Some cultural ranting... and bathroom mayhem. (Warning: LONG entry!)

Well I am less than 5 weeks away from home, and honestly it couldn't come soon enough. I have a wonderful home here in Spain with nice people to help me along (and who spoil me with home cooked meals every day), but I find myself entirely ready to come back to the good ol' U.S of A. The area really is quite beautiful as well, but the culture is honestly starting to get old. Naturally people are a lot more calm and stress-free here, which certainly has its advantages, but I miss the now-now-now American mentality where things get done right away because that's what is expected. We have 4 more weeks of classes left here, and they still haven't finished making my University ID card, for example.

I've told a few people about this already, but I thought I would post it on here as well. A couple of weeks ago there was a story on the news about a fire in Seville I think it was, where several generations of a family was living in this same building including a young pregnant girls and the building caught on fire due to an electrical fault or something. This isn't all that strange in any part of the world honestly, but the unacceptable part was that everyone in the family died because the firemen took over 30 minutes to arrive to the scene. There were riots for a few days afterwards, and it is a terribly tragic story, but the whole time while I was watching this story on the news I kept thinking "...but this culture BREEDS this behavior." Everything is done at a snail's pace, and it's all fine and dandy as people seem to also have endless patience to accommodate this lifestyle, that is, until people die because of it. The thing is, this building was not in the middle of nowhere, we are talking about Seville, a huge city which probably had a fire station fairly nearby.

Another basic cultural quirk that has been "grinding my gears" a bit as Peter Griffin would say... Everyone knows that Europeans are generally, on the whole, more fashionable than us Americans. Okay, I expected this. However, the emphasis on appearance in clothing is just the beginning. I have seen at least 10 different occasions, without exaggeration, where I have seen people painting railings or something on campus, which honestly didn't look half bad to begin with, with some fashionably mis-matched color or just going over the tiny little flecks of paint that have chipped off with wear and tear that honestly, I had not even noticed before. Everything is always freshly painted, very colorful, and on the lawns there is not a single weed to be seen. I must admit, most everything looks very beautiful on the campus and around the city in general.

However, and I'll take the campus as an example since it is after all, a public institution and a major presence in the city with over 40k students... Without exaggeration, about 90% of bathroom stalls don't have functioning locks because the wood on the doors has warped or the hardware has become unscrewed or bent. Seriously, I usually just take my backpack in with me and lean it up against the stall door to keep it closed. About 60% of the toilets don't have seats on them, or the seat is broken and slides all over the place.

Furthermore, I have only found ONE bathroom on campus that has had paper towels to dry after washing your hands. There is often a hand dryer thingy, but it is also usually broken or has so little force that I would seriously be better off blowing on my own hands. Usually there is no soap either, so I suppose it doesn't even matter.

One day on campus Milan I went to use the restroom and there was a janitor coming out with her cleaning cart in tow as I was going in. I asked her if it was open, and she said "Oh yes go on in, I just finished up in there." I go in, and there is STILL no soap, no papertowels, and in fact, there isn't even toilet paper (except the bits that was on the floor). I was half tempted to ask her on my way out "...so what exactly did you DO in there?!"

Every time I see someone painting a railing, I just want to yell at them "...shouldn't you fix the locks on the bathroom stalls instead?! Or put some paper towels in the dispenser?! Or heaven forbid install a new toiletseat?!"

There have been countless instances where the outward appearance was quite obviously priority #1, and functionality was much further down on the list. There is such a huge emphasis on appearance that it just takes up all the time and money it seems. Yes, everything is pretty on the outside, but I just don't think having a shady gas-station-esque bathroom is very pretty, or professional either.... and not very clean without having soap available and such to boot.

Okay, so I have to mention something about the library bathrooms too: Seriously, I was confused about this one. So I walk into the bathroom, which looks very pretty of course, and I REALLY needed to use the restroom. Naturally I run into the first stall I see and close the door, leaning my backpack up against it to keep it closed, and before sitting down I realize there is no toilet paper. In fact, there's not even a dispenser for toiletpaper. Strange, I thought, but whatever I just switched to another stall. Again, no TP, nor is there a place to store TP.

Before trying the last stall I realized that there is a toilet paper dispenser on the outside of the 3 stalls, but no dispenser in any of the stalls. I felt like John Spartan with the 3 seashells in Demolition Man. In this instance I decided not to contemplate it too much and just grabbed a hand full of TP and went into the stall, which was still no easy feat with one of those huge dispensers and 1 ply TP.. not conducive to quick and easy dispensing since it rips so easily.

Afterwards however, I had to wonder exactly what IS the etiquette on this? There have been certain hygienic / cultural differences that I encountered before but it was usually a matter of "Oh, well I guess that does make sense in a weird way.." for example, the existence of bides, the fact that most homes have baby-wipes for adults on hand at the toilet, etc... again, things that do sort of make sense but are just a little different.

So okay, the library bathroom: I asked Jay what his thoughts were on the subject, and he concluded that perhaps people only use public restrooms to take a leak and thus, only need a hand full of toilet paper. I could see this being possible, since honestly, I have really only seen 4-5 women actually enter a bathroom stall on campus the whole time I've been here.... bathrooms are really just for touching up make up, apparently. However, there are certainly instances where a person might want more than a little handful and perhaps don't realize until they get in there you know? Okay, seriously folks, especially for the ladies, think about it... this really doesn't make sense.

One more bathroom quirk: The main door to the bathroom is almost ALWAYS left open. Okay, even if I am just washing my hands, I don't really want the whole world watching me in the bathroom, or peering at the stall where I've got my backpack propped up against the door to hold it shut. I realize that there isn't really any reason for this, I mean, people don't see into the stalls (unless you're unlucky enough to not have a way to hold the door shut..), but it still puts me a bit on edge. Plus, there is always that awkward moment where you have to peer behind the door to make sure you're going into the correct bathroom. Furthermore, the same goes for the men's bathrooms, where the urinals are often in full view. Luckily I haven't encountered a situation as of yet where someone was actually using said urinals, but it still seems weird to me.

Well okay I'll end it here since I have ranted long enough. Less than 5 weeks until I come back to The States.