Notes on Moving to Berlin

 

In any other time, moving from Dusseldorf to Berlin probably feels like something that resembles normal. Of course, it was for from normal, so here's a smattering of the abnormal things I noticed on the long road from the Dorf to Berlin.

Bringing Up the Toddler

 

These aren't normal times, and no I'm not talking about this Covid crisis, I'm talking about our Toddler Times. Moving across the country with a toddler is tough, so tough that Berlin felt like it was on the moon at times, not the other end of Germany.

Let's start with the stuff. Back in Toronto, I'd invite a few of the same friends to help me move (I moved five times in four years), and while I grumbled about how much stuff I had, they loved a Marshall Move because there was so little to move, and they still got free beer. I was a minimalist and didn't know it.

 

Then we had a baby and our stuff expanded exponentially. There are loads of baby clothes, blankets, towels, and wipes. There's a changing table, a bed, a bassinet, a wardrobe, and boxes, small tables and chairs, and bags of toys. There are toiletries, creams, lotions, powders, diapers, and other baby things whose purpose befuddles me. 

 

Plus, we moved into that last flat in the Dorf with the intention of staying a while and bought some decent, non-disposable furniture that we wanted to bring with us to faraway Berlin.

 

 

Outsource the tough stuff

 

It's funny how easily I pissed away my time before I had a kid. Call of Duty, fixing my bike brakes on my own, watching Sons of Anarchy, waiting in line at bars, and the list goes on. As a parent, I'm painfully aware of how little time I have, both hours in a day (because that's potentially sleep I'm missing out on) and hours in my life (because the more tired I get, the more I'm of aware of my own mortality).

 

For our move, we hired fixers, a German start-up called Smoovr that hired a moving company for us, estimated the needed truck space, dealt with the city parking permits, and so on. It lifted a small burden off our shoulders, but it helped, because this was the stuff that would start out a small and then metastasize into major, German-language problems.

 

A caveat. I'm not saying you should outsource everything but, until we invent time travel, you can't get the time you waste back. It isn't like money, you can't earn more time.

 

 

Berlin housing is nuts

 

Everything you heard about Berlin housing is true. It's crazy. Not Toronto crazy, but it's getting there. Prices are rising year on year on a dwindling amount of homes. Even during a pandemic, people were lining up to view flats, crowding into small-ish apartments, and ignoring the social distancing rules.

 

The shortage also brings out the predators. The City of Berlin implemented a rent freeze, which might not be legal, depending on what Germany's highest court decides. While everyone waits for the final judgement, landlords must charge lower rents. But, they advertise the non-frozen rent. Then, when you visit a flat, they flash you a pen-scribbled calculation of the reduced rent and recommend the difference gets set aside, because when the law is struck down, they say, you must repay that amount retroactively.

 

In one case, a landlord offered us two contracts, one for the apartment and another for use of the cellar and bike racks in the courtyard, so he could charge the standard full price for the apartment from the two reduced rental contracts. Sneaky stuff. When I asked what happens if the law is struck down and I'd be facing two full rent payments, he said I could trust him to keep it reduced. Of course, he wouldn't put that in writing. I tried to negotiate, he didn't budge. 

 

This wasn't even a nice flat. It was a ground floor unit on a busy Neukolln street, across from a bar, within site of a playground where two drunks started a sloppy, but very real, fist fight while kids played on like nothing out of the normal was going on.

 

I turned down the apartment, but he didn't seem to care: there were plenty of desperate home hunters who would probably sign both contracts and regret it later.

 

Nothing goes to plan

 

I've written before about how enjoying Berlin requires going in without a plan. But! You need a plan to move. Yet! You also need the flexibility to change that plan or at least allow events and circumstances that are beyond your control to do what they're going to do.

 

The elevator is out of service when the movers arrive? Lend a hand and carry the stuff up the stairs, so they're not working all night. There's no storage room in the basement? Use what you've got (and accept a generous offer from your father-in-law to put storage shelves in a closet).

 

Berlin, and the world in general, but especially Berlin, is indifferent to your wishes, whims, and plans. When your plans work out, be grateful. When they don't, look for another way, because the universe won't budge. This is something I'm still working on (replace universe with toddler, and you'll understand) but it's useful to remember.

 

In those times, I think of something someone said about Hungarians: "A Hungarian is someone who enters a revolving door behind you and comes out ahead of you." So, when things don't go as planned, I try to tap into my inner Hungarian and see how I can use the situation to get ahead.

 

Life Lessons from the Dorf

We've left Dusseldorf. The flat has been vacated, we're registered at the Burgeramt, and a new chapter of our lives in Berlin is beginning. But, after living in the Dorf for almost five years, it would be hard, even for me, not to have learned a few life lessons there.

 

 

Stay out of the bike lane

 

When I was in Dresden, my local friend kept on telling me to stay out of the bike lane. What bike lane? All I saw was the sidewalk and another sidewalk right beside it with the bricks laid differently. Then a bike shot past us on the other sidewalk. Oh.

 

It's so easy to poke fun at the German love for bureaucracy, rules, and regulations, along with the joy some Germans have for lecturing others to abide by those rules. But, one of the upsides of this strange respect for the rules is that things run very well here. There are line-ups at the government office, but everyone waits their turn. Bridges get built. Cars roll off the assembly line. Civic life and business chug on

 

In fact, things go smoother when you go a bit beyond their rules. When I was applying for my permanent residence, I brought two copies of all my required papers to the government office. The official's expression brightened when she saw my filing cabinet worth of documents, and I got my permanent residence without a hitch.

 

 

You don't have to love Dusseldorf to appreciate it

 

Before we arrived in Dusseldorf, we both lived in Budapest and Kata lived in Berlin, both are exciting, bustling capital cities. Our first impression of the Dorf was a small, dull rich person's village. Of course, first impressions are usually biased, not entirely correct, and never fair. Dusseldorf is a rich town, but it wasn't dull. It's an art city, with some fantastic galleries. Its Altstadt is a big, sloppy party place that a younger, more wild Marshall would've appreciated. It sits on the east side of the Rhine, which makes for some lovely sunsets. It's international, filled with people from all over the world and restaurants serving every type of cuisine to feed them. We didn't love the Dorf, but we liked living there.

None of that exciting stuff really matters

 

Sometimes we craved a solid outdoor drinking spot, like what we loved in Budapest. Sometimes we wanted a great weekend program, like what we had in Berlin. It's easy to look around at any new city, and think: Well, it doesn't have these things...

 

Yet, day to day life in the Dorf is fantastic. You could ride your bike anywhere in the city in a half hour. The transit was mostly reliable. Our son had a great Kita, or daycare, in a park right on a pond. There was always a park nearby. There were forests and hill nearby for hiking. You could walk along the Rhine on a warm summer evening and drink a cold beer. The city was so safe that the city's "bad" neighbourhood looked like a good neighbourhood in Toronto. "Exciting" can be overrated.

 

Never live in the Altstadt

 

Just don't do it. Drink there. Shop there. Don't live there.

 

Don't let the big things become small

 

The first time I saw the Cologne Dom, I gasped in awe. I never got tired of seeing it. When I saw it lit up at night, I snapped photos like a tourist, while a Cologne friend walked by without looking at it. It was something he had grown up with, something he had gotten used to.

 

When I started working at my firm's Cologne office, I would get off at the main station, which is right beside the Dom, and pause to take it in. I felt so fortunate to be able to work near this architectural wonder, and I think my positive disposition about commuting to Cologne came from never taking that exposure to a world wonder for granted.

The Cologne Dom, one dark and foggy night.

Most people appreciate the effort

 

The only people who will laugh at you for trying your piss poor beginner German are the assholes. And who cares what they think? Most people who endured my German were usually happy to see a foreigner make an honest effort and would answer slowly or switch to English if the topic was important. Many Germans understand their language isn't easy for foreigners to learn – something many native English speakers often forget about their own language.

Friends: Quality matters more than quantity

 

Expats in a faraway city are often drawn to each other. There's nothing wrong with this, but some of those friendships are defined by their time and place, so you drift apart when someone moves back home. It happens. Some expats float from one country to another without making meaningful friendships that last. We've managed to maintain some of our friendships from Budapest and Berlin. In our time in the Dorf, many people have come and gone, but we've been lucky to make some quality friends. We don't have many, but the friendships we've formed are strong and meaningful, and that's probably what made Dusseldorf so livable for us.

 

 

Travel in the Time of Covid

A rare sight: No one taking in thr East Side Gallery

When I checked into my Berlin pension, the desk person told me I was the only one staying in there that night. Travel restrictions were still in place, so you could only book a hotel room if you were on business, which meant budget lodgings, like my pension, in the heart of Berlin's touristy shopping district wasn't a a big draw.

Just outside, along the shopping strip in Charlottenburg, shoppers ignored the 1.5 meter of social distancing to line up in front of their favourite brand name stores, which still had to maintain a capacity limit inside. Some shoppers wore masks, but a freakish amount of people didn't bother with masks. For someone who had been locked down for two months, this was disconcerting.

That Saturday was the first day that Berlin loosened its quarantine laws. It was also a warm, sunny spring day. A powerful combination for people cooped up for two months in their flats. So people gathered outside in the parks and patios to walk, drink, flirt, and simply walk around.

Yet, the country was still locked down, even as restrictions were lifing in Berlin. This meant the city belonged to the Berliners. They sat along the Spree and sipped beer in the sun. They shopped, or at least they lined up to shop. The crowded onto patios to eat burgers and kebab. The tourist spots, on the other hand, were deserted.

On my way to an apartment viewing, I walked along the East Side Gallery. Usually there are hoards of people snapping selfies in front of the murals on the old sections of the Berlin Wall. I had the gallery to myself. The Berliners had no time for something they see every day.

Later I came back to my lodgings. The desk clerk had already left for the night, leaving me alone in the dim pension (unlike a hotel, there's no 24/7 staff on-site). 

In the morning, I ate breakfast in the grand old dining room alone - the old hardwood floor creaking loudly underfoot as I refilled my coffee. Through the tall windows, the city was already coming to life. Chairs and tables scrapped pavement as they were being laid out in the cafe below, currywurst stands were opening, and traffic was humming along.

Inside, the pandemic seemed like it still was going on. Outside it seemed like it was over.