Happy Pride Month! Let’s talk about how to celebrate Pride with pride in Berlin. We at Red Tape collected some info to help ourselves and you celebrate Pride by supporting its community.
*in Germany Pride is often called CSD or Christopher Street Day – read about that here.
If you’ve ever wondered how to adopt an animal in Berlin, it’s time to get to know the Tierheim [Animal Shelter]! So many sweeties are waiting for love and their forever homes. With a bit of time and patience, the caregivers at Tierheim Berlin can match you up with your best buddy.
Get ready to meet some seriously inspiring expats in Berlin – who happen to be our clients here at Red Tape Translation!
It’s no surprise that we encounter many impressive, courageous folks in our line of work: people who come from all over the world, determined to find a way to live and work here in Berlin. This path is not the easiest but it certainly is rewarding for those who genuinely want desire a life in Germany and are willing, and able, to keep at it through the ups and downs.
Which brings us to a new series we want to share with you…
Preußen Park is a beautiful, large park in Wilmersdorf, with a delicious history of Thai street food: from April to October each year, the park becomes home to a giant outdoor street-food market, with vendors selling their best Thai dishes to a hungry crowd. In the past the market was pretty much unregulated. Basically a bunch of cooks and vendors just set up shop on picnic blankets across the grassy field and casually sold their ridiculously good food to whomever happen to come to the park that day.
And while there were some advantages to this – for example, on sunny day I could just walk to the park and get lunch with my friends from German class without any pre-planning – the general lack of organization also ended up being problematic…especially when it came to trash and litter. Seeing as Berliners aren’t exactly known for attending to cleanliness, even when forced (!), you can imagine the state the park was left in at the end of the day.
When I first heard about ANOHA Berlin – the Jewish Museum’s brand new kids’ museum in Berlin – I jumped at the chance to take my daughters. A year later, I finally managed to snag us some tickets.
Saving energy is a big topic of discussion right now in Germany with the prices of gas and electricity going up by the day. Here are some of our energy-saving tips to lower your bills in the coming months and help the planet, too. This is also a space to share your own tips and tricks for saving energy – just leave a comment below with any ideas you have…and let’s all get through this together!
Although most Pride Month celebrations happen in June, Germany (and Switzerland) celebrate another special day in July: CSD or Christopher Street Day. Christopher Street Day is a day to remember the Stonewall Riots. It was the first LGBTQ+ community uprising against police assaults that occurred at a bar in Manhattan in 1969. Since 1970 onward, parades and marches with various names evolved in the US to what we know today as Gay Pride. Germany stuck with Christopher Street Day and held its first celebration in 1970 in Berlin – natürlich!
Did you know there’s a completely secret oasis – aka Berlin’s “Secret Park” – concealed in the bustling Monbijou quarter of Berlin Mitte?
If you have a furry friend in Berlin, it is now mandatory to register your dog in the city. I know what you’re thinking – another trip to the Bürgeramt, right? Noooo!
… Read more
The Federal Constitutional Court declared the Berlin rent cap “unconstitutional” this morning at 9:30 a.m.… Read more
Buying an apartment in Germany is an experience all in itself. Once the contract is signed, there’s an extra special perk: membership in the German home owner’s association for your particular building. You might know it as the “body corporate”, “condominium corporation”, “strata council” or “commonhold” in other countries. Once you’ve bought an apartment in Germany, you’ll come to know it fondly as the “WEG”, that is, the “Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaft”. So… what exactly will you be getting yourself into? How does it work? And will you ever get out alive?
You moved to Berlin, landed a job and just received your first pay cheque. You notice a deduction called “Kirchensteuer” in the small print and wonder what it could possibly be…
Kirchensteuer (church tax) is a tax imposed on members of some religious congregations in Germany.
