Tourists! Visitors! International students! People with quick questions! This is your thread; post your questions here.

Greetings to everybody in Germany. I am an American and I want to leave this country as soon as possible. I have a close friend, a natural-born German (Berlin-based), who I met over 10 years ago when she briefly lived in the United States. She is a certified visa advisor in Germany, and she suggested I move to Berlin to try it out.

I very much desire to move out of the United States for many reasons, some of the top reasons being: 1.) The healthcare system in my country is abismal. 2.) Our political system in general, where one of the many things that I find disgraceful (there are many more issues, but I'll keep it simple) is that it is legal for corporations and organization to be able to literally, and legally, bribe government office (termed "Lobbying") to fulfill atrocious and harmful outcomes. (Look at how my nation as a whole has addressed and dealt with the pandemic, that alone makes me feel helpless) 3.) The level of gun violence, including the frequency of mass shootings that make me feel unsafe anywhere I go (not to mention that I live in a crime-filled area in New York City, where I have run for my life numerous times, most recently last week, due to gunfire/shootouts). 4.) Labor conditions; this country is a victim of "Wild, Wild West-style" capitalism where exploitation of workers is praised and it is somehow "cool" that large corporations and billionaires pay little or no taxes and everyone else suffers and it's somehow is equated to "individualism", "freedom", "The American Way", "patriotism" and endless bullshit that's false. I hear (and know) that Germany, and most of Western Europe doesn't tolerate this shit. I have visited a good amount of Western European countries and have met and am friends with some Western Europeans and I know that the facade of my country being some great nation is mostly propaganda bullshit. There are more reasons why I wish to get away from my country, but I've already written too much. What focuses me on Germany, particularly Berlin, is that my friend says I can make it in Berlin (but she said this is not true with just about any other area of Germany) with just English-language fluency (although I know a good deal of Spanish from living here in the U.S. and am entirely willing to learn German to better assimilate).

I have a 4-year college degree (just for background info), and I was wondering what kind of criteria I may need to know before tackling my objective of moving to Germany. Obviously my friend that I mentioned previously will help me out with a lot of things, but I want a wider consensus of what might better help me to relocate to Germany, and some possible challenges I might encounter and how to succeed.

I know that no country is perfect, every country has their own unique problems, I am not expecting that I will experience pure utopia if I move to Germany. However, I feel like it would be better for me than living in the United States of America. Everyone is different, there are some people here that still think the USA is the best and greatest place to live, but many of those folks who have that opinion never travelled outside our borders and are ignorant to the fact that the U.S. has such severe problems and quality-of-life issues that I know of (and have even experienced personally), precisely because I've explored the world and other societies.

Any advice, encouragement, and comforting words would be appreciated. Thank you for anyone who actually read my overly-long diatribe.

TL;DR: I need to leave my country (U.S.A.) because it's terrible and getting worse.

/r/germany Thread