No trip is complete without the requisite amount of
weirdness and some places had more than
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| Spider-Man |
their fair share. Stuttgart, Germany is
a quiet town, especially during the week. Pretty much everything closes up by
8:00 PM; it’s even difficult to find an open restaurant. But it is lovely and
the strolling down the tranquil mall area we were quite surprised to learn the
reason for all of the serenity. As we looked up to a row of apartments we saw
the apparent guardian of the town: Spider-Man! Perhaps he was on vacation.
As expected, things in foreign countries are not
as they are in the US. On this trip it was access to restrooms. There were few
places that had free facilities; I’m supposing that this is to keep the
riff-raff from wandering, in mucking up the place and
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| Restrooms |
costing the business
owner more money for cleaning. However, two places should be mentioned in this weirdness tribute. In Strasbourg,
France, the restroom near the cathedral was plainly marked. The founding
fathers wanted to make sure that all beings were aware that the facilities were
available. The traditional male/female icons are readily apparent at the lower
right of the picture, but I’m not at all sure what those icons at the upper
right are supposed to be ~ two kinds of flowers, maybe? There was a nice lady
on duty to make sure the stalls were clean and toilet paper was available.
While she didn’t ask for Euros, she appreciated tips. The “Easy Entrance” sign
that marked the restroom in the MacDonald’s in Prague was completely
misleading. The restrooms were down a spiral staircase, but once you got there,
even though you were a patron you had to have 10 Kč (koruna) to get in. So back
upstairs you go to get exact change. Once back downstairs, you put your money
in the coin slot then receive a receipt that, thankfully, serves no other
purpose. By this time the image of a person running through a turnstile is
entirely accurate.
