I was also very impressed with Berlin's subway system-the U Bahn and the outdoor S-Bahn-They run all over the city, they run in a timely manner, they run all night on the weekends and they've got a sexy german female voice recording telling you to watch the doors and stops.

With the exception of the brats-slimmer and less fatty and greasy than american made ones-I wasn't overly impressed with the food in berlin, with the exception of a visit to a street fair in............Kruezberg: I was able to drink great beer, nosh on baked bread coming straight out of brick ovens on sight, and latin food-piaella and cuba libre drinks. Music of various kinds-techno, jazz, and blues.

Walking through Kruezburg reminded me of the east village. Lots of older apartment buildings and graffiti. I did notice quite a few thai, indonesian, and turkish restaurants--if I ever go back I'll be sure to take advantage of them.

Lots of great museums and galleries too.

Yes, it puts seattle to shame.

Also, one of the byproducts of large crowds and big machines in public transit is... heat. Simple chemistry and physics.

As far as the whole drinking thing goes, it's obvious that no one is thinking of the children. It's amazing to me that any of them make it to adulthood.

I used to think it was some sort of post-Marshall-plan anti-American semiotic posture, but then I stayed in my friend's 4th story Brussels walkup, built in the early 1840s and heated with disturbingly rickety gas or oil heaters, ill-fitting but lovely dual balcony doors notwithstanding.

The layering is a reflection of the architecture, which dates back to before this fair city erected its' first log cabin.

(for those who have not yet visited Deutschland, the payload usually doesn't drop into the water in the bowl, it instead lands on a short shelf beneath you and is then theoretically washed off when you flush)

The middle east is a different story, however, and even worse if you happen to be left-handed.

But, how's the sushi? Turkish sandwiches are great, sausage is of course necessary, but how are they with the maki?

But yes, the Doner Kebaps are amazing...so good, I don't know why we don't have them here in Seattle. And most all of Germany is so environmental, it just makes sense for them to layer, instead of rely on air-conditioning or heaters. In winter the layers are even more pronounced.

Having lived there a good long while, I'll also add this: yes, the bars don't ever close, and yes, Berliners have elevated urban life into a marvelous everyday art form. However, take that fabulous public transit to a neighborhood just outside the ones that attract people your age and younger and Turkish families, and you'll find some pretty sleepy streets after 7pm. There may be a few nightclubs there, but the noise will be contained behind tightly closed doors.

You see, Germans over 30 or so don't go whining to their elected officials if their neighbors are a nuisance - they get right up in their faces and let them know. If you walk up the steps to your apartment house in the middle of the night and make the slightest noise, your neighbors will let you know. If your recycling is sorted inaccurately, oh, you'll hear about it. It's a very direct, confrontational culture if you break the sometimes unwritten, unexplicit, communally-understood rules. It's also been a much more homogenous culture than we've got here in the USA, where every bit of civility has to be written down into carefully-crafted law (smoking allowed exactly how many feet from the door?), since Americans can't rely on the assumption that everyone understands an unwritten rule book.

It's increasingly a bullshit assumption in Berlin, though. All those Turkish people living next to the (sometimes too-) vibrant nightlife? Nobody handed them a rule book. Nobody even handed their born-in-Berlin children German citizenship. I'm gonna guess they're not feeling real empowered to go down and tell the bar owner or patrons how they feel about the noise, drunken nuisances, whatever.

Again, Berlin is one of the greatest, most interesting cities in the world, and I love it, and not every Turkish person is oppressed and not every ethnically German person is uptight yet confrontational. I'm just trying to paint in some additional details.

A lot of us would like to do it or do it more often if we could, but can afford it financially or timewise.

As for making a living, that depends. As Erica mentioned, unemployment in the city is around 20%, much higher than in the rest of the country. As an American, you need some sought-after skills and great contacts. A lot of Germans love Berlin as much as you might, but leave the city in frustration with the job market.

The ol' teaching English gig? Good luck on that "save money" criterion you mention. Unless you have a very technical, sought-after angle (American legal system English, financial services English, etc.)

Like representin' the ol USA? There's the foreign service angle. I don't think you get to just choose where you want to live after jumping through all the hoops to get the job, though.

A great way of making it happen would be a situation where you did some kind of freelance work for American clients while living over there, and then transition that to German clients. The very few professional services companies (like web design and such) that survived in Berlin after the tech bust have employees that find themselves on the train to Frankfurt, Hamburg, etc. all the time. 'Cause that's where the Euros are.