European toilets are mostly all variations on the standard kind of sit-down bowl-type. The few that are not consist primarily of a modern version of the two-bricks-to-stand-on-and-a-hole-in-the-floor model made popular by constipated Turks.

Actually, I have no idea if the Turks have anything to do with "Turkish toilets," but if they do they have gained my undying enmity.

The modern, European/Turkish toilet is found primarily in train stations. This makes it vitally important that you pee, or heaven forbid, perform one of the more involved bodily functions, on the train before you pull into the station. These range from the traditional two bricks flanking a dark and unthinkably horrible hole to shiny ceramic cubicles with two molded, foot-sized platforms. These are made to look like the bottoms of the sneakers of some poor individual jutting up out of the floor.

But getting back to bowl-type toilets, to understand the joyous rapture I felt upon my first, uh, interaction with the British toilets you must follow me on a voyage of discovery in ceramic shrines scattered throughout the major cities as I flushed my way through Europe.

In Italian toilets, the hole in the bottom of the toilet bowl is small and situated in the middle, with just the tiniest little bit of water in it. The water tank is perched on the wall, way way up near the ceiling. It hovers there over you and makes menacing gurgle noises every now and then, as if to let you know that it could fall and crush you any time it wished. The flush is usually a metal push button located somewhere on a wall.

Notice I say "a" wall. This is because there does not seem to be any real effort to include it on the same wall as the toilet. In my apartment at Medaglie D'Oro, for example, it was located on the same wall as the shower. As a matter of fact, it was located inside the shower stall itself. In Frances' apartment, which was directly above mine and therefore virtually identical, the flush was right next to the toilet. But could they have made it that simple and easy in my room? Oh, no! They had to make me climb into the bathtub every time I wanted to flush.

In Austria, the hole in the bowl is right up near the front, again with very little water, but the rest of the "bowl," rather than bowl-shaped, is a large platform, slightly depressed in the middle, forming a ceramic plateau a good six inches above the hole.

The sole function of this plateau, I gathered, was to hold and display your waste. This is important because you need something to contemplate while you search for the flushing mechanism. This is sometimes a very difficult, sometimes impossible, task because the flushes are designed to blend in with the rest of the toilet unit, which itself is very aerodynamic, although the reason why escapes my logic. Why in the world would you need an aerodynamic toilet? Hey, if I ever find myself airborne and sitting on the john at the same time, I am going to be worried about a heck of a lot more important things than whether I am getting good airspeed due to the toilet's design.

One time, after a good half a minute of searching, I discovered that I had to push the whole cover of the tank down to flush. Once I actually had to give up, dumbfounded, and leave my pee on display for the next guy to deal with. I hope he met with better success than I did.

more >>