When You Gotta Go

On a somewhat related note, I thought I would just segue into a related topic that I always find endlessly fascinating when visiting far off lands.    Everybody has different facilities and procedures for this common human activity, that is, going to the restroom and in my travels I have encountered some surprisingly varied ways of doing it.  Norway, though a modern western country,  is no exception.

The basic plumbing is the same, a flush toilet, but the configuration and the set up of the typical restroom is different with different emphases.

First, there seems to be far less of a big deal made about gender division here.   In other words, I have encountered more toilets that are uni-sex, and even in the segregated "men's" room, the cleaning staff may be of either gender.   It startled me a few times, thinking I had inadvertantly walked into the wrong restroom, but I soon got into the European spirit of things.

Norwegians (and indeed Europeans in general) do not seem to have any compunctions about oddly shaped restrooms either.   They will with fair frequency squeeze their water closets in any spare space in the building:   What I am saying is that don't expect your restroom to be square or rectangular.   I have been in triangle shaped rooms, trapezoids, rhombii, semi-circular pie wedges, and 4 metre long runways. 

I guess that is the thing.   Many restrooms are actually separate little rooms instead of a larger common room with cubicles or stalls in them.   Those that have stalls are of this floor to ceiling variety made of coloured laminated particle board with aluminum frame.   

Facilities vary, but once you enter your room or stall, you are generally in a private sanctum all your own.   There is the standard toilet, a sink, disinfecting soap, a garbage can, and a hand drying system of some kind, but there is also a heater with a thermostat that you can adjust.   There are often hooks and shelves for your coat, jacket or backpack.  Stalls also often have a fire alarm siren so that you are not left out of the loop in the event of a fire while you're doing your business.

Sometimes these rooms are quite large.... large enough to lay out a sleeping bag and sleep in.   It occurred to me that they can be virtually a mini-hostel (except for the fact that some public restrooms use a UV lamp to keep the riff raff from hanging out inside).

One thing that there is NOT are toilet seat covers.   That is just not an amenity that is provided, in general.  

On the toilet there are generally two buttons.   Some are cleverly designed as a full circle and a quarter circle within the full circle, i.e.  a full moon and a quarter moon.   The smaller moon segment is for a low volume flush, and the bigger moon segment is for the full monty.    Some older toilets have just a single knob on top of the tank.   I eventually figured out that you must pull the knob upward.  I have been to some very fascinating old restrooms too, like circa pre-WWII, with old pull handles on chains and porcelain trough latrines that look like something from the Victorian era.

An interesting thing about home bathrooms is that they seem to have a central floor drain.  In other words, when you take a bath or a shower it is actually ok to splash or spray water beyond the tub because the water drains away on the bathroom floor.   There is no caulking between the bath fixture and the wall and shower curtains are just to keep the oversplash from soaking the towels and stuff in the rest of the bathroom.

Also, most home bathrooms have a nifty underfloor warmer!   You just adjust this knob and it keeps the bathroom tiles nice and toasty warm.  Woohoo.

In true European fashion, the bath-shower head is at the end of a long metal cable (think: Inspector Clousseau in that hotel in Gstadt) which is handy for rinsing the undercarriage.  Oh!  and the water here comes out of the tap incredibly ice cold and/or scaldingly hot.   The cold part is actually very refreshing.   A glass of water from the tap is like fresh, clear, ice water.   The scalding hot takes a while to get used to (burned myself a few times) but is handy when cooking or making tea, as water is hot enough out of the tap to steep with.

Speaking of Inspector Clousseau in Gstadt, I must make a tangential mention of this German made Siemans vacuum cleaner that I have been using here.   I have never encountered a vacuum cleaner of such power!   Like the comical vacuum cleaner scene in Return of the Pink Panther this vacuum had the suction power to pull up debris from out of the air.    I mean that literally.   I would bring the vacuum head near the floor (like 6 inches away) and I can see dust and debris in a 1 foot radius being pulled toward it.   If I put the head directly against a wooden floor, it would adhere and become immovable.   It was almost a ludicrous amount of suction power.   The amazing thing was that all of this power was generated by a relatively quiet motor.   That German engineering!