Monday, May 19, 2014

Looks can be deceiving


I usually don't buy cereals, I don't have the habit of having them for breakfast. So when I buy any, it's to eat as a snack. My all time favorites are those chocolate balls (many brands make them) and the champion of all times, Froot Loops

And then one of these days I felt like eating cereals (obviously at the moment I saw the boxes at the grocery store) and I was really happy to see the Froot Loops box just like the one in Brazil. I bought it.

When I decided to eat it, the weirdness started when I opened the package. I was greeted by these rings:


They are much bigger than (our) normal and there ar eno pink ones (how come?!). And, unfortunately, it also tastes different. It tastes like nothing, like some flavorless generic cereal with almost no sugar.

Needless to say, I think it'll be a while before I buy them again. 

Thursday, May 15, 2014

So happy!

Cookie

Being a dog in Dresden is being a happy dog.

Look at her rolling on the grass:


Is she adorable or what?

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

What to do with garbage in Dresden, Part 2

On my previous post, I talked about the kinds of garbage the city hall picks up at your house. Today, I'm going to talk about all the other kinds, the ones you need to take somewhere.

It's not very common to see glass bottles going to waste!
Here you pay a deposit (pfand) every time you buy bottled beverages. Water, soda, wine, beer, juice, etc, you pay around 25 cents for each of them. Later, you take the bottles back to the grocery store and put them in a machine that identifies them and sums up what you're getting back. When you're done feeding the bottles into the machine you press a button and receive a small note with the amount. After you're done shopping, you give this note to the cashier and the amount is discounted from your purchase.

And that's why it's so unusual to see bottles in the trash: you're throwing money away. 

Big trash cans for paper and glass.
Usually, the glasses you recycle are jars of jam, baby food jars, and others like these. The glasses are separated per color and go into these big cans you find all over Dresden. On the first picture you see the smaller ones and on this picture above, the big ones (they're about my height!).

In this picture there's also a paper trash can. Here, you discard big paper boxes, for instance. Anything that won't easily fit in the regular blue cans in front of your house. 

I have also seen these big cans for clothes and textiles. From what I understood, these are for the pieces that are still in decent state and could be used by someone else. I could be wrong, I didn't pay too much attention because I haven't needed to use them.

As for batteries, you need to take them to places like the grocery stores. I have a glass jar in which I store them and always forget to take them with me.

Trash can in Hüblerplatz.

Trash can in Waldpark.
On residential street there are no trash cans every X meters like we had in Florianópolis. At the parks, close to the benches, there are always trash cans. 

Some people, unfortunately, have the bad habit of not picking up after their dogs. I was really surprised with that, I would never have guessed. In the beginning, I thought it was because of this lack of trash cans, but now I'm not so sure. What I do is carry the bag with me until I get to a park (there are many here!) or to a building with trash cans close to the street and an open gate. I just toss it in the black bin. 

I think I talked about every kind of trash. If you remember something else I haven't mentioned, let me know and I'll try to find out where it goes.

To read the first part, click here.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Purple

The very first flowers in our yard!

Universitätsklinikum

Universitätsklinikum

Neighbor's garden

Another neighbor's garden

Hermann-Seidl Park

Nina and Peepow

Peepow and the purple flower. Cute <3


The first flower in the post was also the first to show up on everybody's gardens. Overnight, every garden was full of them! The one in the picture was broken by accident when Cookie, very surprised, first found it.


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Blaues Wunder sneak peek

Elbe's beautiful riverbank.

Blaues Wunder.

Blaues Wunder.
When I went to Universitätsklinikum I remebered I needed to schedule another appointment, but somewhere else. It was close, so I took a tram and went. When I got to the clinic, the doctor also had prolonged the holiday!

But I realized I was really close to the Blaues Wunder, so I decided to go there.

The pictures aren't very good because I took them with my phone and it was raining and dark. When I go back, I'll take better pictures.

Look at the Elbe riverbank, it's so large and beautiful!




I managed to take a picture of a white tree, like I promised to try when I talked about them. I thought this restaurant was really nice to go on a beutiful day, so I took a picture of it to show R and later realized the tree was there. It is already turning green, but you can still have a good idea of how white they get.



I knew this street sign would interest many people, so I decided to add this picture (hehe). I didn't go check the wine street because it was starting to rain even more. When I go back, I'll come here and tell you what it's like.


Monday, May 5, 2014

What to do with garbage in Dresden, Part 1

When we got here, we received a booklet from the relocation company with numerous information about Dresden. It has info from doctors to schools for children. One of the items that, right away, called my attention was garbage collection. I found it was really complicated compared to what we did in Brasil (organic or recyclable, basically) and thought I would have to check the book every time I needed to throw something away (not really, haha).

Of course, with time, I got used to it. I decided to write this post so you can see the difference and, maybe, help someone that's not so fortunate to have such a book.

Since the subject is quite extensive, I'll divide it in two parts: the garbage that's collected at your house and the one you need to take somewhere. Today, I'll talk about the garbage the city hall collects at your place.

Garbage cans in front of a building.



These garbage cans with colored lids are placed in front of the buildings. You take your trash there and the city hall collects it once a week. In our street it's every Thursday.

You start organizing the trash inside. I don't know if every house has this, but our apartment came with three trash cans installed under the sink. I decided they would be "yellow", "blue" and "black" to correspond to the trash can outside where each one would go. The "brown" garbage we put in smaller bags and take out as soon as possible, because it gets stinky fast.

In some buildings, the garbage cans are really big like this one. 
I'll describe briefly what goes in which can:

Yellow: plastic and metal. Here you put from body lotion bottles to bottle caps (metal or plastic ones). You don't put electronics, appliances or batteries.

Blue: clean paper. Newspapers, books (the horror!), magazines. Do not put dirty paper.

Brown: organic. Old food, gardening waste. Do not put meat or fish here!

Black: household waste. Also known as "everything that doesn't go anywhere else" - like meat, fish and broken appliances.

So these are the kinds of garbage that are collect at your place. On the next post, I'll write about the kinds of garbage you need to take somewhere.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

Labor Day


There is nothing like resting in the sun to celebrate Labor Day.

Happy holiday!

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