Recycling madness

I had heard so many stories about how seriously recycling was taken in Germany that I was expecting a magical and well-oiled system. The reality was . . . absurdly complicated.

The recycling program was first introduced to me when I was in Schwäbisch Hall – in the residence, there was a sign over the recycling bag explaining essentially that tetrapaks and items marked with the special recycling symbol could go in. Bottles were supposed to go back to the store for a refund. I was very literal, and didn't recycle anything because absolutely nothing I bought was marked with the symbol.

When I moved to Stuttgart, I was forced to switch grocery stores and therefore brands. I discovered that a few companies did indeed label packaging with the recycling symbol, and if I thought about it logically, almost everything could be recycled (if yogurt container A has a recycling symbol and B doesn't, they're probably both recyclable because they're made of the same kind of plastic. Are the lids recyclable? Still haven't figured that one out). It turned out the whole symbol system was totally misleading, because aside from failure to label most items that can be recycled, some of the items labeled with the symbol are not recyclable using the same system (e.g., glass, which has to be sorted by colour and dropped off separately at inconvenient and distant drop boxes scattered throughout the city). After I had lived in Stuttgart for almost two months, the city finally sent everyone a brochure explaining how recycling worked along with the pickup schedule. It is still a mystery to me where one might purchase the magical plastic bags recyclables are supposed to be put into. Not the grocery store, the convenience store or the drugstore – I spent a lot of time looking. Probably somewhere far away with very bad hours. Luckily I inherited a small supply when I moved in to my new place after Christmas.

Some questions that really puzzle me are A) why they don't give everyone the educational brochure and schedule when they first move in? All foreigners have to register with the city upon the first week of arrival anyways; it would be awesome to get some useful information at the same time. Possibly a stash of the Official Yellow bags too; B) it clearly is not law that all recyclable packaging has to be labeled with the symbol. Since Germany is quite enthusiastic about legislation, from what I've seen, this seems like a bit of a no-brainer.

Who knew household waste was so complicated?

View from my office before the snow melted

Birds

Birds are great, but difficult to photograph, especially on the way to work when I don't have time to stand still and wait for them to come close. The nice part is that the birds that live in the park in Stuttgart don't seem to migrate anywhere. They disappear when the weather drops below zero, but are back as soon as it warms up so they couldn't go very far. Aside from the ever present pack of mallards and pigeons (boring city birds), there's a random cormorant, a great blue heron, a pair of storks,

The city must stock the pond, because the storks aren't eating bread crumbs all winter

"song birds" – by this point it should be clear I've failed to locate an English language guidebook to birds of southern Germany. The initial goal was to photograph said 'songbirds' and ask for help with the ids, but the photography stage has not met with unparalleled success.
Also 20 million crows. I don't know if they're the same species as in North America. German people call them ravens, but this might be a translation issue. From a North American perspective, they're certainly more crowlike than ravenlike. They're kind of cool because they hybridize with an eastern species, and so some of them have random white feathers in their wings and tails. It gives them a magpie-esque look.

Crow vs. raven? The mystery continues

And, staple of parks the world over, Mute Swans!

Stuttgart TV tower

In an effort to participate in all of the tourist attractions the city of Stuttgart has to offer, I made a visit to the TV tower.

While this tower is definitely not the tallest TV tower out there, Stuttgart has gone for the 'oldest' prize, and claims this TV tower is the prototype after which all subsequent TV towers (e.g., the CN tower) were modeled. There were also some extremely retro looking army green rotary telephones in the ticket vending booth that reinforced this claim.

Supposedly on a clear day you can see the Alps from the observation deck, which sounded great to me. However, it turns out that air quality isn't a strong point of the region - even on a clear January day, it's blanketed in smog. The furthest I could see was the Schwäbische Alb, only 100km to the south. It was pretty though, and with the coffee and cake stop afterward, made for a delightful Sunday afternoon.

View towards the south, the hazy looking highland is the Schwäbische Alb. But the fields are still green in January!

Low angle winter sunlight

Happy holidays!

Happy holidays everybody! The blog will take another short hiatus while I return to by birthplace for Christmas. Back in the New Year with more insightful commentary into random tourist topics. Did you know that Stuttgart is (unfortunately for me) one of the few cities in Germany where rather than employ a superintendent, the tenants take turns cleaning the sidewalk and taking out the trash from large apartment buildings? It snowed copiously during my week, just so I could have this experience.

Altes Schloss, Stuttgart

Weihnachtsmarkt

My favourite part of Germany so far! From the end of November until a few days before Christmas, an outdoor market is set up dedicated to all things Christmas. There are stalls selling ornaments, gifty items, candy, gingerbread, chocolate covered fruit, Christmas-themed tableware, Glühwein (spiced wine) and traditional Schwäbisch street food (mostly different types of sausages). The one downside is that the market is super crowded and so gets a bit claustrophobic if you're trying to walk around. Stuttgart has one of the larger Christmas markets in Germany, and it attracts busloads of tourists. Now if only it were a bit warmer . . .

'Official' entrance to the market right by where the tour bus parking lot is.

Stuttgart Rathaus (city hall) overlooking the main marketplace. The enormous decorated conifer was actually cut down and brought to Stuttgart just for this occasion.

The rooves of all the stalls are decorated. I was at another Christmas market in the Stuttgart suburb of Esslingen where one of the stalls was decorated with taxidermied musk deer - slightly unsettling.

Museum am Löwentor

The natural history museum of Stuttgart is divided into two facilities. The extant collections are displayed in a palace in the centre of the park

And the fossil collections are displayed in the much less glamorous Museum am Löwentor

Okay, so the seasonal difference between the two pictures doesn't help make this building look less industrial

The mascot for the museum is Plateosaurus, shown here accumulating snow outside the museum

And in a slightly more hospitable environment in a diorama inside the museum

Plateosaurus is a plant eating dinosaur from southern Germany, and most of the specimens come from a single quarry. Animals of all ages are discovered, and many of the skeletons are articulated (bones are in association) making Plateosaurus one of the better known early herbivorous dinosaurs. The museum has reopened the quarry (it is their mascot animal, after all).

From this same quarry is the even more famous Proganochelys, the oldest terrestrial turtle, seen here glowering menacingly from behind the glass.

The museum has cool displays and houses many famous fossils, but I feel like I should ration out the details since I have replaced all those touristy afternoons wandering around the German countryside  with sitting in the museum basement measuring stuff. So, whenever I get stumped for blog content I'll trot out the gallery fossils.

The blog is back . . .

The blog took a brief hiatus due to personal problems, and the break was sustained due to the unfortunate fate of my digital camera (abandoned on a bus in Berlin) - but I think I have a grip now, and also a brand-new camera so no excuses. Also sadly no post about Berlin, since I didn't download the pictures before losing the camera.

I currently live in Stuttgart, and have since the beginning of November. Stuttgart is not a pretty city by any means, but is definitely growing on me. One of my exciting new discoveries - the radio station doesn't have any ads! It took me weeks to figure out what was different, embarrassingly enough. Same music (oddly more Arcade Fire), a bit less dj chatter (amazingly enough, they restrict themselves to band interviews and commentary directly pertaining to the music), same news and weather on the hour. . . .something's different but I can't quite put my finger on it. . .

Stuttgart is also very cold and snowy, which makes me wish my winter boots were not in my parents' basement. It also has those annoying salt rings that migrate from the slush up the legs of my pants. Argh.

City centre

View from my apartment of city centre