Public Restrooms

 

Be warned that this is a whimsical blog entry with potty humor.

 

Part I: At the Café

About 20 years ago, when I visited Paris (France) after graduating from college, I stayed at a hostel that kicked everyone out for the middle of the day. Presumably so they could clean? (Maybe this was/is typical for hostels?) I didn’t have to take my backpack with me; they stored those for you. I just had to – hit the pavement, as it were? I didn’t love it if it was raining, but my biggest issue was that I was on a strict budget, and I didn’t want to have to buy something at a café so I could use the restroom.

 

I loved visiting the park leading up to the Eiffel Tower and reading a book in the tower’s shadow, and I loved roaming around the Jardin du Luxembourg (another park). But to discover that I couldn’t access the restroom without depositing a coin, which I may or may not have had, was annoying – if not cruel. (And once inside, the toilet paper was stringently distributed to boot.)

 

So it goes for cities? Restrooms are for patrons only. I haven’t seen any obvious public restrooms here in Zaragoza. The libraries have free restrooms, when I’m out studying or working there for the day. But of course they’re not in the tourist zone. There are plenty of cafés, and a coffee isn’t particularly expensive (€1,50-2,00). When we first arrived and were staying at the hotel, and we wanted to get to learn the town, we took the bus and got lost a lot. So when your feet hurt from walking and you need to go to the bathroom, but you got on the bus going in the wrong direction and now you’re who knows where and you (and only you?) need to pee – you suck it up and buy a coffee or a pastry you don’t need with money you don’t understand, but really you’re just there to use the restroom.

 

My Spanish/Castellano is okay, but the word for restroom here in Spain is aseo and not baño, so that made things tricky – none of the signs were clearly marked baño. In the end, we survived. Sometimes we went back to the hotel. Sometimes we went to a café. And the rest of the time we held it, to varying degrees of discomfort. (Toilet is the British word which more are familiar with, so if you’re going to ask in English, you don’t need a restroom – what you need is a toilet.)

 

Part II: In the Park

Now we’re renting a flat on the outskirts of a large park that borders a school. When the young children get out of school, the parents are waiting for them, and often after school many of the children will play on the playgrounds with their friends while their parents are all chatting with each other around the periphery. Again, this an elementary school, so (1) the children are not yet potty experts, and (2) nobody lives on the ground floor, so there’s no way if these kids have to go that they’re going to stop playing, let an adult know, and then make it up the stairs or elevator to their flat in time. So of course, and this is no way ridiculous to me, the kids – both boys and girls – find a tree to go pee next to, and then they go back to playing.

 

What strikes me as funny is that when I grew up and was playing with my friends, if I had to use the restroom, the “tree” I looked for was usually one of a clump of trees that served as some kind of privacy barrier for both sides. Maybe this is another sign of the suburban kid moving to the city, but there are no “clumps” of trees to pee by in this park, at least not next to the children’s playgrounds. What I mean to say is that the tree is more symbolic here than actually serving as any kind of barrier whatsoever. It’s great that children aren’t peeing on the playground (at least not deliberately), and perhaps peeing by a tree will mean that others are less likely to step in a puddle, because people tend to walk a bit around trees and not directly by them. But as far as privacy is concerned, there are just kids out peeing in the middle of a park – As they should, and I wouldn’t change it. At least the kids have the decency to pee by a tree, unlike the million dogs that are peeing everywhere over everything…? But it did take some getting used to.

 

Part III: Urinal Height

 

I’m not a tall man, but I’m not a short man either. I’ve been comfortably peeing at urinals in the United States since junior high, I would say.

 

And then I moved to Spain, where the urinals are noticeably higher. To get right to the point: I don’t want to rest my huevos on the urinal lip while I’m using the restroom toilet, and I don’t want to have to stand on my tippy-toes either.

And there are no shorter urinals for shorter men or children to speak of. Either you’re tall enough or you’re not. If not, use the stall.

 

I just don’t understand. It’s not like Spanish men are incredibly tall. I’m completely average.

 

Furthermore – maybe there will be soap, and maybe there won’t. And the lights are probably automatic, so just keep walking into the restroom and the lights will probably come on. But good luck finding the door again if they don’t. Who’d have thought I’d be homesick for a Buc-ee's? (I’m not really.)