Lifestyle and Shopping in Berlin

It's Paris in the '20s and New York City in the '70s; it's poor, but sexy; and it's attracting the young and the restless from all four corners of the world. Lifestyle in Berlin is a lesson in bohemian living, and expats moving to the once divided German capital should be prepared to immerse themselves in something even left of "alternative".

One sixth of the city is unemployed and 40 percent are young people, it's no wonder residents take certain creative liberties with even the most stock-standard of practices. In short, experimentation has become tradition in the city, and those easily offended may end up spending more time indoors than they ever imagined.

Lifestyle in Berlin pivots around the aesthetic of poverty and the innovation it begets. Fashion, design, music, art and architecture are many people's mainstay and their source of enjoyment. These "modern hedonists", as they're called, have blurred the lines between work and play, and the result is a constantly changing and culturally rich metropolis.

Internationally acclaimed outdoor festivals come to rest in the summertime; galleries have stopped squatting and have started opening up shop; and the fashion district is bursting with enough cuts and colour to fuel the counterculture movement for decades to come. 

Berlin's nightlife is second to none; boasting full-throttle sex clubs, dimly-lit cafés and even opportunities to enjoy a night as a prim and proper opera goer.

Specifically, the districts of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichsain and Kreuzberg are saturated with scenesters and any space is likely to become a venue for young Berlin to dance the night away.

Those who enjoy anything with an intellectual edge will find a fertile nesting ground in hip Berlin.
 

Shopping in Berlin

In a city as innovative as Berlin, lifestyle and fashion go hand-in-hand. It follows that shopping in Berlin is an experience defined by both style and originality.

While each area in Berlin has its own commercial hub, the two most well known in West and East Berlin respectively are Ku'damm (Kurfurstendamm) and Mitte.

Ku'damm is a two mile (4km) stretch of avenue in Charlottenburg where everything from department stores to designer outlets can be found. This area is akin to Berlin's Fifth Avenue and can seem a bit claustrophobic with both locals and tourists during peak power-shopping season.

Alternatively, Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin are beginning to rival Ku'damm as the city's premier shopping mile. Once host to a bevy of tacky souvenir shops, these areas have become home to a number of well-known and luxurious fashion houses in recent years.

Mitte on the other hand is full of funky finds for those more artistically inclined. In contrast to West Berlin's tradition of mainstream megastores, this East Berlin area boasts an array of second-hand shops and flea markets.