Passed. This is a strange topic for an article, even if it is not very delicate. But if you’ve traveled far outside your immediate circle of comfort, you’ll also agree there are things you need to know when you leave home.
For the most part, you can travel all over the United States and find the same stores, familiar names, consistent quality. With a few inconsequential variations, you can go to any mall, be it Santa Rosa, California or Baltimore, Maryland, and find your favorite clothing store, that sweet-smelling candle store, and the place with all things sporty. Not so in Europe. That also goes for your restroom facilities.
However, before you can use one, you must first locate one. In Europe, this can be tricky. Sometimes you will be lucky and you will see a sign clearly marked: “Bathroom” or a similar word, depending on the country you are in. But usually, no matter where you are in Europe, you only need to know two letters: WC. This means odorless. Once you find one, you’re good to go, so to speak.
Bathrooms in Europe, whether in a hotel room or a train station, used to intimidate me. I would approach them with fear, not because of sanitation or lack of it. In fact, I have found that they are generally quite clean. No, instead, my uneasiness was heightened by not knowing how to blush.
Go ahead, laugh, it’s fun. I’d stand in the bathroom, running my eyes over the porcelain, glancing quickly at the wall, the floor, looking for any clues. Inevitably, each time the task requires a different procedure. Do I push, pull, stomp, flip, or just do nothing? But the fear eventually turned into fun, and now every time I use a European toilet, I consider it an opportunity to play a twisted version of “Where’s Waldo?”
Those Europeans! What a sense of humor! Perhaps they are laughing behind hidden cameras that capture the frantic antics of unsuspecting Americans. Maybe they are smarter than us. Probably both. But I never stop imagining what it must look like, those of us who are used to the single silver lever placed reassuringly on the side of the toilet tank.
Sometimes it takes me a while, but I always find the elusive secret. I have successfully pulled strings hanging from my head, pushed round buttons on tank tops, pulled round buttons on tank tops, pushed with all my might on wide segments of toilet tops, flushed ( no pun intended) with its surface I have used my foot to stomp, my toe to wiggle. Sometimes, to my delight, I’ve just had to stand up.
So what about those bidets? My Italian cousins have them all in their houses, by God! What the hell is all that? They were shocked to discover that we backward Americans not only don’t have them, but we don’t want them either. We don’t even know how to use them! After listening carefully to my cousins’ patient explanations, I still can’t figure out how these gadgets could actually do the trick. I once spent several days in a Venetian hotel in a room that contained one of these bidets. It sat silently beside the cabinet like a modern art sculpture waiting to be appreciated. Eyeing him suspiciously, I continued to walk to the shower and bathroom down the hall… one floor below.
And what about Greece? On the wall next to every bathroom in the country, even in your hotel room, there are signs clearly warning you DO NOT PUT TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET! HEY? It seems that Greece’s delicate septic systems can’t handle it. And in case you can’t read Greek or English, the poster is accompanied by a small image of a toilet and paper overlaid with a big red X so there is no confusion in the message. Instead, next to each toilet you will find a small trash can with a lid to deposit all the paper. And I mean everyone. If you don’t follow the rules, you’ll feel even more embarrassed when the hotel owner has to come into your room to soak and mop.
Greek baths notwithstanding, venturing into the world of European public baths is even more exciting. Attendants are often there to greet you, unsmiling as they hand out two or three squares of precious paper as you enter a booth and wait for a coin or two as you leave. (I suppose you would be unsmiling too, if you had that job).
Sometimes you can’t even get into the bathroom without paying first. A coin-operated mechanism controls the flow… of visitors, that is. This sometimes presents a problem, especially if you’re short on change and the bus you’ve been waiting for is just around the corner.
Of course, let’s not forget to mention Amsterdam’s clever solution to the unwanted use of its streets as toilet facilities. Throughout the city, especially on the busy streets, you’ll find green metal cages (called pissoirs), where men can enter for a few moments, their feet still visible to the world. Although not designed for a woman, I would expect a museum anyway, thanks.
Last but not least, you can never claim to have had a true European bathroom adventure until you’ve experienced the infamous “Turkish toilet”: think of two porcelain footprints on either side of a hole in the floor. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. Yes, I have had this adventure.
But don’t let all this dubious quackery scare you away. In truth, European toilets are modern and clean and, if you know how to do it, readily available. If nature calls, whether you’re cruising the busy streets of Rome or strolling through a remote hilltop town, simply find a coffee shop. Entering with confidence and a smile, head towards the back until that WC sign appears above a door. You will be home free. Then the only thing left to discover is how to download…