Hi SNG
From my own experience away from the city centre is of course cheaper and dont worry about the public transport, most larger cities have excellent services including bus, u-bahn and s-bahn. Going through an agent to find an apartment can be expensive, and based on the time you rent. For example I paid 1100 Euros, commission on a 750 a month apartment in Duesseldorf, for what amounted to a couple of nice photos on the web and a couple of emails!!!!!. www.easyroommate.com is a good place to start for something cheaper with no commission but google "berlin apartments" and something will come up. As far as dialects are concerned, germanexjw would have more to say on the matter but yes the far south "Bayern" has a dialect which is difficult to say the least. From my own expereince, Frankfurt would be a good middle point to live, 3 hours either way on the high speed ICE train you can be in France and Switzerland. Do look out for the cheap airlines operating in Europe now, great bargins to most big european cities, one word of warning, the airports they use are not the major airports but usually smaller ones maybe a distance of 50km of the chosen city. Make a note of the following:
ok thats about it for now, if I think of anything else I'll pm you
Jgull
ps the two best beers are Kolsh from Koeln (Cologne) and Alt a dark beer from Duesseldorf. ;-)