Back in America. I've been here a couple of days and my first reactions have all been about the bathrooms. There's water in the toilets here! I'm mixed on this one...I mean, it's great for smell reduction (not important to me, really, but that's another story), and it reduces the need for a brush sitting next to the toilet at all times, but it just seems to be a lot of water, and for some reason, a sparkling toilet with no water in it now seems more aesthetically pleasing to me than a sparkling toilet with water filled near-to-the-brim. This is of course mitigated by the fact that water helps keep the toilet much cleaner...I think. Anyway, I gotta' say that America wins out on that one, though just barely.
Where Bulgaria has a slight edge is in light switch placement. In America, a bathroom light switch is usually in the bathroom, whereas in Bulgaria they're always outside the bathroom. This has led (temporarily maybe. I don't know) to me fumbling around on the bathroom wall at night while I'm still out in the lit hallway. It's inconvenient. I know that the only reason Bulgaria has their switches on the outside would be to keep shower water from flowing behind the switch. But the side effects are pretty nice, too.
Other things...hmmm. Oh, people actually stop at crosswalks here! It almost seems extravagantly polite to me when I see a driver stop at an intersection when I'm just standing at the corner. In Bulgaria a person has to be in the car's path to get them to stop, and if the car actually does stop, the driver will be pissed, if it doesn't, I'd imagine the pedestrian would be a touch put out. Here in America, well, drivers just let people walk. It's amazing. I love this country.
Posted by Rob at August 12, 2005 03:57 AM