"If it's yellow...."

Two days ago I set a goal of writing one post per day. Well, Day 1 whizzed by and I’ve already fallen down on the job. Oh well.

Having been here for a week now, I’ve noticed quite a few oddities…like the standard paper size here is longer.  I brought a folder with me from Maryland that I have decided is useless because all the papers hang out of the top by an inch.  By the way, standard lined notebook paper is impossible to find here. All notebooks are a weird type of graph paper. Also the French keyboard is different than ours. The Q is moved down to home row, relegating the A to the upper left corner. And you have to use the “shift” key for a period, question mark, or numbers…but not for an exclamation point. But the most interesting oddity thus far is the bathroom situation.

The bathrooms here are interesting for several reasons. First of all, the toilet is in a separate room from the sink and tub. At first I thought it was odd. I didn’t really like it because you have to go in a separate room to wash your hands and it seemed like an inconvenience. What if someone’s showering and you can’t use the sink in there? But I suppose that needing to use the toilet and not being able to get to it because someone is in the bathroom is a bigger problem. And besides, there’s always the kitchen sink. So a separate room for the toilet. I can get behind that. In fact, I may even prefer it.  And it’s not just this particular apartment. It seems to be the norm around here.  

Another norm I’ve noticed is that everyone is very particular when it comes to water consumption, hot water especially. Apparently they all use electric and it’s really expensive to heat a bunch of water. When they shower they turn on the water (some hot with a bunch of cold mixed in) long enough to wet their hair, then they turn it off while they shampoo and lather up. It comes back on just long enough to rinse, and they’re done.  This is absolutely miserable. You stand there shivering in a tub, shampooing away as fast as you can. Then it’s time to rinse and the water is lukewarm. But you’re glad for the lukewarm water because it’s better than nothing. I love to take pretty long showers with scalding water and come out looking like a lobster. This “shower on the fly” business takes some getting used to. 

Another funky thing is the tub. Several other kids in the program have commented on how there isn’t a shower. They have to pretzel themselves down low enough to get their heads under the tub faucet to rinse their hair. Fortunately, the tub here at my apartment does have a shower. Unfortunately it’s below waist level. Also, I lucked out because I have a shower curtain. Apparently those are not to be taken for granted around here. So weird…

Other interesting bathroom observations:

-Toilet paper in public bathrooms isn’t on a roll. It’s more like Kleenex. You have to

  pull off individual squares.

-Often, you have to pay to use a public restroom. I kind of like this idea. They tend to

  be cleaner and less crowded.

-Flushing toilet doesn’t seem to be a top priority. Saving water, maybe? 

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-Heather gets full credit for the title of this post. Genius.