Clean hands.

Let's talk about how to use the sink for a minute. Sometimes it's just like every other day.

But sometimes there's a foot pedal protruding below the piping that you need to step on like an accelerator in a car. Don't stomp or it my spray everywhere. Just shift into first and easy down on the pedal.

Sometimes there's a rubber-looking button on the floor that you need to stand on. You can usually stomp here.

Either way there's probably no hot or cold control. That'd involved two pedals and more shifting. Instead, we just get cold.

Pop a squat.

All the toilets at my school are like this. Just a hole in the ground with some nifty foot grips... so you don't slip, we hope.

Not even the teachers' lavatories are spared any luxury. Each is contained within its own glorious stall with a wall light. One another note, frequently the bathroom light switch is located on the outside of the bathroom. No exception here. And often, they don't work at my school.

Nothing like going in a hole in the dark. At least it flushes powerfully, but still it's only a small step above a porta-potty because odors tend to linger in here.

Can you imagine always having to squat? But apparently this is the way it was meant to be.

If this really interests you, please, I beg you, click on the picture to read more about it.

Peeing in public.

A more sanitary and discrete update from my last post, although in theory quite similar. Those Dutch are so liberal and forward-thinking... nothing bothers them.

Poor man's pot.

A tried but true classic. The brick wall behind the parked car.

During nights of drinking in Parma, this is bound to happen. No lines. No piss covered floor.

No flush necessary.

Getting complicated.

This is in a pizzeria in the hills above Lago di Garda. Often instead of stalls each toilet is located within its own little room, which sometimes includes its own sink.

Flushing the toilet on the right is not so different from mine at home. Okay. But the urinal on the left. That's a different story.


The flusher is actually that little knob on the wall located between the two urinals. One of the stranger methods I've found. It functions like a faucet. You turn it on, let the water run for a moment, and then you gotta turn it off otherwise it will just continue to run.

Now wash your hands and get back to dinner before someone catches you taking pictures in the restaurant bathroom, you creep.

The basics.

We'll start with Italia since that is where I am currently living, but as I travel throughout the summer this documentation will expand.

Here is the toilet in my bathroom. Pretty standard, pretty straightforward. But unlike most American toilets, there is no tank directly behind the seat. Often they are located in the wall, at about eye level (with or without the flusher), or even sometimes way above your head. And the ones located behind the seat are usually much thinner than the standard American tank.

So how do you stop it when the water keeps running? Can't jiggle the handle here.

I dunno, it's never happened. But my toilet sure flushes a lot more powerfully than any in America. It's like one of those super-industrial strength flushes often found in public restrooms. Also the bowl never fills with water, which is why all European toilets, public or private, always have a brush by their side.

With this one you just push the button and wheeee!!!! Off we go.

I poo, you poo, we all poo.

In America, we're very good at standardizing things and having our own system.

We like to offer what we determine is the very best and thus, sometimes it becomes is hard to find things outside of this limited spectrum.

Examples of this include our measurement system for length (inch, foot, yard, mile), volume (quart, gallon), mass (pound), cooking (teaspoon, tablespoon, cup), and temperature (Fahrenheit).

Another thing I've discovered is that in the US we have a limited selection of produce in our grocery stores. Although you can find exotic or diverse fruits and vegetables in the US, you either have to know where to look or search them out. While it wasn't until traveling abroad that I realized all the different types and varieties of simplest things like oranges and bananas.

In general, we get a very specific selection of items that we are allowed to choose from, with only some slight differences between the choices.

This is true also in the fine environment of toilets, restrooms, bathrooms, WC, toilette, banjo, and loos of the world.

Just as the name suggests, this elegant specimen from American Standard is the sleek, white porcelain design seen in virtually every American home.

Now the most important concern here is: How does one flush the toilet?

Without this knowledge, the toilet is rendered useless. You're better off shitting in the woods, like the pope, and saving yourself the embarrassment.

But in the rest of the world there are many other kinds of toilets and many other ways to flush.

Now we do begin to see some variations in the world of public restrooms and men's urinals, but above all in America, the deviation is not all that grand. And I will address these as they arise.

Thus, I encourage toilet education so we are never left wondering how to flush the damn thing. And this blog will be your guide unto the world.