Even more strange, Berlin (and perhaps much of Germany, I don't know), places much greater emphasis on cash than on electronic payments like credit cards. I gave a credit card to a vendor once and they looked like they couldn't figure out what it was. In fact, as they were trying to understand it, I motioned that they were in fact studying it upside down! Other restaurants would tell me it was the first credit card they had seen in weeks, and the owner simply hadn't bothered to bring the credit card machine in from his house in a long time. Not a problem, just a bit strange to me.

Berlin is a neat place, though, and I love German food (and beer) a lot, but it cannot be overstated how you quickly come to realize that you currently take for granted speaking the same language as everyone around you, and unless you know German already, that convenience will evaporate immediately upon moving there. Even all the Holywood movies and U.S. TV shows are dubbed into German -- it is the largest overdub market in the entertainment industry, because Germans generally place low emphasis on learning other languages (just like Americans do).