Anyway, I've been spending a lot of time since I've been here thinking how things are different. I think it's probably annoying for me to say things like "Hey! My keyboard has a 'z' where the 'y' should be" over and over again. But I keep doing it, because it's a never ending source of fascination for me and I have a hard time keeping my thoughts on the inside. So yesterday I was eating lunch with the lab and talking about my shower. Before I continue, here's a picture of my shower head.
And here's a close up view:
The disadvantage, of course, is that it's waist high and facing the wall so that I have to hold it the entire time I'm showering. And if I want to shampoo or something I get cold because I have to put it down. The rationale for this totally escaped me, but apparently the general idea is that if you don't enjoy the shower you won't waste water. Do you see? The whole point is to make it intentionally annoying and unpleasant. I think that this realization points to a more fundamental difference between Europeans and Americans.
Anyway, all this brings me to my next point. Toilets. Specifically, the toilets in the lab. Unlike American toilets, these do not have a big bowl full of water. Here, fortunately I have a picture of this also:
I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but there's a big ledge in the back. So anything, shall we say 'deposited' on the ledge just sits there until the toilet is flushed. Which is probably good if you're taking samples to be tested for Giardia, but bad in almost any other context.
I'm willing to walk up the 71 stairs to my room at night and up the 70 stairs to my lab in the morning. I'm willing to hang my clothes in the drying room instead of using a dryer. I'm willing to walk and take the bus instead of driving a car. But I'm proud to be a citizen of a country that choses to savor showering and to make trips to the toilet as pleasantly scented as possible.
5 comments:
If the crappy shower is meant to force you to save water, what's the crappy toilet about? Character building maybe.
The toilets in New Zealand were like that, but then when you flushed them it was like Niagra Falls. No smells could survive a flush of that magnitude.
All I can say is that a country that is famous for such automobiles as the Mercedes Benz and the Volkswagon couldn't design a shower head that wasn't facing the WALL?
I think the crappy toilet is meant to save water also because you don't waste a big bowl full every time you flush. But I'm not sure because I haven't discussed the toilets with the lab yet. The one in my apartment is shaped differently - sort of like a big funnel - so that particulate matter goes way down to the small circle of water at the bottom. In that case the problem is the splash.
when we were in the netherlands the toilets were similar and I remember a certain friend of ours who is now a finance professional in chattanooga (I think you know who I mean) who came out on the first afternoon, after we'd all taken notice of the toilet trays and said, "its kind of cool the way it piles up, I mean, it like 'Look what I made'". . .it was self-aware, of course, but still pretty funny
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