john_b

According to TT's resident Brexit fans it's all done and dusted and the UK is heading inexorably towards a golden future, leaving the disintegrating EU in its wake.   However there are a still a lot of chickens coming in to roost...   Think Brexit’s all over? Wait until the grace periods end… https://westcountrybylines.co.uk/think-brexits-all-over-wait-until-the-grace-periods-end/  

  Realise that the OP has already had their visit this weekend, but I'll add my vote for beautiful Britzer Garten which is very popular with families and has so many options for all ages. Very relaxing, well worth the journey (M44 bus takes only 13 minutes from SBahn Hermannstrasse)

Actually there are parts of Berlin these days where you will hear English, Spanish & Italian rather than German on the street, let alone Berliner Schnauze which is highly sarcastic and pretty much downright rude if you find yourself on the receiving end. I've always thought it more resembles an aggressive NY attitude rather than a chirpy cockney twang, but you can come across loud and opinionated locals most everywhere.   https://needleberlin.com/2014/04/26/the-rise-and-fall-of-berliner-schnauze/    

  You can't have visited for long if you didn't experience Schnauze! It's certainly part of the authentic Berlin experience  

Given what he's inflicting on the UK, and for all his rhetorical guff and jingoism, I'd say that Johnson is the one who is profoundly anti-British. FWIW, I am a Brit myself. 

Actually here's a more hopeful sign, probably already gone but "Haustiere nach Vereinbarung", also near the Schillerkiez... https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/78196277   FWIW...

No, cats are not counted as Kleintiere, only guinea pigs, hamsters etc

You're in a tricky situation as most rental agreements do not allow tenants to keep pets such as cats or dogs, only smaller ones like hamsters are OK. It's not entirely impossible, but be prepared for a long search.   Neukölln within the S-Bahn ring is rarely affordable these days, so your idea of further out is a good strategy. It's actually quite a large Bezirk, many people think Kreuzkölln is NK but the whole area to the south in the direction of Rudow is worth considering for the reasons you say as long as you factor in a bit of extra travel time (U7 and buses connect to the Ring pretty efficiently). As well as high rises (eg Gropiusstadt) there are more detached and semi-detached properties to be found.     Is your partner working? Are you perhaps eligible for a WBS? https://handbookgermany.de/en/live/wbs.html   Having said all that, I don't really know how the rental market in those areas is at the moment...good luck.    

Financial Times piece: Monday is surrender day, not freedom day, in England.Removing all restrictions is a foolhardy strategy for mass infection with Covid-19 The all-or-nothing framing of “diktat versus freedom” is undermining social solidarity and promoting bad pandemic decision-making, argues John Coggon, a law professor and ethics commentator from Bristol university: “We cannot and will not get by either with a view of outright legal governance or outright individual freedom.” The idea that freedom means allowing our mouths and nostrils to emit at will, even on rush-hour transport, is an astonishing loss of perspective during a pandemic caused by an airborne disease.   https://www.ft.com/content/c9a6c0f0-985c-4563-91bb-aee51f0ab926  

  All went according to plan yesterday - the second shot was BionTech.   Apart from being a bit tired yesterday evening and an ache in my arm that is still there this morning, no noticeable side effects this time.   Onward and upward...

The thought did cross my mind...

Bless! There'll always be an Engerland!

Once again, the statistics show that the number of UK pupils studying modern languages continues to fall, a phenomenon that started long before Brexit became a reality but has undoubtedly been accelerated by it.   The position of German is particularly precarious, with only 36% of English secondary schools teaching it. Provisional German GCSE entries for 2021 are down 66% on 2003 levels, while for French they are down 59%. Overall, just 5.8% of GCSE entries in England in summer 2020 were for a modern foreign language [...] A-level numbers also continue to dwindle: figures show that provisional entries for modern foreign languages this year are down 17% from 2020.   https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jul/08/millions-of-pupils-in-england-had-no-language-teaching-in-lockdowns-survey