Sommerwochenende in die Berlinstadt

Berlin has been completely and utterly amazing. On par with the likes of London and New York City.

First impressions:

  • It is a big city, but you don’t feel rushed.  Whenever I took the Tube or the MRT, I always have this sense of urgency in going from A to B.  In Berlin, I don’t have that sense of urgency.
  • The public infrastructure here is just amazing.  I am a big believer in having good infrastructure and that living in a city with very good public infrastructure is an absolute must. This is the one thing that I miss living in London.  And it’s not even unpleasant public transport like the MRT in New York City.
  • The people here have been nice so far, as long as you are also polite and mindful of your surroundings.  Not knowing that much in German, I’ve learnt to more aware of my surroundings now that I need to rely on other cues (visual, written, body language) for communication (while I am aiming to be better at the language).  Anyway – just be polite – and you get plenty of “Danke schön!”.  But, I’ve had greetings (“Guten morgen!”) from the neighbours, a lot of “Danke schön!” and so on.
  • Hugely individualistic city…I feel that you are not being judged by others… so long as you do the above (be polite, be courteous) then it’s fine.
  • Things have a certain set of order and organization…whenever I am in a new situation (a new group, a new city), I try to find out what the social rules and norms are and I then try to adjust and meet the ‘social rules’.

Right now, I can write some basic German one-liners but whenever I speak a greeting, I have a tendency to whisper and this is mainly from not being used to vocalizing the language.  Hopefully I will improve as I spend more time here!