1. You’re trying to pay for everything with a credit card.
Yeah, Berlin isn’t really the place for plastic money. We prefer the old-fashioned paper kind. So nur bargeld, please.
2. You’re expecting beautiful architecture similar to what you’ve seen in Paris or Vienna.
But then you remember that Berlin was destroyed. Destroyed over and over again, and then divided, and then reunited and all this history is “hidden” from you. It’s not easy to immediately appreciate Berlin, you have to do your homework to fully enjoy it.
Pay attention to the bullet holes all over the historical buildings. Notice how there are several new buildings in a city with over 700 years of history. (That’s because of war, guys! War.) See all the parks we have? Those were actually extensively bombed areas. Berlin usually built parks over them because houses were too expensive. Berlin’s motto is ‘poor but pretty.’