Berlin's indoor pools
bbc.com
bbc.com
We just go to the lakes. It's a lovely bicycle ride.
The surrounding lakes are definitely nice, just not compatible with the climate for say 8 out of the 12 months, so a better/cheaper/more accessible selection of indoor pools would be nice. And a solution to the cesspool that is the open air pools, where a certain demographic is ruining it for everyone (and has done so for decades).
You've just described the whole country, TBH.
The Germany federal government’s procurement process is kafkaesque at best (especially the armed forces); Germany spends as much on defence as France, yet France has a nuclear deterrent, nuclear subs, a nuclear aircraft carrier, and a sizable fighter jet fleet - all domestically designed and built. Germany’s government barely maintains its kit.
The railways are late a third of the time. The Swiss want to ban Deutsche Bahn trains because they’re causing so many problems.
The German telecom operators are terrible. Domestic internet is slow and the cell phone networks are the same.
The country just doesn’t invest in itself and when it does it can’t effectively execute.
I’m not saying Germany is a shithole, but its government bureaucracy is generally terrible and business administration lackluster (and yes, there are exceptions to the rule).
I’ll add that I’ll tear the shit out of my home country (Canada) similarly. We have similar issues with government procurement.
That's not quite correct. What the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) started to do is to not allow German trains onto the network if they're massively delayed (I think massively being more than 15 minutes), which, of course happens a lot.
My take is that it's partially educational (as in get your shit together if you want to use our network) and partially it really is a logistical problem and messes up the network.
The train network in Switzerland is used so densely that allowing too many delayed trains onto it has a serious impact and would incur knock on effects.
What are those reasons, that don't also exist in other better-run European cities, like Vienna for example? At least there you don't have to fight 200 other people for a shitty overpriced apartment.
I also like Berlin to visit, attend tech conferences or meet-up, concerts and parties, but moving there now would simply wear me out.
Sure that's understandable, but that's nothing objective in that, that's just a personal choice based on personal taste and circumstances, which can apply to any other city if you think about it.
There are so many other fun cities in Europe where you don't have to put up with all that nonsense.
That's nothing special to warrant overhyping Berlin even further, it already suffers from a branch of the Paris syndrome they could call it Berlin syndrome.
I'm all for children activities and aquatic gym for the elderly but I really don't see the value of using public pools for guys who "train" 3 hours a day just because they are part of some subsidized group, especially knowing that 99% of those have never done anything at the elite level. If you want to train at a high level just finance it for yourself, I'm locked out of my couple hours per week to get my back healthy (and many others are).
I'm presently pre-registering for a private pool that's going to be 10x more expensive (and I'm still paying the taxes that finances not only the pool but also the training programs of the subsidized orgs that train in my city's public pool).
They do pay and finance their own training but the elite can never afford to build exclusive infrastructure for youth to adult, you will always have an overlap with the club competitions. You need a good base to be able to build an elite. That is what that exclusive pool time is ment to build.
If you need more well run public pools the greatest partners are those "high level" clubs. They most certainly feel you pain.
It has a nice 50 meter pool. Unfortunately it gets very crowded and the water can be a bit dirty when too many people have been in it. But it's great when you manage to find the pool empty (try late at night). The last few times I was there I came out with irritated skin. That's the chlorine reacting with the nasty stuff in the water. So, those two things are kind of keeping me from swimming there regularly. It's a pity because it's just a 3 minute walk from my door and I could definitely use the exercise. I've also used one of the nearby outdoor pools. Much better quality water. But you need to go early before the big crowds show up. And of course they are only open in the summer. The water being cold is a feature. Once you get moving you stop noticing it.
The summer closures are a bit annoying but understandable. And the opening times shifting around through the year and week are also annoying. Makes it hard to plan when to go. They are usually pretty good at putting those on the website though. Basically, they adapt to the schools and holidays, which are heavy users of these pools. Lots of classes of kids learning to swim during the week.
Pools near me (New Zealand) have ‘no bombing’ signs. I wonder if the jump-into-pool-holding-knees manoeuvre is called ‘bombing’ in German?
You're eligible only for making a shopping at Lidl and Netto after work, and for paying Rundfunkbeitrag. As I had heard multiple times while on full time employment in Berlin and seeing over 40% cut off on my monthly payslip: "beggars can't be choosers".
The Rundfunkbeitrag can eat a bag of dicks though, zero argument there.
Looking at the list (OECD Taxing Wages), I'm going to hazard a guess that it's a cultural/religious thing - it looks like the drop in the average tax rate as a proportion of household income for a single-earner vs. the same income for a single person is far greater in countries with a significant proportion of Catholics.
That's brings it up above 50%
It would be nice if it wasn't mostly middle class that gets fleeced though, and it would also lovely if more money would flow into keeping infrastructure intact, like schools. But again, that's Berlin for ya.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...
In germany, when having a (quite high) 100k pay, you effectively pay aprx. 32% taxes on it. I think thats fair considering wellfare, healthcare, studying, school etc. is free.
42% is just the percentage you pay on the income beyond ~65000. The first 65k are taxed lower (in increasing steps)
Sure, some financial things are very hard in germany. But especially as a "regular" citizen, or when you have hard times, you are cared for quite well.
> when you have hard times, you are cared for quite well.
In hard times you better don't lose Anmeldung (e.g. asshole host deregistering you by sending an email), because then the delicate and expensive support system collapses instantly for you.
no, your highest bracket is 42%, what's under that threshold is less taxed
The person who set off this thread made no claim to be a typical Berlin developer, he just said that he paid 42% taxes, and someone challenged that claim. If everyone's being super careful about using very precise language, fine, but that needs to be everyone being super careful about using very precise language, not just people you disagree with.
put 5000€/month, Klasse 1, Berlin.
Netto = 3094,05 €. That's 38,11%.
42% is not that far.
No idea why Berlin should be special in that regard.
I don’t understand the need to make this elitist statement? In fact, why is shutting up and complaining on HN your preferred solution?
What's elitist about some facts? Do you know many chemistry PhDs who get into fist fights or do they tend to avoid conflicts? Overall the more educated and intelligent a populace is, the less physical violence and crime there is.
Not everyone who is poorly educated starts fist fights, but people starting fist fights are always poorly educated and low intelect, who give in to their instincts telling them conflicts are solved by acting like a silverback gorilla.
[1] https://apnews.com/video/united-states-senate-sean-obrien-ma...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_vs._Mark_Zuckerber...
Yeah anyone can be crazy and assult others, but the frequency of occurrences is what makes the difference.
Yes, we were all youngsters at one point and did stupid shit as kids (drunken parties, drugs, etc). That doesn't mean most of those haven't straightened up as adults and became peaceful, productive members of society and loving parents to well raised kids who will in turn do stupid shit as teenagers before growing up to become functioning adults.
The poster was already pretty educated in his comment. Let's say that after every summer the right wing party in Germany is earning new voters...
And don't go there with family and small kids. Changing rooms are much too small for families. And most of these old indoor pools have no kids area to speak of. These pools are just good for nice photos on Instagram or some blogs about architecture of the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
I do see increased police presence during events like Karneval, but that's not unreasonable with tens of thousands of people drinking and partying on the streets.
I wonder what changed in German society?
For a law to be effective it is important that a transgression is addressed with high probability and low delay ( c.f. To Command and Persuade ).
Two decades of Underfunding and therefore understaffing prosecution and courts means that is not the case anymore.
The influx of immigrants is to a degree responsible for this, since it redirected large amounts of money.
Interestingly, the severity of the punishment does not matter as much as it’s certainty. Increasing the punishment associated with a transgression is usually a consequence of the states inability to effectively enforce the existing laws.
Ever increasing penalties e.g. for forms of sexual harassment can therefore be seen as an indicator of a gradual weakening of the executive and judicial branches.
> More than 99 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim, and less than 0.1 percent of the population is Shia Muslim. Groups together constituting less than 1 percent of the population include Christians, Jews, and Baha'is.
https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-r...
Yet when I point out that these people have this in common, people say it's bigoted.
Your reactions to previous comments speak otherwise.
Stop pretending that you can say it. You say it every damn time.
It just makes it harder to have a frank discussion because you leave it to the other side to name the group for you. If you argue in bad faith you can even pretend that they brought it up, not you.
I find it disingenuous all around. Like I said, it became ubiquitous in the local debate since the Hamas attacks.
I don't like the accusation of of "bad faith". I don't even know what it is supposed to mean concretely. What defines "the group" exactly, is part of the question. I said more in neighboring threads.
That's kind of the issue here. Anything remotely negative about certain immigrant groups is automatically assumed in bad faith (you must be a racist/nazi) and gets flagged/downvoted and no free discussion on the topic can ever happen.
E: just did a quick search and apparently of the 116 listed bath buildings, most of which were constructed before 1936, only 52 remain operational or are in the process of being operational. So perhaps you're right. Real shame, these places are often so valuable for the community, especially smaller/poorer ones.
(Shout out to Withington baths[1] which was my favourite place in the world back when I was a student)
At least where I am they are building a replacement. But they have "awarded" management to a private company for some reason.
Like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ftmq3tw4oDDKJwWt7
The downside is that it's ugly AF and they obviously don't sell alcohol in these, however it doesn't have to be ugly.
Many local authorities have very badly managed their finances. We've seen it in the recent bankruptcies of Slough and Birmingham (both Labour-led by the way) where incompetence and possibly corruption was rife.
The usual rebuttal is something along the lines of “no true labour”.
It does not mean that they don't face challenges in general because of cuts in funding. But, as always, bad management makes the shit hit the fan when times are leaner.
I am convinced that it is possible to balance the books on a leisure centre, for instance.
Salaries have shot up too, and have done for 20 years, as minimum wage has increased well beyond average wages or inflation.
But the largest impact on council funding in general is the increased money going into looking after the elderly, and that sometimes means selling off the land a leisure centre was on to pay for that for a couple of years, doesn’t matter that the centre was slightly profitable, it was occupying a large amount of land value that could be spent on Generation Me instead.
This gets less true with schemes like council housing.
Then, "free schools" were created during Cameron's time as PM (Gove as Education Secretary), which are 'independent' of the local council.
this is a very common theme in the uk -
find an edge case and use it to justify anything you want. But while conveniently and hypocritically coming up with excuses to justfy the things you want (or just sweep crap under the carpet)
I feel that this is the cost of being in power for 13 years (for either side). At some point some people forget, or don't know, that the other party is not the panacea, either, and that not everything can be pinned on the party in power.
There is a massive amount of crap that has nothing to do with the Tories and, again, we've recently seen that in Slough and Birmingham.
So if you think that when the next Labour PM is going to be appointed by the King the crap will disappear you're bound to be very sorely disappointed.
until PR is put in place this pantomine will continue (it will still take a long time before it gets much better). For me the main difference is intent - both parties crave power, but the tories have a seriously much lower bar than labour in the things or people they will screw over
The difference, perhaps, is the veneer of "good intentions" but as we know the road to he'll is paved with good intentions...
As for PR, we'll the third party is the Lib Dems, who are living in the twilight zone at this point so, no luck there, either.
any more than two parties messes everything up - specifically for left leaning parties, becasue labour and lib dems typically have a bigger overlap than the tories and lib dems (espically since ukip has seemlingly taken over the tories)
the current system is monterously unfair and very undemocratic. but the conservatives and labour like the idea of unlimited power and will fight it all the way.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/what-are-...
This one is in the center of munich.
[0] https://www.yelp.com/biz/wroc%C5%82awskie-centrum-spa-basen-...
> Perhaps more than anywhere else, this is where travellers can experience Germany's "textile-free" culture head on.
Understatement of the century. I visited here about 7-8 years ago. The big dome pool pictured has a unique acoustic property of transferring sound from one side of the giant pool to the other. You can expect to hear the heavy breathing of amorous couples from about 20-30m away as if they were next to you. That said, aside from the inappropriateness that seems to be common nowadays in these high-end spas, it was a beautiful venue.
If you go to a sauna, enjoy being allowed to just be for once, without any need to hide something. I promise you it’s transformative to see hundreds of other naked people at once, and realise your body is perfectly normal and okay.
However it's clearly a place for couples to go to and especially in the actual bathing area (i.e. not the saunas), you can whitness a lot of "public displays of affection".
Whether this this upsets you or not, is something that everyone has to decide for themselves I guess.
Otherwise I’d say it is actually precisely as parent poster described it. If you go to less “trendy” places, you’ll find you can really relax.
As I said, it was more an issue in the (textile mandated) bathing area, not so much in the textil free saunas though.
It's good to know there are still other spas around.
Source: https://www.20min.ch/story/zu-viele-paeaerli-vergnuegten-sic...
[1] https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/vantaa/art-2000009990317.html
The Bauhaus one reminded me of the (at the time only) public swimming pool in a small town in Nort-East Poland built in a brutalist style I learned to swim in, in early 90-s. These windows, the lanes, the area surrounding the pool, the walls, were very similar, but the ceiling was concrete, and absolutely no plants of course.
Because of the windows? Probably they have triple-paned windows.
No, because they look like they were built 100+ years ago and things like wall insulation wasn't very advanced back then. With any swimming pool of tgat size heating it is probably a large chunk of the cost.
I was reading about copper ionization [0], but there's not much online [1] to see if it's really effective or not.
He probably visited a Berlin pool like this during his bureau work and dreamt of owning one alike.
his pool: https://image.stern.de/31558812/t/bI/v2/w960/r0/-/pool-putin...
Personally I've been into much more kitshy/cliched private pool buildings.
Very underrated place, but I suppose it would have more visitors if it weren't for the language barrier. I remember we couldn't figure out which one is the men's room, because the information was only given via text and that was years before smartphones.
Other pools have the ropes always installed.
>I'm guessing the outside lines are more popular in this pool.
You guessed right. The inner lanes are preferred by the casual swimmers.
How very German.
Here deregulated beaches (outside of council zoning) are clothing-optional :
https://www.worldbeachguide.com/australia/swanbourne-beach.h...
which are often signposted as such near urban areas, with no signage or policing elsewhere:
https://www.australiasnorthwest.com/explore/broome/broome-be...
... just don't disturb nesting turtles, okay?
In Austria a semi mixed bath recently closed their nudist area because it's surrounded by forest which was filled with perverts that made a lot of trash in the forest and would fap behind trees to nude people.
Same for any semi reachable other public nudist place I've ever been to, you have to expect perverts wandering around.
That's why I prefer places where non nude is not welcome, even thought I never have seen it enforced and nobody minds a clothed friend that doesn't feel it yet either.
As for the nudist beach itself, it's mainly nudists who go there to be nude .. it's a tough search to find footage from that part of the beach as most people respect privacy.
The nudist beach is to the left, to the north, up the beach from the lifeguard building seen here in this drone footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwKmSy2d3Yo
it's a lot of empty space directly north of the clothed people with some dots of people in the far distance.
If you make it to the southern hemisphere you might like it .. people aren't prudish about nudity and mainly wear UV blocking clothes to avoid skin cancer .. people frequently strip and change in car parks when going out surfing | swimming | for a paddle.
But surprised by the post above:
"can expect to hear the heavy breathing of amorous couples from about 20-30m away as"
You are naked. But any kind of inappropriate activity is a big no no. Even staring at another person or something. Buddies of mine went to a sauna and there was even a famous actress in it. It is considered normal and egalitarian.
This being said, try Budapest. The scale of this bath will blow your mind: https://bathsbudapest.com/szechenyi-bath
I was blown away already before I realized there is even an outdoor area. It is BIG.
Showers within the sauna area are usually mixed. Showers within the dressing areas are not.
Saunas in public pools etc may have different arrangements.
https://www.wanderingermany.com/how-to-confidently-visit-a-n...
Tried to bring a US buddy of mine (non-mixed) into a Spa/hot bath/Sauna in Beijing. He got terribly scared of having to be naked and rejected. But it is a good place. And they have a good all you can eat buffet. Sweat. Eat a little. Rest. Repeat. You basically spent there the whole day.
With swimming clothes you soak everything then bring it back to the chilling pool and back to sauna.
Also imho nudity in sauna seems wierd first time but you quickly realize you can be covered all the time (with sheet) and that its not sexual at all because you are focusing on your body as does everybody else (heat stress).
Imho after few saunas everybody seems to shed this fear and even gain confidence and casuality about the nakedness part.
I think nudist pools are a lot wierder.
The implication appears to be that indoor swimming pools contain disease, but obviously they would not differ from any other swimming pools in that respect. That is the reason for the chlorine that makes getting swimming pool water in your eyes so painful.
https://www.chemicalsafetyfacts.org/health-and-safety/how-ch...
> perspiration, oils and urine that enter pools from swimmers’ bodies.
I choose to be an optimist and will believe that list starts with most common source and ends with the least common.
It seems like that would still be happening in the absence of urine?