I’m beginning to wonder if they aren’t just a more mature culture than a majority of Americans. At least maybe as I walk around the city of Amsterdam it seems to be that way. But is this assesment more a result of folks that live in a big city and are more accepting of multiple cultures and just more tolerant in general perhaps. But, I don’t know, it just seems like they as a population have accepted certain things in life that we Americans are not ready to accept. Certain things need to be a certain way due to common sense.
Take for instance their Bathrooms or specifically the “toilet”. Just for the actual toilet they are ahead of us. When you go to flush your waste they have (typically) buttons for flushing solid waste and one for urine. Less waste of resources. Practical, smart, mature.
In many of the bathrooms, their is a common area for washing your hands and then a male and a female door. At the office where I’m working there is the bathroom door that you open. It leads to a common wash area then has two other doors where the toilets are. It is a small room with a toilet. They are hardly wider than shoulder width. You could literally be right next door to a lady while she is using the “toilet”. Gasp, could you imagine.
That is the other distinction I have noticed. They say the actual word toilet. They don’t hide the fact they are going to urinate or deficate. They are going to the toilet and most likely are going to do something that involves going to the bathroom. How disgusting?!. They are not going to some other mystical place where us Americans are to embarrased to think about what could go on behind closed doors. Just thinking about another person using the toilet is a horrid thought. Toilet, It’s just a simple word that we stuffy Americans are squeemish about saying and it says a lot about us. We say potty to our kids, we say “wee-wee”, we give the act of going to the toilet a babified wording and not an adult grown up word.
If Europeans are more comfortable about having common areas where a man and a woman can both exit a stall and wait for the other to wash their hands where does that put us as a culture?