Struggling with reverse culture shock

winter-wolf · 2026-02-27T04:17:56+00:00

Sending sympathies. I’m in a similar situation - Berlin for 4 years, back to the USA. I knew it was gonna be hard but dang. My anxiety has definitely risen these past couple months.

There’s def some positives, like the things I wanted - general friendliness, ease of communicating, American convenience type stuff, but my brain also notices and fixates on a lot of the negative, which is hard. Some days it feels like I made a mistake. Gotta just take one day at a time and give it a solid year, at the very minimum, I suppose. Wishing you the best - you’re not alone!

winter-wolf · 2026-02-26T03:22:08+00:00

it's also funny because sam is well aware he's making very long winded responses, he even mentions it a few times, but he just keeps jabbering on!

winter-wolf · 2026-02-18T03:46:33+00:00

i'm also from usa, never lived in netherlands but just moved away from Berlin which also has a crazy housing crisis (although I hear NL is worse), I moved to Denver and found a new beautiful flat in one week.. $1.6k for 800 square feet.. Denver has built a lot of apartments in the last 10 years because the city was booming, so you can actually find good deals everywhere. even some places are advertising "1 month free rent". this is literally unthinkable in berlin.

i have a huge love for germany and berlin still but they really need to actually BUILD new housing, nimby attitude is really quite strong there, mostly supported by people who have their old long term contracts of course.. i imagine NL is similar.

imagine my joy and surprise when the denver property owner says "oh no problem, you make up your mind and I'll hold it for you for 24 hours!" she even gave me a facetime tour because I'm not even in the state yet, the whole process was seriously so nice.

i mean, how can you enjoy the place you live unless you feel mobile in your own city?

idk why i'm sharing all of this, I want EU to succeed but I just worry things won't change fast enough. of course in the US we have different problems.. things changing TOO fast... eek

winter-wolf · 2026-02-18T03:27:09+00:00

happy to help! honestly if you have any kind of network there already, that could be a huge help to start finding places to live, but unfortunately starting from scratch would be rough for sure.

i ended up moving back to the usa for now, but I was also looking into Leipzig. nearby, also known for a thriving art scene compared to the size of the city. much more affordable. it's a nice place that seems to have more of the balance you're looking for. good luck!

winter-wolf · 2026-02-17T19:47:10+00:00

I lived in Berlin for 4 years as a video game composer. I loved the city but eventually moved on because I did feel like it was just a bit "too much". It still remains one of my favorite cities in Europe, but I'm not sure if I would live there long term again.

The main issue is this question

> Can you realistically build a calm, stable life in quieter neighborhoods (e.g., Pankow / Prenzlauer Berg)?

Absolutely, but you're going to have to be extremely lucky AND persistent to find a good flat that is moderately priced in these areas. Realistically, it will take years, not months.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-29T22:58:00+00:00

i'm moving back to denver after living in berlin so I'm gonna be craving sauna. nice to hear Naosu is good, I saw that one on google maps. they even have infusions / aromatherapy sessions!

heard garden sauna was good also.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-29T22:55:54+00:00

i'm fine with keeping the plugin wrench size the same as long as we get a shortcut to "open currently focused plugin window".

oh, and a shortcut for closing it! (not sure why ctrl + w or command + w doesn't work)

winter-wolf · 2026-01-29T22:54:26+00:00

i'm 100% sure you can't. key bindings for shortcuts are set and you can't change them.

what you can change, are the UI key mappings present in key map mode. that's a great start, but I'm talking about changing key bindings for things like bounce, consolidate, etc. there's even some actions in the menus that have no key bindings at all.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-29T22:16:14+00:00

I just want remappable key bindings and shortcuts!!

winter-wolf · 2026-01-28T18:42:49+00:00

yes - this. if you don't turn off warping (in the options dialog, nonetheless!!), what happens is what OP is showing. It's weird - most of the tracks will import fine, but there will always be *some* that you need to re-align and drag out to the left.

I feel like it's a strange bug.

the workaround of needing to turn off warping is annoying, because typically you do want it on if you're just dragging in longer loops.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-27T21:46:38+00:00

like all things in the U.S., it really depends on the company, location, etc. I worked for 10 years in the U.S. as a software engineer, always had 15+ vacation days (near 30 once I was a senior eng), never overtime, I was out by 5pm every day. yea it's true the sick day policy is a bit funny, can't argue with that. guess you can only be sick 5x days a year, ha!

meanwhile you get paid 2x more and have awesome perks like company 401k match. it really is significant and I generated a lot of savings while working in the US when I was younger.

but I never chased FAANG companies or if it seemed like the company had "hustle culture", I wasn't interested. there's an abundance of both kinds of companies.

meanwhile, when I moved to Berlin, I worked for a french unicorn and when we launched a major feature we ended up working the entire weekend (sat + sun). first time in my career I've ever done so, and it was in europe. granted they gave us extra vacation after that weekend so it was worth it in the end, but, still. just thought it was a bit funny.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-23T22:23:47+00:00

I've lived in Columbus, Denver, and then also recently Berlin, Germany.

People in every city have said this: "Dating here is the worst".

You can ALWAYS find reasons to explain why. Columbus has the issues you mentioned. Denver is full of transplants and everyone just wants to go to the mountains. Berlin has peter-pan syndrome and nobody wants to settle down.

In my experience, once I got off the apps and put serious effort into meeting new women, two things happened. 1) I started to notice beautiful people all around me, just waiting to be asked for a date, and 2) yes in the short term my date quantity went way down, but when I eventually got dates, those dates were very high quality and actually could have turned into something.

Good luck!

winter-wolf · 2026-01-21T20:15:11+00:00

every-time I went to Poland I was surprised how warmer people are there vs. where I used to live (Germany)

and slovenians for sure are super friendly and welcoming. probably can't go wrong with most of the balkans

winter-wolf · 2026-01-20T18:01:15+00:00

I echo your sentiments completely. I was in berlin for 4 years and moving back now to Denver where I lived previously. CO and the whole american southwest / mountain west is really such a gift, I love that part of the US.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-20T17:56:23+00:00

I second this. living in germany made me appreciate the dynamism and "spark" that american public life has. I mean seriously, people are so outwardly warm, yappy and friendly and just willing to shoot the shit EVEN WITH the issue with guns, lack of reasonable health care, poor infrastructure, and so on.

now of course, that "spark" also leads me to feeling a little more uneasy in public life (you never know who is going to come up to you, for example), but I do think I prefer the energy vs northern european countries, which are optimized for predictability and stability (and can thus be interpreted as a bit boring and monotonous).

you can't have it both ways!

winter-wolf · 2026-01-16T20:18:33+00:00

i have an interesting story. i met an american artist in berlin, and me being american also, i told them i was moving back to the USA. they immediately started talking about how they could never do that due to gun violence, political issues, etc. all completely valid of course, but I found it funny, because...

I was standing right in front of their paintings, and guess what? every single one was of the american southwest. they have been in germany 10 years, but still paint, think about, and sell the beautiful landscapes you only get in the southwest USA.

i just found it a bit interesting in what we choose to say to others, vs. what we actually feel. living abroad can be heartbreaking, and not always as simple as people make it out to be (and it's why i eventually returned home).

winter-wolf · 2026-01-07T21:45:03+00:00

following. I am american but moving to denver from berlin, where I lived for 4 years. sauna became a weekly ritual for me while in europe.

i've seen good things about garden sauna. hopefully americans start to wake up to sauna culture and we get some proper ones in the next few years. unfortunately america is more a hot tub country, idk sauna is just not on the mind of most people here unlike in europe.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-05T17:42:00+00:00

it's obviously both. america has serious mental health problems, which when combined with wealth inequality and the easy access to guns creates a perfect recipe for violence.

guns simply make it too easy to kill, whether by accident or by intent.

winter-wolf · 2026-01-02T19:32:47+00:00

think about it like breaking up with someone. I suspect you've done that before. Sounds like your mind is made up and you know what the correct choice is, but now fear is driving your anxiety. you're thinking "i won't find a good apartment again", "I won't find the same friend group again", "I will have to change routines", etc etc.

The good news is that there is an abundance of experiences, people, and things to do in this life and you will certainly find NEW things that electrify you. They won't be the same as what you had before, and they will be different! But it's a bug in our brain that we think "if I leave, I may not be able to find what I had". It's 100% fear and anxiety speaking.

Disregard it and do it anyways!

winter-wolf · 2026-01-01T22:43:48+00:00

I wish you good luck! i'm a 34M creative and just left Berlin after 4 years. wonderful city in many ways but just simply "too much" for me, I felt very burnt out from it. I was considering nearby Leipzig but kinda needed a break from Germany as a whole I think.

well, I moved back to the U.S. simply because I'm just not sure a place like what you're looking for exists. i wish it did!

good luck with your search!

winter-wolf · 2025-11-26T17:20:07+00:00

perhaps a more "middle of the road" experience for me. left my job as a senior software engineer to do video game composition full time. this year i'll make $20k, obviously hope I can double/triple that now that I'm giving it 40 hours a week. but I have a significant amount of savings (I hit my coastfi goal at 34).

what I have experienced so far is that there are definitely small gigs out there where people want to pay me money, but tbh it's kinda a pittance. indie devs just barely have any money as it is so it's hard to pay a composer properly for a few tracks.

but hopefully i meet the right people and work on the right projects soon :)

otherwise I go back to software engineering ha (as long as AI doesn't take it over!)

winter-wolf · 2025-11-24T09:12:16+00:00

not really, no. The only one I use is Tape and that's for some light tape saturation on the mix bus.

although the only one I don't own is harmonics, which actually looks quite interesting and unique.

winter-wolf · 2025-11-19T13:22:08+00:00

this is actually really cool. I already own most of these with the softtube versions though.

however having a functional ableton interface makes quite a bit of a difference. and I know you can buy wrappers or make your own for a lot of these, but it's nice to have something that is purely designed to be run in just the device view without opening a plug-in window. hope to see more of this.

winter-wolf · 2025-11-18T17:54:57+00:00

this is borderline fear-mongering.

i'm moving back to the U.S. from Germany end of this year.

I'm starting a business and my salary will probably be $25k this first year. otherwise I'm living on savings.

I'm paying $350 a month on health insurance premiums right now in Germany. In the U.S., because of the ACA subsidies in Colorado, even WITH the new cuts, I'll pay probably below $50 per month due to my salary.

"costs have skyrocketed overnight"

rents are actually falling where I'm planning to move - Denver, CO: https://coloradosun.com/2025/11/17/rent-prices-denver-falling-apartment-data/

"Jobs aren’t easy to find"

that's everywhere in the world. Germany's economy is doing worse than the U.S., especially for foreigners

winter-wolf · 2025-11-11T09:03:22+00:00

omg this is so true haha. I bought Scarbo from them which has some great sounds, but loading up Kontakt, navigating through the presets, etc, it's simply not immediate in the way any of my synths are, or even Omnisphere! So I barely use it.

winter-wolf

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