here are some of my own personal observations and thoughts and opinions of nuremberg. it's not necessarily "german" nor do i want to classify or categorize everything german in a list. but this is the kind of stuff you probably won't see on a tourist book or wikipedia.
1. one of the best mexican restaurants in the city (and i say best very generously) is a restaurant called "enchilada". it's a great name for sure if you're in germany, but can you imagine a thai restaurant called "fried rice". at any rate, the food isn't exactly mexican. i mean, it's pretty much like finding a german restaurant in mexico. just not gonna be the same. but the atmosphere is lively and the drinks are still good. although the last time i went, i noticed that the corona was actually bottled in czech republic. hmmm. also, the tortilla chips are not tortilla chips. it's basically a bag of your classic doritos.
2. most traffic lights on an intersection do *NOT* have the protected left green arrow. this is increasily annoying me because you pretty much have to stand in the middle of the intersection every single time. i don't know why they don't have more of them.
3. the smallest paper money is 5 EUR. they don't have 1 EUR bills, but they do have 2 EUR coins and 1 EUR coins and of course 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, 2 cents, and 1 cent coins. this can add up to a lot of coins. and considering that when i get home, i just leave all my coins on the table, i end up collecting a lot of coins. just last night, i realized i had about $150 worth of coins.
4. in a restaurant, the waiters are carrying a purse or if they take credit cards, they have this remote device that can swipe your credit card. this is pretty standard no matter what kind of restaurant you go - small cafe, mom and pop sandwich shop, or a full blown restaurant.
5. my favorite bakery/cafe/coffeeshop is this one called "der beck". it's a chain and you can find one in almost every corner. in fact, you can find a bakery/cafe/coffeeshop everywhere you look. if it's not der beck, it's something else. there are probably more bakery/cafe/coffeeshop in nuremberg than there are starbucks in all of the US. the funny thing though is that there's not one near my apartment here and that's probably because i live in a farm. anyway, my favorite one is on killianstrasse and i like it because it's big and they have two rooms you can sit in. the decoration is all new york and they even have frank sinatra's lyrics on one of the walls.
6. for the past year, i lived on a street called "schnepfenreuther hauptstrasse". everytime i have to fill out a form, i curse 28 times everytime i have to spell it out.
7. don't eat at this "all you can eat" thai restaurant in fuerth called the "golden rainbow". the food is terrible and they serve fake coca-cola. actually i dont know if it was fake, but it definitely wasn't coca-cola. also, the food made me so sick it almost ripped me apart. i went there for lunch and i actually couldn't even make it to the office. my colleague had to drop me off at the KFC because i couldn't hold it any longer. it's the worst feeling when you have to go and then you're in a car. i thought i was going to explode. random note: when we're young, we don't worry if we have to go. we just go. and we have diapers. and then the diapers get cleaned up. then at some point, we're taught "not to go" and hold it. and we learn this and mommies and daddies have celebrations when we do it right the first time. and then the celebrations stop. it's not that big of a deal anymore. then we get old and it's back to how it was when we were young. we just go.
8. there's a ton of history in nuremberg. the nuremberg trials were held here. hitler built this massive nazi party rally ground with a congresshall designed much like the colloseum in rome. you can find more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_party_rally_grounds
9. when you get a shopping cart, you have to insert 1 EUR or 2 EUR to get one. this ensures that you put the cart back. it's all chained together so it works really well - nobody has to monitor it. so if you don't have a euro, then you should get change. you could also insert plastic ones in there if you want. most people will have this in the car so they don't need to worry about carrying cash all the time. they still do have cartboys, but not nearly as much.
10. german men like to wear leather pants. i've seen at least half a dozen men wear leather pants IN THE OFFICE and they wear it with a normal buttoned up shirt. the tighter the pants, the better. and oh yeah, these are 40+ yr old men.
