literally drop his empty water bottle his friends laughed and then they just kept crossing the street and left it on the street that's pretty much the way that most most people in Berlin live and that's only talking about the litter it also feels like if you use any of the public infrastructure in Berlin everything is coated in a thick thick layer of just dirt there's just such a griess to the place especially the uban or the underground in Berlin which I feel like has not once been cleaned since its Inception and its elevators are currently used as public urinals not intentionally it's just berliners go ah why not I'll just take a piss and then nobody will clean it up compared to Munich at least walking around a Munich felt like you were inside the Lou in Paris looking at all the arch around you and everything was clean and pristine whereas walking in Berlin felt like you're walking around in a public urinal underneath the Eiffel Tower I do consider myself a super smeller and I will say that lots of parts of Berlin just smell like caked on exhaust and the uban smells like a very primordial earthy scent yeah this pros and cons video is going to be giving you whiplash almost like when you're enjoying some content you're really in it and then the YouTubers like don't forget to like And subscribe wink but Berlin does feel like a city of extremes yes it's incredibly dirty but also one of the big Pros it's full of such beautiful art no matter where you walk in Berlin you will come across some stunning murals that take up the entire facade of a building only to look behind you notice there are even more and architecturally there are so many interesting details in every single building that really shows you these buildings were not just made as cheaply as possible to get them done there are flourishes these places look like they were built by people who would be proud to live in them themselves compared to London in which every freaking new build these days just looks like a cookie cutter box of Hell the amount of buildings in Berlin that are also different colors is just so nice we have so few colorful buildings in London that the one area that has them in nodding Hill is a tourist attraction to be like oh my God people have painted the houses a nice color Berlin that's everywhere now with my last Pro being the city is covered in beautiful art the next con is the city is also covered in the world's ugliest graffiti imaginable in every possible space you can imagine I've seen graffiti on little walkways I've seen it on the ceilings I've seen it on the walls I've seen it on the tiles the shingles on the roof mov that's Berlin it's like some sort of wires crossed and people were told that every single wall in the city is actually a berliners free right and their free social media platform of choice whatever stupid ass opinions you have write them on the wall just kind of squiggle whatever you want maybe do a little tag it's just grim and it doesn't really matter what type of area you're in cheep Posh esir eal graffiti is Uber all it doesn't really matter graffiti is literally everywhere now depending on who you are you could say Evan it's just a Vibe man it's just super edgy and I love that vibe that's cool I guess I just personally don't think it's much of a Vibe as much as it's more of a someone's mother didn't let them get the shirt they wanted in Hot Topic when they were a kid and now they're saying death to the world and they write Anarchy symbols on everything that'll show them in Berlin graffiti is everywhere even on trees There Is No Escape every tree has some level of graffiti on it you know just just because why just let trees be trees you're in Berlin i' I've got to write my name is La whatever the that's the same guy this guy's lazy I agree oh it's okay hatson oh this area has a lot of graffiti in it does that mean I'm in a dodgy area no welcome to Berlin yeah so no matter where I've been in Berlin I've honestly felt pretty safe like that's an important thing to consider when moving to a place and the energy in every neighborhood has pretty much been very good there's people always around and it never really gives you that dodgy feeling unless you're scared of graffiti so Pro pretty safe now quick Pro I do find that Berlin is actually on the top of their game when it comes to Fashion most all people that I saw out and about in the street were dressed in very trendy gen Z style fashion I'm feeling like dang I am underdressed at every occasion all right I'm going to need you guys to sit down for this one because the next big con about Berlin is about the bread okay sit down please listen hear me out once you have bread in Berlin it's going to ruin bread wherever you're from it's so annoying that's right it's a hidden Pro God damn it you guys have such good bread here I know know it's a meme and it's like oh the Germans travel abroad and they're like the bread is you're right you're right it's just godamn perfect they're just good baked goods everywhere there's so many fresh bakeries and there's just so many items I can't possibly try all of them I tried to have baked goods like two times a day and I still haven't even scratched the surface of like half of the baked goods for sale here and they're all just so good in London we really pride ourselves over our meal deal where you can get an ultr processed sandwich with a drink and a bag of crisps for like £350 hooray whereas you guys can just get a delicious sandwich with some ham and cheese and lettuce on a freshly baked Logan e oh I just want like at least 10% maybe 5% of the baked goods you have in Germany I just want that in London please if you need a quick bite in London and you're on the Underground you've got one option lless cupcakes which if you've ever had it you know it tastes like an underground cushion covered in icing that's what people get excited about but in Berlin you guys are spoiled you've got your crck tashen you've got your vippies your appachan your St snack a pudding tkin and my personal favorite yes the lanac it is a beautiful beautiful piece of baked good imagine if a pretzel had sex with a croissant and guess what their baby is delicious and beautiful and Flaky and a the worst Bakery in Berlin is better than the best bakery in London and that disappoints me also while we're still on the topic of food I have a personal list of my top burgers I've ever had around the entire world and Burgermeister in Berlin is number three sitting firmly there it is such a perfect Smash Burger style burger it's cheap it's amazing it's deserves my rank at number three it's not quite number one or number two but like around the world okay it's it's very good and it also is so darn cheap coming at like less than half the cost of a good burger in London you guys really don't know how good you have it and yes the best Dunner I've ever had in my life was a Dunner Kebab down the road in Frederick's Hine it feels like when you go to Japan and have sushi and then you go to waitrose and have sushi and you're like this is not Sushi that's how it feels now if I ever have a donor very upsetting all right but but back to the cons accept why this city is in 2023 and they still accept only cash in so many places granted yet again comparing it to Munich there are a lot more places that do offer credit card payment M but I still find that there are just too many places that I want to go such as bakeries and different pizza places where oh I I don't have cash on me cuz I'm sorry I thought I was living in the 21st century but culturally Germans just still love their cash things have gotten a little bit less cash Centric after pandemi Levato but it's uh still not up to the standard I would like hey I'm just not a fan of having to Jingle jangle all this weight in my pocket just to get a gosh dang vippy and the next Pro Berlin has an absolutely killer public transit Network that is an absolute must for me in any ideal city it truly is an intuitive system and hopefully this time in a couple weeks or so I should be uploading a full video about this topic comparing the public transit in Berlin to London so stay tuned for that make sure you subscribe and ing the bell and whatnot but as a quick surface level they've got the esbon which is the sneller or faster trains that go around the city as well as cutting straight through you've also got the uban which is the more intricate Network that goes throughout the other neighborhoods as well as the Sten bong the street car the tram God using a tram it just feels like walking but Superior as opposed to having to go underground go through the gate wait for the train get on the tram is just you stay above ground get to see things it's like the bus but better and yes of course they also have buses and they have so many bicycle Lanes like I said there's a lot of parts of Berlin that do feel like it was designed so so well and I was going to save this little tidbit for my video on public transit but I will just say Berlin is running circles around London when it comes to the cost of transit in the UK oh my God it costs like1 to travel around London if you have like a monthly travel card and even if you don't it does add up and if you want to visit anywhere outside of London M it's like 100b if I want to visit the North and I'd love to travel a lot more in the UK but it's just too expensive Germany was like huh you know what would be nice hold my good beer €49 a month gets you unlimited travel around everywhere no you can't take the fast trains with that price but if I go to hurg I can use their public transit Network without paying anything else if I go to Berlin everything there if I go to leig everything there what the it's just so cheap there aren't any turn styles to get into the network so hypothetically you can just go without paying anything at all unless you get which is called being a schatar which I was caught doing in Munich and it cost me like €60 so I should have probably run faster next con I really didn't expect this one I know that there's a stereotype for the French about this but never expected this for a part of Germany Berlin loves smoking smoking is huge here so big in fact that when you're ringing up your groceries at your local shop like in eica right there in front of you is loads of different cigarette brands to choose from like their candy in the US you got got all the different Suites and things so while you're checking up you can kind of go I guess I'll just take this Twix bar same in the UK you got some magazines no Berlin's like why don't you smoke isn't that great literally kill yourself personally I just find cigarettes really disgusting and it wouldn't be as big a deal to me if it only affected the person smoking but it's so disgusting the smell to me that when people are smoking around me which is all the time in Berlin it makes me feel sick and gives me a headache and I just don't want to be around it even when I'm outside whereas in the UK and a lot of parts of the US now you have to go to specifically designated areas to smoke that are further from a building so people walking in don't have to smell your stench guess what Berlin people just go right outside the door and smoke and it's like you want to smoke a cigarette I don't care do it in your home do it away from people you want to smoke marijuana I don't care do it on your own time but once you're affecting other people with it gross also actually while I brought that up of affecting other people as a quick con tidbit but berliners do not know how to queue they are so incredibly selfish and rude when it comes to public Transit basically I just really wish there was some sort of decorum when it comes to waiting for the train in Berlin just stand to the side let people off first it's the way that a society should run so yeah stereotype is that berliners are grumpy and I will agree when it comes to getting on a train and it's not that way in the rest of Germany by the way because I've experienced multiple other cities that never happened once in Munich and people were absolutely off their tits because it was October Fest so just throwing that out there all right the next Pro Berlin has an absolutely Stellar night life supposedly I was not allowed to the berine I don't fit the vibe check but if you are someone that likes going out clubbing likes going out drinking likes going out to different restaurants Berlin has so many vibrant options for that so I did feel like I needed to add that into this video whereas sadly I feel like so many parts of London that used to be really vibrant for nightlife are closing up earlier and earlier and earlier because of all these rich nimes that buy Flats there and go oh I bought a place above a club and now the music's really loud I don't like that well then you shouldn't have bought a place there you dumb dumb instead we all have to to suffer and get pushed further and further out of the city to have a good time at night unlike Berlin where you can party anywhere and break your bottles in the street I guess okay but these are some superficial things let's get into some nitty-gritty stuff the healthc care in Berlin is very very expensive it's somewhat across between the US and the UK system if you're interested in me making an entire video about this please let me know cuz I have done a lot of research and I'm not going to be able to put all of it in this one video but Healthcare in Germany is kind of like a mixture between the US and the UK the US's part they get is that you have to have insurance to be treated however in a more German way it is illegal to be uninsured so you pretty much will have an insurance and there's lots of different ones to choose from that give you different packages depending on if you go to the gym you get a discount oh that's pretty cool and most Germans are part of a statutory insurance program which is done by the government where the more you make the more you have to pay in to the insurance company but the way it mostly works out is 15% of your paycheck needs to go to your health insurance and if you have an employer well actually that's half your employer pays either half depending on if you make like over 60k you can then choose to get private healthcare though that's opening up quite a can of worms which I guess I can go into if I ever make a dedicated video on this topic in the future and I guess while we're on the topic of things costing a lot taxes are very very high in Germany what you've heard it's true it's similar to the system in the UK in that it's quite Progressive except the take-home pay is significantly less so to help convey just how high the taxes are in Germany I found a take-home calculator for both a UK salary and a German salary I used £50,000 for the gross salary in the UK and then use the euro equivalent for Germany take-home pay in the UK was £ 38,2 or the Euro equivalent being 43,6 128 whereas in Germany with that same amount you're actually only bringing home £ 31,2 or € 35,8 n unless you're a member of the church cuz then you've also got the Kirin ster or the church tax well then you're only bringing home 3,436 quid yikes literally 40% of of your paycheck and that's at 50,000 and it does get progressive but what Pros actually come with all these taxes anyway actually quite a few need daycare for your child well that's what your tax is accounted for want to study something after high school maybe get a bachelor's degree that's also included oh what about something a bit more advanced maybe a master's maybe a PhD also included tuition fees are outlawed in Germany the most you'll have to pay is somewhere between 50 and 200 for an admin fee and then there you go it is really nice to see a society that incentivizes so highly an educated populace where an educated populace will also hopefully make the lives of everyone else even better in future Generations now was a huge stereotype British people love talking about the weather however boy berliners will beat them in Spades specifically when it comes to the winter they won't talk about the weather otherwise but even like day after August like it's September 1st berliners lose their happiness they go yes ABA it will be winter very soon and I would be very sad the winter here is abysmal they hate it it's like this massive thing here I have been to Berlin in the winter and you know what it was pretty bad it was like really gray but there was some snow I thought it wasn't too bad but people here think the winter is the worst part about living in Berlin so if you're not used to living in a city that can get really bad Winters maybe Berlin is in for you personally I find the weather in Berlin to be very similar to that of my hometown in New Jersey gets really hot summers and then gets really really cold snowy Winters I like that I like the mixture the UK we're just mild we don't get much of anything in London but the final big Pro of Berlin is that it is truly a super Multicultural City so no matter what part of the world you're from you are sure to be able to fit in and call Berlin your home I've very much enjoyed all the time I've spent in Berlin and being able to be a part of such a lovely and vibrant City it's a bit rough around the edges at times but at the end of the day aren't we all I think Berlin can be best summed up in the words of its ex- mayor from 2003 clous Vite when he said Berlin is AR ABA sexy Berlin is poor but sexy that's the vibe any who thank you very much for watching if all goes to plan I should have another video on my channel sometime in the next couple weeks or so spoken completely aldut where I tell you all my funny little stories of things that have happened to me since I've gotten in Berlin and boy have things gotten awkward otherwise if you'd like to see the first video I ever made in German I'll link that right there from way back when I lived in Munich anyway thanks for watching and I'll see you guys next Sunday [Music] goodbye oh

Channel: Evan Edinger

Views: 83,514

Keywords: berlin, living in berlin, pros and cons, pros and cons of berlin, germany, deutschland, evan edinger, 2023

Id: N1DGHuNcFDc

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 12 2023