confused about foreign showers...

[once_a_banana]

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

Comments

[lhn]

The thing that weirded me out when I was in Europe too many years ago was the lack (in some places) of shower curtains. Especially when I rented a room in a home in Budapest: how do I take a shower without soaking these people's bathroom? (I never really found a satisfactory answer, but they never complained, and they seemed to like me, so I can hope that there wasn't some trick I was missing.)

Re planes, I'm glad you had a good one. My last transoceanic flight (to China) was fourteen hours in a seat that made Southwest look positively spacious. It was bizarre: the accommodations were as high tech as they came, with personal screens with a huge variety of TV, movies, music, etc., all included. But the screen was about five inches in front of your face, and you got to know the person sitting next to you very well. (At least my row was all people from the program I was on, so it was a bonding experience.)

There was also essentially no room for luggage under the seat. I had to trust to luck that my camera would survive the overhead bin, and I managed to stick my laptop in the space between the seat in front of me and the outside wall. (Any thoughts of using were laughingly dismissed.)

(Cathay Pacific, btw, in case anyone is looking for airlines to avoid. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the flight was fine, but I'd rather cross the Pacific in a Volkswagen Bug.)

[once_a_banana]

Wow, amazing! Definitely reminds me of Chinese buses.... (my flights to and from China were on perfectly satisfactory Korean Air 747s... yummy hot pepper paste in a tube!)

[lhn]

Our previous trip on United was fine, too. Though that was back when they had "Economy Plus" available, which offered a little extra space without the luxury (or concomitant big surcharges) of business class or above.

[once_a_banana]

Oh, and I might add, the Air Berlin flight attendants were wonderfully.... uh... "perky", and wonderfully German about it too. As in, the friendly and somehow deliciously German woman at the top of their homepage is totally not false advertising! Still don't recommend them for European internal flights though. Apparently they used to barely be a step above Ryanair, and the domestic flight still seemed to cling to that heritage. We're talking, a couple steps below Southwest; seriously reminded me of the bad old days of ATA...