Sentences that are not said in Berlin and what they say about our city

Berlin summer is back, and so I was sitting on the street in Kreuzberg one night with a few friends. One had brought his visitor from Lake Constance. A woman in her fifties who wants to return to Berlin. She was born here, she even graduated from high school here, and now she can't stand Lake Constance any longer. She has plenty of reasons: everyone there speaks Swabian, is rich, and even married, while she herself has made a living as a single mother. But now her child is grown, she can move wherever she wants. She would probably find work, just not an apartment. The problem is well known.

Despite this tale of woe, the mood among our group was euphoric. We'd simply heard too many "I can't find an apartment" stories to let ourselves get down every time. And the season of warm nights had finally arrived. At some point, someone asked if he could play a game with us. He wanted to read us a bunch of sentences that people don't say in Berlin, and we had to explain why. They were written on a postcard, one of his visitors had given it to him.

Except for the visit to Lake Constance, we've all lived in Berlin for a long time, some since the 1980s. We were keen to take the capital city test. It wasn't difficult at all. Its appeal lies in the fact that it showed us the essence of our city.

Look, someone is smoking weed or: I got the apartment in Kreuzberg

"Can I go out like this?" was one of those phrases you don't say in Berlin. Or: "Oh, how nice, a subway musician," "Look, there's someone smoking weed," and: "I got the apartment in Kreuzberg." At this sentence, the visitor from Lake Constance sighed. "An apartment in Kreuzberg," she said enthusiastically. "That would be my favorite."

She also said that she would cry with nostalgia at Kottbusser Tor. Perhaps that's a Lake Constance perspective. We Berlin residents said that Berlin was getting on our nerves more often these days. A few phrases that aren't said in Berlin might offer an explanation: "The S-Bahn is coming" or "After you, please." They only elicited a tired smile from us. The dilapidated public transport, the nonexistent polite manners – is it a sign of aging that we're no longer okay with this?