I moved to Berlin from Melbourne about four years ago. It's been a great move for my swdev career. There is really interesting and diverse projects and an abundance of work. It's a developers market.
European infrastructure is amazing in general. It's also nice to be able to ride 20 minutes with a bicycle to work and feel like your not going to get hit by some moronic bogan.
I think that Berlin could be the most liberal and free city in the world at the moment, I love it.
I realised how culturally isolated Australia is and how English centric we are. Speaking any other language is kind of frowned upon in Australia . There really is this elitism attitude globally relating to english and it's a double edged sword, it makes us uncultured and insensitive.
In Europe and Berlin specifically it's a melting pot of languages, cultures and ideas and I absolutely love that. What Australia lacks in culture it compensates with Sports. For better or worse.
I think violence is pretty common in Melbourne at least. I don't feel safe drinking in stkilda, Prahran or in the city. Everyone gets so drunk and if it's not racism it's petty masculinity that causes a brawl.
The culture definently values "sport" over nearly everything else. Therefore it's a breeding ground for this kind of behaviour.
I really dislike this about my fellow Australians.
Conversely, I feel incredibly safe in Berlin.
Quality of food is arguably better in Australia overall, but great produce can be found here also.
Obviously Australian nature is incredible and offers a lot, it's also a very geographically isolated place, so it's hard to feel connected with the rest of the world. No quickly jumping over to Africa or the middle east!
Anyway, I love Europe and germany, they are doing some really forward thinking things and align with my beliefs. There is still a long way to go, but at least they are trying to steer their economies in a progressive direction.