Daniel Salvagni — Yet another software engineer
Hallo Leute
I’ve moved again. This time to Germany. Luísa and I are now living in Berlin. We arrived earlier this year, in March, after eleven hours on a train from Italy with our two cats aboard. I have some updates.
It’s being great so far. We got the last days of winter and the beginning of spring here. It was funny how the season transition happened and how fast it was. One day, the park in front of our building was pretty grey and full of dry trees and suddenly it all turned out green and full of life. People seems to like to spend the time lying down there on sunny days. Also, it hosts a open market on Saturdays with fruits, vegetables and also different types of quick meals – from panzarotto to raclette – and on Sundays there’s a flea market with antiques and second-hand stuff. I’d say it’s a pretty busy place both on weekend and week days. I really like it and it’s pretty close from home. We didn’t know this apartment would have such great location since we didn’t looked up to many things about Berlin before moving. It was more like: OK, so we are moving to Berlin, let’s find an available place to stay. We were lucky.
The place we are staying right now is a sublet. Berlin is not the easiest place to rent an apartment. To be honest, it’s becoming pretty hard to find a good place with a decent rent price and we’re still looking for one to be a permanent place. Moreover, it’s way too bureaucratic to apply for an apartment that isn’t a sublet here. In the mid of August we’d be moving to another apartment in the same quarter for an one-year contract. Although I think it would better to have already an apartment with permanent contract to move in, I’m starting to think that it could be good as well, because we wouldn’t be stuck on a long-term contract. I can safely say it’d be ok for now.
Besides the rent issue, Berlin is such a great city! There are so many things to do here and it’s easy to leave the not-so-much-busy city to a more quite place. Or even, just to spend a day in the park, close to the river or a lake. There’s the Treptower Park on a 30min walk distance from home that Luísa and I love to go to spend some time. It’s the place I like to go for jogging, walking or just to put my feet on the water – not sure if the last part is recommended 🙈.
I’ve recently got a road bike and I’m excited to explore the city beyond the popular touristic spots. If you like cycling you’d be pretty excited to be here as well. For commuting is safe and the city is quite flat, so you can ride long distances without struggling on hills. I’m trying to ride in some Komoot recommended routes according to my fitness level and I’ve found some amazing paved routes to ride safely with great views as well. I’ll probably write later about it.
I know that mostly of the good feeling about Berlin is due to the summer that also brings a good weather and consequently changes people’s mood for the better, but I really hope that during the winter we can have a great time here. For that to happen, we already made some plans: 1) we left to study German during the winter so we can enjoy the summer now. 2) we also left behind museums, theater and all those touristic places that are not open air; 3) same for coffee shops and wine bars :)
This is another chapter of our lives.
BTW, I’m on Instagram as @changelog.md and I’m sharing some pictures from the places I go and some daily events as well.