I started an All About Berlin newsletter with monthly updates: allaboutberlin.com/newsletter

I just found this brilliant calendar of Berlin Christmas markets: charles.pizza/berlin-xmas/

Parents of Berlin, where do you find help? Can you recommend English-speaking parenting communities and resources?

I am adding a field to my residence permit feedback form. This should give us hard data about which health insurance the LEA accepts. This is especially important for freelancers.

The Berlin Senate is trying to close the loophole that allows landlords to charge extortionate rents. Wunderflats is encouraging its users to petition against it. Their version of the facts is... creative.

I have refreshed my Anmeldung appointment finder. What do you think of this design?

Berlin.de's bot prevention algorithm was blocking clicks from All About Berlin. When clicking a link to book an appointment, you might see this error message. I have found the cause and I am deploying a fix.

Residence permit feedback, before and after

When I started measuring immigration office wait times, I did not plan to get this many responses. I did not design for this at all. Just look at the pagination buttons!

Citizenship after 3 years was officially abolished. In Berlin, it was only 1% of approved citizenship applications.

Adi just got his driving licence and wrote about it. I'm stealing more and more advice from him. Give his job board and blog a visit. www.arbeitnow.com/blog/drivers...

The German minimum wage will be €13.90 from January 1, 2026. www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktu...

I'm a big fan of the European Commission style guide. It answers all my little questions about how to write amounts, price ranges, dates... commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-11/styleguide_english_dgt_en.pdf I'm writing more and more tiny components to display things the same way everywhere.

I'm adding instant, accurate private health insurance quotes to my calculator. No more "write an email to book a call to get a quote". What do you think of the design?

The Berlin immigration office departments have changed. Make sure you submit your residence permit applications to the right place! www.berlin.de/einwanderung...

My Bürgeramt appointment finder is back online! The tool: allaboutberlin.com/tools/appoin... The code change: github.com/All-About-Be...

An update about my appointment finder: Berlin.de added new anti-bot measures in August. Their devs helped me figure out what's wrong. I will try a different approach, and hope it fixes the issue.

All About Berlin is 8 years old!

My Bürgeramt appointment finder is down since 6 August. I'm working to get it back online. Two lessons: 1. I would have caught it earlier if I had proper error monitoring and alerting in place. 2. Don't build castles on quicksand.

Did you become a German citizen recently? I need your feedback! I created a page to measure wait times at the Berlin citizenship office. The more data we have, the more useful it will be. allaboutberlin.com/guides/citiz...

Should I add comments to All About Berlin? It has been on my mind for a few months now. I am picturing something similar to Reddit and Hacker News, with threaded comments and vote counts.

I have (once again) rewritten my student health insurance guide. I followed a few communities for months, noting what confuses students and where the existing advice fails them. This update gives better guidance in a simpler format. allaboutberlin.com/guides/germa...

Happy Sexual Health Day! Like everything else in Berlin, getting tested for STIs is much harder than it should be. Doctors are hard to find, appointments are hard to get, and wait times are measured in weeks. My updated STI testing guide should help: allaboutberlin.com/guides/std-t...

This tool helps you find English-language movies in Berlin. It's so clean and simple! - ov-berlin.info/movies/

The browser sends us the user's preferred language. I could use this to show language-specific placeholders. How about "Alex Mustermann" in German or "Wei Zhang" in Mandarin? I already use this technique to recommend countries at the top of my country picker.

I have built a new letter generator to do your Abmeldung by email. As recommended by experts, it gives multiple fallback options for sending the deregistration certificate, because each Bürgeramt does it differently.

I have made a series of small improvements to my resignation letter generator. I wrote a short blog post about it here: nicolasbouliane.com/blog/resigna...

I am leaving Frankfurt with a few ideas of how to simplify health insurance for immigrants, and none of them involve AI, only good information, a smoother user experience and a few efficiency tweaks. Step one: build the infrastructure to make it happen. nicolasbouliane.com/blog/insuran...

Discovery of the day: Queermed, a database of queer-friendly doctors and therapists, with language filters. queermed-deutschland.de/en/look-for-...

All About Berlin is losing half of its traffic to ChatGPT and Google AI summaries, but don't worry, I have a plan: nicolasbouliane.com/blog/health-...

Most of my days consist of improving the same content over and over again. This is disability insurance, before and after. It's more complete, easier to read, better connected with related content, and backed by more sources.

Destatis updated their income data. The median income is now €47,736/y (up 4.8%). There is a €3,600/y gap between the median income for men and for women. www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pr...

Friday update: a ton of small changes, and a dozen new English-speaking doctors, lawyers and therapists. allaboutberlin.com/collections/...

Have you used TaskRabbit? Driller Queens? Little Big Project? I would love to hear about your experience hiring a Handwerker to drill holes, install lights or paint walls. How much did it cost you?

Traffic from ChatGPT shows that it hallucinates All About Berlin pages, and cites them as a source.

I am disappointed that nobody noticed the 50% more rounded corners. It took a lot of sanding.

I think about this passage from "Doing Business in Japan" a lot. German and Japanese bureaucracy have a lot in common.

Friends, I'd like your feedback. What do you wish someone told you about public health insurance? How did it surprise you? How did it disappoint you? I am still stuck on the multi-month long rewrite of my health insurance advice, but trust me, it will be worth it.

I'm so happy that people keep adding feedback about immigration office wait times. They also add info about their experience during the appointment. It's super helpful.

Friday project: a mobile table of contents with no extra markup. It will make large guides much easier to navigate on your phone.

A writing tip I heard a long time ago: avoid words like "simply" or "just". What is easy for the writer might not be easy for the reader. jameshfisher.com/2017/02/22/d...

Someone made a map of grilling areas in Berlin. Fantastic! grillmaps.vercel.app

I have just released a complete rewrite of my health insurance guide featuring a new health insurance picker. I'm working really hard to simplify getting health insurance for a residence permit application. This release is just phase one. Try it here: allaboutberlin.com/guides/germa...

Friends, I need a new home. If you help me escape Französisch Buchholz, I will give you 1,000€. allaboutberlin.com/help-me-get-...

Since May 1, the Bürgeramt and LEA require a digital passport photos, not printed ones. You can use the Bürgeramt and LEA's photo booths, but they don't work. Relocation consultants say that people get a second appointment because of the photo kiosks don't work. allaboutberlin.com/guides/biome...

The new health insurance guide is (mostly) done. 3 insurance brokers have reviewed it, and countless relocation experts have added their advice. I'm now working on a much better health insurance recommendation tool.

From May 1, the immigration office will require biometric pictures from certified photo studios, or from their self-service kiosks. This line from the announcements page is pure gold. They're testing a new system in production after deploying it the Friday after a public holiday. Absolute madlads.

I'm still working on a massive overhaul of my health insurance guide and tools. It's mind-numbingly boring work, but it will be worth it.

My new policy is "curation over aggregation". I want to make specific recommendations instead of listing dozens of options. That's what the "Recommended" label is for. It means "if I were you, this is what I would choose". It helps you make good decisions faster.

I just took my citizenship test today! After hours of looking for an appointment, a pointless in-person appointment during a BVG strike, and a few hours of studying, the actual test took 10 minutes. I will explain everything in my upcoming citizenship application guide.