Nuremberg 1

As hinted in my last post, I had a wee trip this weekend, to go visit Nurnberg (Nuremberg). I'll probably make a series of small posts about it as I remember things to write about. So, to begin.

Nurnberg is an old, old city. It has a center well-defined by the old city walls: within lies all the medieval architecture, including a castle known as the Berg and several old churches. Outside the wall looked to me like a fairly typical suburban-metro sprawl, though with some German-style architecture mixed in with all the glass office buildings and plain hotels. But within were houses painted white with brown shutters, Gothic churches, narrow covered footbridges, clocktowers, and extremely strange bronze statues. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera every time I passed by one of these statues, but when I post my pictures you;ll be able to see a few. Nurnberg was beautiful.

I wanted to see the courtroom of the famous Nuremberg Trials, but it is actually kind of far out of the city and the car was a manual, so we didn't make the journey to see it. I'm sure it's a boring place anyway, right? Just a courtroom!

It was really nice to stroll through the open-air market in the plaza of Lorenzkirche (kirche means church), which was open every day, although pretty empty when we first visited in the rain. Many of the stalls were exactly like the German Market I saw in Edinburgh around Christmas time, with the same roasted/sweetened nuts and heart-shaped biscuits, but the other stalls had different kinds of jewelry, or clothing, or cooking utensils, or whatever was being sold. Although most of the Germans we ran across seemed to have a good knowledge of English, the venders in the markets were more difficult to communicate with. We bought sausage sandwiches by pointing at what we wanted and holding up fingers; this procured us something called the Nurnberger Snack though we didn't know it at the time. Three small sausages on a hard roll, pretty tasty.

It was more difficult perhaps when we asked the fruit sellers what certain fruits were, or when we wanted a fruit in the center of the display. The stands were so huge it was pretty impossible to get close to a fruit if it wasn't placed in the front, but we made do and had some delicious grapes, strawberries, and dried apricots. At one stand there was dried ginger next to the dried apricots, but the vender spoke very little English. We asked what it was, still, because the label 'Ingwar' sounded like 'Ginger' but we weren't sure. He picked up a nearby ginger root, and then offered us to try a piece of the dried ginger. A lot of the venders let us sample what we were about to buy, except for things that were prepackaged, like the strawberries. The ginger was stronger than I expected, and he mimicked the 'whoa' sound I made with a laugh.

I have developed a strong appreciation for people who visit a country without knowing the language, it's difficult. Luckily the venders and waiters we came across had a good sense of humor about it and were very patient and helpful. Some seemed to enjoy the chance to practice their English with us, and for some others we found it easier to communicate in Spanish, although one waiter first switched to Italian when we obviously didn't understand German.

Other people were at least completely bilingual, and I'm sure this is a great asset to any employer. The hotel staff were fluent in both, as well as the every grocery store clerk we bought from, and the waiters at the higher-end restaurants. Nurnberg hosts a lot of fairs and conventions, so presumably they see a lot of English-speaking businessmen all year round.