Day Nine – Nuremberg

Day nine began early again as I chose to get up with Thore and head back to the Deutzendiech. Thore and I were going the same way so we walked together over to the museum.

On the way we stopped a bakery and got some pastries (this time it was considerably easier to order with my German speaking counterpart beside me) and continued on. Outside the shop though, Thore and I turned to each other and he said, ‘Did you see those girls in the shop checking us out?’ I agreed and told him how I was pretty surprised. My surprise surprised him, and after thinking for a second he asked, ‘Do guys seriously have to ask the girls out, never the other way around in North America?’ I informed him that yeah, it was pretty much guys who asked women out and rarely the opposite and he couldn’t believe it. He said that that seemed like ages and ages ago, back to a time when men were gentlemen and horses squired couples out to grand balls. We had a good laugh and pressed on to the Museum.

Arriving at the corner where our paths split up, Thore and I made plans to meet again after he was done work in two and a half hours (remember, he just finished his major project two days ago so there wasn’t much left to do) and I went off to see the Nazi museum. When I got to the museum, the Deutzendiech was completely overrun with schoolchildren and tour busses. I suppose that is to be expected but it still blew me away how many teenagers were milling about, in clearly defined social circles.

The entrance fee for the museum was 10.50 Euro but I had them knock it down to the student rate of 4.00 Euro which was another score for my Queen’s ID. The museum was streamlined into a prescribed path and the audio tour guide device worked really well, making it very easy to navigate and see everything that it had to offer. Inside, the majority of the museum was dedicated to the rise of Nazi power illustrating how Hitler had motivated the entire country into a state of fanatical devotion (well, if were weren’t devoted you would disappear) and only really touched on the combative part of the war near the end. It was really quite disturbing though, looking at all of the photographs taken from Nuremberg when the Nazis party was at its height. The places that I had been walking only the day before covered in swastikas, everyone cheering wildly for Hitler.

Thore and I had decided to meet up again in two and a half hours, but it really wasn’t enough time. I could have easily stayed in there for another hour, going through all of the extra bits of information that was available and sitting down for a few more of the movies that were playing at various locations. I ended up running out of time and I had to hurry along as I was going to be late to meet up with Thore.

Exiting the museum I went to the pre-arranged meeting location and Thore hadn’t made it just yet. We had however made the contingency place that if he was late I would go to the beer garden nearby and wait for him there. Finally, after shrugging off a number of beer gardens previously during the trip and the expensive mass (1 litre) beers cant came with them, I broke down and purchased a full liter of some locally crafted weisse beer. I was about halfway through mine before Thore showed up and he too enjoyed a pint with me. After enjoying the fine beer we headed back to the flat.

Back at the flat Thore had a bunch of school work to get done and I was pretty tired from getting up early and seeing the museum so I watched some TV with Alex and had a rather long nap in the afternoon.

When I finally did get up it was about time for dinner. Because it was our last night in Germany (Alex and I decided to head to the south of France the next morning) I asked Thore if he could think of something very typical of a Sunday dinner he would have with his family. He said he would ponder it, and we went off to search for food. Eventually while rummaging through the supermarket he did think of something and after finding all of the necessary items we went back to the flat to try and concoct a crazy meal.

I’ve lost the name of the dish, but I can describe it to you. The good news is that it included vegetables this time (pickles and onions), but also had both beef and pork. Basically, the dish was a pickle wrapped in bacon wrapped in a thin steak that had been tenderized and covered in mustard and spices. The super wrapped item (kind of like a German turducken, or the SNL Taco Town sketch) was held together with wooden skewers and then pan fried to sear the meat. lastly the ‘meat roll-ups’ were submerged in a large pot of premade gravy and onions to braised for two hours.

The result was soooo good. I realize that by now, you’ve got to be thinking, ‘did mike eat anything he didn’t love?’ the answer to that is yes, but it’s not likely to make it into the blog J. Our traditional meal was really really good, and is something that I will have to make again. Maybe I’ll introduce it to Ethiopia and it will be a big thing. Maybe....

After dinner was all done, it was quite late and instead of heading to a bar or out for the night we thought we would save our strength as we had a really long travel day down to the south of France the next day. However, near the end of the night I was feeling a bit pent up (having had such a long nap in the afternoon) so Thore and I ended up going for a walk just before midnight.

We sauntered off in the direction of the Duetzendiech but turned into a large park that backed onto a sizable lake which I suspect was another man made entity like the one behind the Duetzendiech. The park that went around the lake however was enjoyable and while it wasn’t lit up well, that was a bit of the draw to it. Naturally, a dimly lit park after midnight on a Friday night made me start to wonder if it was a safe decision to be out there. Thore allayed my fears though, explaining that while teenagers use parks to drink and have parties back in North America because they can’t go to bars, that simply isn’t a problem in Germany due to the lower drinking age. I was skeptical at first but after quite a long walk there really was nothing to worry about in the park.

We walked and chatted about GIS, masters programs, and life in general. It was a really good walk and I was happy to be out and walk around for a while. Eventually though, we headed back to the apartment and by 2am I was in bed. It was our last night in Nuremberg, and our last night in Germany until the very end of the trip. It was definitely my favorite night during the trip so far, and looking back (I’m writing this while on the way to Kenya more than two weeks later) I might even go so far as to say that it was the best night of the whole trip.