Laura Brinker was born 19 years ago in Wilmesdorf, in what was still known as west Berlin, but when she goes out for a drink she heads for the trendy Kastanienallee, in the former east.

Jacob Golisch, also 19, hails from Treptow, once part of the communist east, but this year he got his baccalauréat from the 320-year-old Collège Français on Derfflingerstraße, deep in the west.