confused about foreign showers...
I know folks do thing differently over here (came in to Berlin today), but I'm just not at all sure about what one is supposed to do given that the shower isn't sunk into the floor... and the floor is continuous out to the rest of the bathroom, and the whole floor becomes a lake whenever you take a shower. Yes, there's a small rubber grid one can stand on when at the sink, but there's nothing right in front of the toilet. So, is everyone supposed to walk around in the water in bare feet? Or wearing shoes and leaving mud everywhere? I don't get it. Showers were this way in China too, but cheap plastic shower slippers are available for purchase on every street corner... it's ingrained in the culture, and easy to adopt.
I just asked the people at reception where I could get some shower slippers/thongs/flip-flops, and they didn't understand what I wanted them for. I tried to express, well, obviously, there is a choice one has to make... walk barefoot in a lake of water, or leave mud all over the bathroom and the main room from one's shoes, because when you take a shower the water goes all over the bathroom. And get this, the guy actually tells me, "well yes, just like every shower in the world..." Wow. I decided not to press the issue further, because at that point they started apologizing for me evidently being unsatisfied with the room.... which isn't it at all! Like I said, I was used to this in China, I just want to get some plastic slippers! But I'm kind of floored that these guys who speak perfect English have no idea that bathrooms actually vary and no, in lots of places we don't simply turn our bathrooms into lakes on a daily basis... (you should see Japan... those shower units are Self! Contained!)
Also kind of annoyed that this place is absolutely chock full of rowdy young teenagers.
Oh well, everything else about the trip was gravy. I can't believe how much nicer it is to fly in a big fat plane with a little more room (just an Airbus A330... nothing too crazy, but it's a wide body). All these years I keep going on 5-hour flights on Southwest, which is 100% 737s, between Oakland and Chicago, and those things are so cramped and awful although I've gotten used to it (this is also how I got from Düsseldorf to Berlin, and the contrast was staggering). The flight from San Francisco was roomy, (nobody in the two seats next to be in the center section), the food was tasty, really very relaxing. Except it was tricky sleeping since we went from one day to the next without letting the sun ever set! We were up there over Greenland somewhere at local midnight, evidently north enough or high enough in the sky that we never lost the sun. Kind of cool to think about it shining on us over the pole, from the other side of the world....
I just asked the people at reception where I could get some shower slippers/thongs/flip-flops, and they didn't understand what I wanted them for. I tried to express, well, obviously, there is a choice one has to make... walk barefoot in a lake of water, or leave mud all over the bathroom and the main room from one's shoes, because when you take a shower the water goes all over the bathroom. And get this, the guy actually tells me, "well yes, just like every shower in the world..." Wow. I decided not to press the issue further, because at that point they started apologizing for me evidently being unsatisfied with the room.... which isn't it at all! Like I said, I was used to this in China, I just want to get some plastic slippers! But I'm kind of floored that these guys who speak perfect English have no idea that bathrooms actually vary and no, in lots of places we don't simply turn our bathrooms into lakes on a daily basis... (you should see Japan... those shower units are Self! Contained!)
Also kind of annoyed that this place is absolutely chock full of rowdy young teenagers.
Oh well, everything else about the trip was gravy. I can't believe how much nicer it is to fly in a big fat plane with a little more room (just an Airbus A330... nothing too crazy, but it's a wide body). All these years I keep going on 5-hour flights on Southwest, which is 100% 737s, between Oakland and Chicago, and those things are so cramped and awful although I've gotten used to it (this is also how I got from Düsseldorf to Berlin, and the contrast was staggering). The flight from San Francisco was roomy, (nobody in the two seats next to be in the center section), the food was tasty, really very relaxing. Except it was tricky sleeping since we went from one day to the next without letting the sun ever set! We were up there over Greenland somewhere at local midnight, evidently north enough or high enough in the sky that we never lost the sun. Kind of cool to think about it shining on us over the pole, from the other side of the world....