BERLIN - If you show up in Berlin strapped for cash, you’re in good company. The German capital’s sizable student population, high unemployment rate and swelling starving-artist contingent make penny-pinching a citywide obsession.

This is, after all, the city that has not only been dubbed one of the hippest in Europe because of its raging nightlife, plethora of museums, independent art galleries and concert spaces, but it’s also known for being wracked with debt. So much so that in 2003 Mayor Klaus Wowereit lent it the accidental slogan: “We’re poor, but sexy.”