A French chef who fell in love with Berlin

Berlin is great! It was a great decision to come to live here. It’s not stressful, people are more relaxed and free here.

I was 17 years old when I first visited Berlin with my high school class. On that trip I decided that I want to live here. A few years later when I was 23 I went for a motorcycle tour to the Netherlands and that’s when I told my parents that I won’t be returning to France.

I booked a hostel for a week in Berlin, ended up staying in that hostel for three weeks while searching for an apartment, and then I hung out in my new shared flat for another month doing nothing… Finally, when I was already running a bit short on money, I decided to look for a job. I already finished my qualification as a chef and had some work experience from Paris. So I printed my half-page CV written in a mixture of French-English-German and brought it to some restaurants one morning.

I had just started my “job search” when a restaurant in Friedrichstrasse told me that they might have an opening. I met the chef the next day and started working there four days later! So in fact it took me about one hour to find a job in Berlin! Even though during the “job interview” I didn’t understand everything he said…  😀 I anticipated the “right” answer based on his expression. I simply replied to him “yes”, “no”, “indeed” and shrugged my shoulders occasionally. 🙂