Don’t get me wrong. Berlin has been on my list for a long time. I’ve been to Germany twice before, once on my first backpacking trip as a very fortunate 17-year-old and once on a business trip, but I’d never visited Berlin. Making it to this historic city with a reputation for its club scene and heavy metal music was something I wanted to do some day, but it wasn’t exactly a priority. It was on the list of places I’d like to visit “some day.” That’s a very long list.

Things changed when I saw a Slack post in a Denver tech professionals community of which I’m a member. A fellow member, an American who fell in love with a German woman, was looking for someone interested in doing a house swap. An even exchange, two months at a place in Denver for two months in her apartment in Berlin. My interest was piqued, and I immediately reached out.

For almost a year now, I’ve been laying low at home in Denver, not traveling and living somewhat austerely. Following my last trip to Buenos Aires and Mexico City, I went back to Denver to re-group and find a new gig. The number of fully remote jobs in the US has dwindled considerably from the pandemic high point, and layoffs in the tech industry flooded the market with candidates. I realized I needed to be prepared to accept something that would not allow the freedom of movement that I was looking for.

To my delight, I ended up joining a very early stage, unfunded, pre-revenue, FULLY remote start-up – accepting a position that pays only 20% of my target salary until we land investment or sufficient sales revenue. I absolutely love it. I’m working with a former grad school professor and mentor, and we’re doing what I think is important work. The low cash compensation has felt pretty limiting, however, and I’ve been reluctant to get back on the road. My emergency fund is supplementing my income, and I want to make it last as long as possible just in case it takes longer for the start-up to get off the ground than we’d like.

Another reason I’ve been limiting expenses is to save for a trip that has been on the calendar for several years and for which I started actively investing almost a year ago – the Summer Olympics in Paris. I’m kind of an Olympics nerd, and this will be the fifth time I’ve attended in total but my first Summer Games. Attending the Olympics is a bit of a production. Purchasing event tickets is a process that starts a year in advance, and planning ahead for lodging and flights is the only way I’m comfortable with getting the best price. Apparently you can do quite well if you wait until the last minute on lodging, but that’s not how I roll.

When the chance came to go to Berlin, I thought it sounded like a great opportunity – if only I could change the airline ticket to Paris I already bought. To my great, unintended fortune, I had purchased a fully changeable ticket. Adjusting the dates and the destination would cost me exactly zero dollars. Plus, the cost of living in Berlin is about 30% less than Denver so with a free place to stay, I’d actually be saving money by spending two months away. Game on!

First Impressions

Having been here in Berlin less than a week, I’m obviously still getting settled and figuring things out, but I do have a couple of early observations.

First, there is a weird, mutually conflicting thing where people here seem to have both more and less respect for other people’s property.

When it comes to bicycles, they definitely have more respect. Possibly because the city is incredibly flat from what I have seen so far, bikes are everywhere and are commonly used as a form of transport. On my first early morning walk the day after I arrived, I saw hundreds of bikes locked to both bike racks and street signs. What was unusual about that was that I didn’t see a single one with tires or seats that had been stripped. In Denver, bikes are pretty safe during the day, but I’d never leave one out overnight on a busy public street. Here, that’s just how it works.

When it comes to street art, on the other hand, there is a very noticeable lack of respect. Before arriving, I’d read about the Kreuzberg neighborhood in which I’m staying. It was described as very artsy. I took that to mean there would be lots of public murals, which I always enjoy seeing. My hometown of Denver is loaded with them, and so is my hope-to-be future South American home of Medellín.

At least in Kreuzberg, there’s much, much less of that sort of thing. Fine, I can accept that, but what’s stood out to me is that what little street art that exists is almost always covered with some jackass’s tag, either simple or elaborate. Seriously? You have to ruin someone else’s art just to write your name in a fancy font? Obviously I’ve seen that before elsewhere, but here it’s so common that I thought it worth calling out.

My second observation is the difference in how the locals watch sporting events. This year Germany is hosting the Eurocup, the European Football Championship, which is held every four years, two years offset from the World Cup. In the US, we gather in bars and in homes to watch big sporting events. In Berlin, people amass on the sidewalk around TVs set up for public viewing outside restaurants, convenience stores, barber shops, and anywhere else proprietors decide to get in on the action.

It’s legal to drink beer on the street in Berlin so there’s certainly no less alcohol consumption compared to how Americans do sports. As a side note Germans even have a word for the beer you drink on the way to where you are going – Wegbier. Google Translate calls that a “takeawaybeer,” which is not any English word I’ve ever heard. When in the States, I’ll keep calling it a road soda, thank you very much.

Finally, before going into a tourist stop that I’ll talk about in a future post, I ducked into a snack shop for a quick bite and opted for the most substantial thing they offered, a hot dog. To say I was underwhelmed is a major understatement. Judge for yourself…

Lot more to come on Berlin in the weeks to come. For now, tschüss!