Traditionally, the beginning of a new year comes with resolutions. But I’d like to start mine here with a confession. The divulging of a dirty little secret I’ve been harbouring and trying my best to forget. It could compromise my prized status as a bicultural urbanite, and it has to do with my bilingual abilities. Though ‘abilities’ would be a generous term here.

In the darkest days of the German winter, a lack of vitamin D triggers my homing instinct and I embark on a long seasonal migration south – not unlike a duck.

Queues for good times, queues for serious business—queues for queues, and queues to find out which queue you should be queuing in and which you should not. Berlin may be the modern land of milk and honey, but you’d better be prepared to wait in an orderly line for your share of the good stuff.

Helen Barlow is an Australian film journalist who lived in Berlin for three years in the 1990s. For Bicultural Urbanite she recounts some of her anecdotes from that time.

On the remote island of Australia, it seems possible to hold much of the world’s chaos and turmoil at arm’s length. So when millions of asylum seekers began arriving in Europe in 2015, it was as if the fourth wall had cracked.

Berlin is undoubtedly a city that thrives on its adventurous use of space. One of my favourite examples of a Berlin building being re-appropriated in a manner deviant to its original purpose is the current location of König Galerie.

Coffee shop owner and Australian expat Garth Gregory has been keeping Berliners caffeinated since 2004. I had a chat to him about starting a business in Germany, gentrification and the perils of third wave specialty coffee.

A degree for free?! Yes please. I probably would have considered enrolling to become a Master of Currywurst, had that been the only thing on offer.

Internationally speaking, Germans and Australians both enjoy a drink. Booze pervades their social lives and lubricates virtually every social event, from birthdays and christenings to weddings and work parties. Yet there are differences, cultural and regulatory ones, in the way Germans and Australians handle their grog.

It’s happened again, thank god. The Berlin sun has returned from its annual sabbatical some place far, far away. From here on in, things escalate pretty quickly. The moment temperatures creep above 15 degrees, the number of people on the streets quadruples and shirt buttons start bursting open with unbridled gusto. The birds are singing, the drinks are flowing, and that peculiar German fondness for nakedness is finding its yearly stride—it’s time for Berlin summer loving.

Fiona Laughton is a storyteller whose story doesn’t quite fit the mould. Unlike the many young tourists and creatives who fall in love with Berlin and vow to stay at all costs, her decision to emigrate was driven by a desire to escape.

Up until recently, the Funkhaus remained one of Berlin’s best-kept secrets. A grandiose complex of purpose-built recording studios and a veritable goldmine for Instagram clout, I was always amazed the place wasn't permanently crawling with well-clad millennials—smartphones poised and ready for lush image-crafting.

Germans don’t exactly have a reputation for stand-up comedy. But that’s not to say they don’t know how to make each other laugh. Germany enthusiastically embraced the anything-goes chaos of cabarets in the early twentieth century and since then has produced countless clowns, comic musicians and other satirical entertainers.

I don’t really get soccer. Instead of growing up watching ‘The World Game’ on SBS, I spent my youth listening to the dulcet tones of Richie Benaud’s cricket commentary.

When I first got to Berlin I developed something of an infatuation with 'Zee Germans'. Compared to Australians, everything about German people seemed so endearingly serious and neat.

In the fictional world of ‘Peter Pan’, Neverland is an imaginary place where children never have to become adults. In the real world, that place is called Berlin. Or so it would seem.

Every year in September, a group of hard-working volunteers showcase Australian and New Zealand films that would most likely never make it across the seas to Germany.

Tatjana Philipp is in some ways the quintessential Berlin creative. Living in a stylised Neukölln flat and sporting a tastefully restrained collection of tattoos, the young designer draws her inspiration from elements like austere architecture and industrial music to craft sleek and timeless haute couture.

The year is 2008. You’re young, new in Berlin and your German vocabulary consists of ‘Guten Tag’ and phrases gleaned from ‘Inspector Rex’. Your employment options are fairly limited, but you’re so determined to stay that you’ll happily serve beers to noisy backpackers or scrub toilets to make it happen.

Moving to Berlin hasn’t really been a case of leaving behind a displeasing life in Australia for Bella Peacock. Her Berlin eureka moment has had more to do with her project, ‘Better Times’, an online platform for women’s stories of empowering dating and sexual experiences.

I’m often asked why I started learning German. My go-to answer is “because it’s easier than French and Chinese”, both of which I tried and failed to learn at high school. German was still a hard slog, but I was able to gradually piece things together.

Throughout the Berlin phase of my life, I’ve always thought of myself as a Mitte/Prenzlauer Berg boy. But what does subscribing to this pretension mean exactly?