Ich Bin ein Berliner (I Wish)
ACHTUNG! The window is quickly closing on the dreamy dream of moving to Berlin to live in a cheap flat and be an artist. (It seems the cheap flats are disappearing as wealthy Germans buy up housing stock as relatively stable investments because somebody—you?—wrecked the world economy.)
But it’s not too late! Only almost too late. On Craigslist at this moment is a studio for 290 Euro/month. There doesn’t appear to be a shower and you share a bathroom with a shop, but I think you could deal with that. You could make a painting and trade your neighbors your painting for a shower. Artist life! There is subway tile and a window. Internet is included. Buy a roundtrip ticket for $700 and you’re there. Do it. Do itttt. Do it while you have your youth.
Why a roundtrip ticket though?
so they know you’re planning to leave!
@Logan Sachon Oh, right! Otherwise they won’t let you through customs or something? I’m not as international as I look.
@iffie My experience (admittedly this was 10 years ago) is that the German customs people were extremely blase about our entry. We did have round-trip tickets (we actually bought them because they were cheaper than one-way!) but nobody cared to see them or even ask us any vaguely probing questions.
I’m reasonably sure that I technically did not violate German immigration law — I think you get 90 consecutive days and 180 days in total out of a year, which I didn’t go over because I left the country a couple of times on other trips — but one thing that staying there really brought home is that it is really possible to live someplace illegally without much consequence … as long as nothing goes wrong that would necessitate some sort of interaction with the state. We rented an apartmtne, for instance, but didn’t register w/the German police the way you’re supposed to when you move anywhere or get an ID card or anything like that. Which meant we couldn’t get a bank account, so we had to pay our bills at the post office. Minor things like that. But in particular if you aren’t trying to claim any kind of benefits or work a German job (my then-gf and I both had work-at-home jobs, so we could work anywhere our laptops were and our American-dollar-paychecks were deposited in American bank accounts, from which we could withdraw Euros at German ATMs), nobody really bothers you. Being a white American helps, I’m sure.
I lived in Berlin for 5 months is ’02 an It was really really great! I probably would have stayed longer but I was living w/my German-speaking girlfriend but then she broke up w/me a month after we got there and things got awkward. But still! I sincerely think Berlin in the ’00s is like Paris in the ’20s — full of culture (because it’s the capital) but poor/affordable (because it’s in the ex-East).
I’m not sure you’re supposed to be able to live in that place…
“supposed to” is such a restrictive term!
Goddammit rich people you ruin everything.