How so?
> Shitty weather
To me, constant heat and sunshine is shitty weather. I prefer a temperate/boreal climate. I find it far more pleasant.
> the insane apartment situation in any major city
So just like every other major city currently.
> shitty services
They are going to have to be extraordinarily shitty to be worse than what I have already in the UK.
I've spent enough time in Spain to know I'd never want to live there, and enough in Germany to know that it is very attractive to me.
A personal preference. The quality of life is not high, considering the bureaucratic hurdles you have to overcome on a daily basis - dealing with any Amt/Behörde(agency), Schools, Kindergarten, etc. And on top of that - you get penalized for working hard. There is this Goldschnitt situation(golden edge, breaking point), where the taxes get way too high and makes no sense to work above that level.
> They are going to have to be extraordinarily shitty to be worse than what I have already in the UK.
I spent a couple of years in the UK and the services in Germany are way worse. Banks are better in the UK, transportation is better in the UK, at least in major cities(options where you don't have to rely on your car), doing business is easier and cheaper in the UK. Maybe if we compare the NHS vs the german health system, Germany has a slight advantage, at least when it comes to waiting times.
> the insane apartment situation in any major city
Here again - bureaucracy and the car lobby, which gets in the way of any sort of public transport development/investment. So there is space, but people have to bundle around the well connected spots. For example: East Berlin is vast and empty, no transport connections developed for 30 years - only tram and the occasional buses.
> Shitty weather > To me, constant heat and sunshine is shitty weather. I prefer a temperate/boreal climate. I find it far more pleasant.
It is 50/50 - I would not want to be in Spain in June, July, August and I don't want to be in Germany in January, February, March
I've visited Spain a few times and it's nice in short bursts, but to live there I would have to deal with the weather (not everyone likes hot and sunny, I'd honestly prefer Norway's weather to Spain), the piss-poor developer salaries, the struggling economy, the food that I really am not a fan of, the poor quality of healthcare, the remnants of pro-Franco fascism in their political landscape etc.
It's just not for me. I think I'm more suited to Germanic/Nordic countries for culture.
Could you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious what are some of those day to day bureaucratic burdens?
I'm not citizen but working as a dev. I have an old passport which doesn't have bio-metric security features. However, I have a valid residence permit card (it already has bio-metric features). Revolut app which is UK based bank accepts my residence permit in identification process without checking my passport. Just scan it via the app itself and there you go. There is literally no bank in Germany (including N26) that accepts my residence permit card. I constantly have to fight with every company providing any online financial service, because their online video identification process (known as Post-Ident which is run by Deutsche Post) only scans bio-metric passports.
How come? If this thing (residence permit) is a valid ID document, then why is everyone asking for passport? My identity has already been approved by immigration office.
If residence permit is not a valid ID document, then why issue it at first place?
lol, as a person who is forced to rent in Berlin, what should one be beware of while dealing with them?