Since I’ve been in Berlin, I’ve had only a few major priorities:
- Get a German phone number
- Get to know the city
- Practice German
- Find an apartment
The other priorities have seemed to fall into place, but the process of finding an apartment in Berlin has been slightly more elusive to me. Coming from the Ann Arbor housing market, it’s been a bit of a shock. This is also based on my own personal experience in Ann Arbor, which may be skewed:
- Freshman Year: Double dorm (it’s a given)
- Sophomore Year: Single dorm (not a great decision, but whatever)
- Junior Year: Had friends who invited me to a 5-person apartment on Frat-Row, so I went with it.
- Senior Year: Duplex with 2 friends that I found and they agreed.
- Post-Grad Year: Had friends invite me to a 4-person house on the quiet side of town.
- BERLIN: E-mail millions of people who may or may not e-mail you back, call people in uncomfortable German and leave even more uncomfortable voice mails, visit places that aren’t actually what you want but you have to go because you have no other options at the moment, and then maybe get something that you want, after filling out a bunch of paperwork in a language you only partially know.
Yes, I’m complaining a lot. Like I said, this is just totally out of my previous experience. Luckily though, I’ve found a place to live! At the beginning of October I’m taking over a sublet in Neukölln from a friend of my wonderful, beautiful sister’s, and I get to take care of their mail and plants. It’s close to my school, close to both S+U Bahn, and above all totally my style.
Another interesting aspect of finding an apartment, is that the concept of a WG is much more loaded. It’s not just a means-to-an-end sort of situation. There’s a great article here about the “WG-Life.” Most fascinating to me is that there is a stigma against people who only room with other people for the economic advantage. In Ann Arbor, everyone’s just trying to get by, so it’s not a big deal. Perhaps the difference though, is that there isn’t much of an economic advantage necessarily. You can find a studio apartment for about the same price as a room in a WG, so it mostly depends on the company (or lack of company), you want to keep.
FASCINATING.
Although I’ll be living by myself at first, I’m excited for the chance to experience The WG-Life at some point, and to live in various districts. In Berlin, there doesn’t seem to be quite as much cultural difference between districts as in, say, NYC or Chicago, but it’s clear simply by biking around that there is an ebb and flow for each part of town.