Meißen, Germany

The town I was in yesterday, Görlitz, has an umlaut (two dots) over the vowel. It indicates a slight change in pronunciation. Today’s town, Meißen, features the German eszett which indicates a double “s”. It’s Meissen in English.

As you round the road, the town juts into view with its striking castle and cathedral up on a hill soaring over the river.

Albrechtsburg castle was erected beginning in the late 1400s. It’s regarded to be the first castle to be used as a royal residence in the German-speaking world. It wraps around the Meissen Cathedral which was built in the 1300s.

The colorful wall paintings and detailed sculptures still appeared vivid and full of life. The intricate arches developed here were on the cutting edge of architecture in the Middle Ages. I sat and looked over the bright blue and gold chapel room from all angles. Incredible imagination and craftsmanship.

The Cathedral is pure Gothic architecture. In my opinion, if you’ve ducked your head into one church in Europe, you don’t need to do it again (save for a few spectacular examples, like Ulm). I’m usually searching for a spire to climb. But I did enjoy many details including the fish knob.

The town itself was well-preserved. I got another workout today hiking the hilly streets overlooking the river. Again, not many foreign tourists at all. The only people I saw taking photos like me were German.

Remember I mentioned the German penchant for tidying up? The next-door-neighbor is due a stern look…

You think Jarod also gets out and cleans his train?

I grabbed a sandwich in a grocery store (they all have bakeries attached) and observed people checking out. For those uninitiated in buying groceries in Germany, it can be jarring.

At checkout, the cashier starts pushing your items from the conveyor belt over the scanner. You quickly grab your items and stuff them in the bags you brought from home (no free bags here). Otherwise, they’ll just get pushed to the floor. Checking out is always the most nerve-wracking for me because there’s invariably a long line of impatient shoppers watching my every move.

Think about that the next time you take groceries home in 25 plastic Walmart bags and the cashier double-bags your milk for you.

There’s also something called Pfand in Germany. You pay about 25 cents extra for every plastic/glass bottle you buy. You then bring your bag full of empty bottles back to the store and put them in this machine at the entrance. It spins them, reads their codes and prints out a receipt you then hand to the cashier to get your cash back.

Yes, Germans take recycling very serious. There are four (!) waste bins:

• Food scraps and used napkins (but not tissues) in the brown bin
• Paper products, cereal boxes, tissues in the blue/green bin
• Plastic packaging (rinsed out) in the yellow bin
• Random other trash goes in the mysterious black bin

Of course all plastic/glass bottles go back to the store for your Pfand. If you need to throw away a bathtub, window glass or an animal carcass, you have to call a special number. For exactly those three things.

If something doesn’t fit in one of these categories, I have no idea what you do with it. There is a special day in each city during the year where everyone puts their Sperrmüll out on the sidewalk and you’re free to go dumpster diving. I could see Carri being a natural on that day…

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