[German] - You have very little time. Please rush through ... Have a great trip! - Thanks! - You're welcome. - Bye!
[English] Hey, hey! I'm Conor, the Language Tsar and welcome to Berlin!
So a quick look at travel blogs and
youtubers when they come here, travel
youtubers especially when they come
here to Berlin is that you'll see that
apparently Berlin is so cheap but
when I speak to people who live here who
are Berliners I moved here a few years
ago they all complain about one thing
and that's the rise in prices and they
claim is not cheap at all. So who's right?
Today let's go into the center of Berlin.
I'm here at the moment in Kreuzberg and see what the prices are really like.
So they're just putting up the Christmas tree behind me at the Brandenburger Tor.
[German] - Hi everyone! I'm Lina Vasquez from the Busy Linguist.
I'm going to outline to you a little about the living costs in Berlin.
How is it to live here? On average - expensive.
We have for example an apartment in Baumschulenweg
And there a 2-bedroom apartment costs €750 per month.
Overall, in terms of cost of living, it's not bad but not the cheapest city in the world.
[English] - So right here behind me you can see
Checkpoint Charlie now you probably know
that Berlin was divided during the
Cold War so from by 1946 to 1989 and
that had a profound effect on the economy here
because if you had an industry or an
entrepreneur even if you were in West
Berlin which was capitalist as opposed
to the East of Berlin that was
obviously under Soviet rule and communist,
you were still a little bit fearful about
you know a Soviet invasion maybe they'd
overrun West Berlin and as a result
most of these factories and companies
moved from Berlin to West Germany at the time
in order to be sure that they wouldn't
lose their property and their
investments and that meant that Berlin
itself the western part was also
deindustrialized. West Berlin had in fact
been subsidized by the West German
government and Berlin as a city has
continued to be subsided ever since which
is quite unusual for a capital.
So in the 1990s, people believed, or a lot of investors
believed, that this city would boom as a
result of the fall of the Wall but actually it
took a long time. We're now you know
twenty-eight years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall and it's only now that the
city is really becoming economically
strong in the last few years.
This explains why the city has stayed so
remarkably cheap for so long.
One thing I have noticed that is
more expensive here than I was expecting
is the price of transport in a taxi and
that's in part, I guess, because services like
Uber are not allowed here.
More competition is better for consumers,
customers, travelers like you and me so
why is it bad that's a good question?
So another thing that I've noticed a
little bit more expensive than I was
expecting here in Berlin is
accommodation. Now definitely it's cheaper
than Paris or London - no doubt about that
but actually I rented apartment on
Airbnb and it was a bit more expensive
than I was expecting um one of the
reasons is that Airbnb is extremely
limited here in Berlin and that's been a
decision by local government maybe was
about two years ago. Now the arguments to
restrict Airbnb is that then the centers
of the cities become full of tourists
because then not just hotels and hostels
are renting out accommodations also
local people who are maybe renting an
entire apartment, maybe investors are
coming in and actually buying up a
building and making that available for
travelers. For you and me who are traveling
around, limiting supply means higher
prices for us which kind of which sucks
right because we got to pay more money.
So write me what you think about the
prices here in Berlin in general. Do
you agree with the local government's
policy on Airbnb and also about Uber
being banned here. Write me in the comment
section. I love hearing your comments
and whether you think Berlin is cheap or
expensive for you and what's your
experience here especially if you're a
Berliner and how you feel about it.
In the last video when I told you about
Düsseldorf and their amber stripe
instead of a light, well here in Berlin
we have Ampelmann
we have the red Ampelmann and then you
have the green Ampelmann and he's kind
of a funny character who directs you
across safely the streets of Berlin or
paradoxically stops and makes you wait for
traffic like right there there we got a
green let's go!
So I am in Kreuzberg which the area I'm saying
where I've rented with Airbnb.
It's an ethnically mixed area so you'll see a lot
of Turkish places to eat.
Another ethnicity is Southeast Asian for example. A
lot of good food here for cheaper prices
but the area does have a little bit
reputation for crime it's a little bit
rundown you could say 'ghetto-esque'
but yeah it's also a little bit of a
Berlin vibe here. Definitely a very
famous part of the city to come and better prices.
So an important thing to remember when
trying to decide if a city or a country
is expensive or cheap is to remember
that these words are relative. For a lot
of these vloggers and bloggers it seemed
like they were comparing the prices to
big European capital cities or maybe
even North America like London, Paris,
Amsterdam, New York and not comparing the
prices here to maybe other cities in
Germany or to other cities in Europe in
general, if we take the continent as a
whole. So it's very important to remember
that cheap to you does that mean the
same as cheap to someone else. It all
depends on what we're comparing it to.
So I've been putting together a course
to help you become a traveler and not a
tourist and actually finances and budgets
and the price of things how to get you
know things cheaper when you're
traveling. Just gotta go and subscribe to
that it's completely free just put in
your email address and then we'll whisk
that off to you and you can find that
the link to that in the description
below the video. So go do that if you're
not already subscribed. So now this
building behind me is the Reichstag and
that's the German parliament but it's
actually no one working there right now
because Germany doesn't have a government
so until Merkel manages to negotiate a
new coalition it's 'Auf Wiedersehen!' (Goodbye)
'Grüße aus Berlin!' ('Greetings from Berlin') and 'Bis zum nächsten Video' ('Until the next video')!
So if you have enjoyed this video, give it
a big thumbs up!
Whack that notification bell beside the
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subscribing and see you in Bucharest!
