POTTY MOUTH

Usually I don't have a potty mouth but perhaps travel exposes one to a lot of different bathrooms. Please don't think I have some sort of weird obsession with bathrooms but culturally they can be very different and even add memorable stories to your trip's experience. 

Sometimes it's the bathroom's style which catches my eye like the stalls in the CDG airport, the Avignon's train station's lavender field's toilet stall/ middle eastern restaurant's beautiful tiled walls/ the space age themed hotel room's in Marseille.

 But it is the commodes/ toilets which also fascinated me. Shockingly I never did see a bidet the entire time we were in France but there there were a variety of toilets most equipped with water saving buttons dependent on whether you had a little/ lot to flush. Some were more obvious than others, with legible symbols but mostly it was a 'crap' ( sorry, I couldn't resist) shoot as to whether it was for the big flush load/not. Guilt abounded if I wasted flushing water in such a time of drought too. The half and half buttons definitely were indistinguishable. 


Picking the correct room was sometimes more of a challenge than others. The universal signs helped if folks are familiar with them but once inside you might wonder as a woman if you were in the correct space due to the commode. You see many times the seat was missing. I wonder if it was missing in the men's.

Maybe this is the reason women go to the bathroom together? You know group consensus on the room's labeling as to gender. And yet some bathrooms were super accommodating with 2 sizes of toilet seats like the one below One for adults see it's down and a child sized seat is up. Very clever. 

I'll be truthful all of these beat the hole in the floor memories from my European visit in the 60's.

I do have a special potty story to share. Some restrooms were a challenge to find as such was the case in a Marseille out door restaurant. After a 5 minute French conversation of how to find it which included go through the door opening to the left of the window across the walkway, traversing the hall, turning left into the bar, 2 steps up continuing through the kitchen, taking the back door stairway down into the basement (in the dark no less), I found a sink lit with 2 doors flanking it. Relieved indeed that 2 women had followed me, I was first to use the facility. Yet, when I was ready to depart the lock would not unlatch. The lower screw was missing from the lock plate and moving with the turning action.  After numerous attempts, jiggling, uselessly propping my foot against it trying to hold it in place to be able to counter push with both hands to make it catch. It was time to use all the high school French I knew including some bad words. Hence the potty mouth. First simple sentences that began to get longer as I added adjectives and more verbs. Luckily, one of the women was still there. She said something from the other side of the door and I heard footsteps going up the stairs followed by what seemed like an eternity before more footsteps. Eventually I would gratefully discover the female cook on the other side with a screwdriver after she worked on the lock for about 4 minutes talking to me all the while. I have no clue what she was uttering but didn't care until I heard the lock catch and door open. I was almost in tears as I threw my arms around her in appreciation. As I thanked both women I told the lady entering the room, No matter what, don't lock it." She smiled at me and laughed adding in French I understood, "Don't worry I am not going to lock it. In fact, I am not even going to close the door." 

These are the memories that stay with one after a trip. And no, I did not even think of taking a picture of that bathroom...