German is the main language spoken here. Tübingen is a university city, however, and has multiple world-renowned research institutions, so English is also often spoken. It is common to also hear many other languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and Turkish.
The Euro is used in Germany. One Euro is approximately equal to 1.05 U.S. Dollars.
A bottle of water costs 0.54€. To encourage recycling, stores also charge a deposit (AKA Pfand) of 0.25 € on the plastic bottle. When I am finished with the bottle of water, I can bring the empty bottle back to a “Pfand Machine” that will return the 0.25 € deposit.
The best meal that I had this week was a Chinese hotpot in a nearby city called Metzingen. Because of Tübingen’s international population, there are many restaurants around the area offering tasty food from many different countries such as Ethiopia, Korea, China, India, Italy, and Turkey.
