I've come to the conclusion that the only thing more irritating than a blog that is never updated is a blog where the only updates are apologies for not updating. I've always found those to be a little too much ego to handle. Like, "I know you've all been waiting with baited breath to hear the excruciating minutiae of my unexceptional life, and I'm sorry I haven't kept up with the running tally of my back pimples, but I promise I'll update soon and let you all know how my colonoscopy went!"
Apologizing for not updating seems to say to me that, "My blog and I are so important to you that it was rude of me to live the life of a normal person and not write down every single thought I have for you to read, dissect, and debate."
But I digress. I'm deviating from the most important thing I wanted to talk about today, and that is: toilets. Or, more specifically, toilets in Ireland.
I recently got back from spending about 5 weeks in the Republic of Ireland. When I first arrived, I became immediately convinced that the reason Ireland has never become a major world power is because of the proliferation of alcohol. Everyone drinks in Ireland. I think that, if the indigenous ungulates had thumbs (and pocket money), they, too, would drink. Ireland is part of the European Union, and as in many European countries, everything closes at 6pm. And I don't mean "close" in the American sense, where the lights dim and shopkeepers make announcements that they'd really appreciate it if you headed toward the cash register. I mean, it's 6pm, the door is locked, and they're pulling the gate down in front, if they didn't already do just that at a quarter to.
The only exception to this closing time is the ubiquitous pub. Pubs in Ireland are like Starbucks in the USA - you can't spit without hitting one. No one is bothered by shops closing early, because everyone drinks once the working day is over. At any given moment, about three-quarters of the Irish population is getting foxed.
This, I thought to myself, is why you just don't hear much about Ireland. But the longer I was there, the more places I visited, the more restaurants I ate at, I discovered a much more sinister problem lurking in Ireland's back rooms: there are almost no public toilets in Ireland.
Oh, if you're in a pub or a Supermac's, there's bound to be a toilet. But rarely more than two toilets per room (men's or ladies'), and they're usually enough to, if you'll pardon the expression, frighten the piss out of you. I went into a pub toilet once and I turned around and walked right back out.
But during the day, or if you're not a drinker, you are out of luck. There are no public toilets anywhere. Shops will not only tell you they haven't a toilet, but the employees will stare at you as though the very notion of a toilet is too ridiculous to even imagine. One woman repeated the word to me: "Toilet. Toilet?" as though it was foreign to her. Finally, she said something akin to, "Why on earth would we have a toilet?"
Why on earth, indeed. This attitude would explain something else I noticed with alarming regularity in the good old R of I: public urination. In five weeks in Ireland I saw, and I am not making this up, at least 10 men having a pee in some random corner. Or behind a tree. Or into the river or the ocean. Or wherever he might have been standing. I was rather revolted, to say the least, but at the same time I'm not sure what else a person is supposed to do if there's not a pub in the immediate vicinity (rare, but it happens).
And as I mentioned, pub toilets don't seem to have any sort of hygienic standard, the kind that might be enforced by a government entity. Actually, none of the precious few public toilets I did find seemed to have been designed, or cleaned, by anyone with any human DNA. In one stall, the toilet paper dispenser had been mounted on the wall behind the toilet, forcing the user to either try to assess her toilet paper needs before having a pee, or contort herself into a position usually only seen in the Cirque du Soleil to reach said toilet paper after relieving herself.
Then there are the toilets themselves. Irish toilets have remarkably deep bowls, causing what I will delicately refer to as a sort of splashback when any sort of ... ahem ... matter enters the bowl. Just in case public toilets weren't hygienic enough, let's construct them so they function as accidental bidets as well! Why not? And when you come to the end of your time on the can, there's the flush. I didn't once see a public toilet where the handle to flush was actually attached to said toilet. It tended to be on the wall. And sometimes it wasn't a handle so much as a sort of metal cylinder that had to be pushed in. Lever or cylinder, it's a rare Irish toilet that will actually flush the first - or second, or third, or fourth - time you try. And it's nothing to do with whether the toilet has actually been used or not. Some of them simply have to be persuaded repeatedly and with great force. A few jets of water will make a bit of noise, and the toilet will gurgle in a somewhat convincing manner, but nothing much will happen.
The more public toilets I used, the more convinced I became, as I am now convinced, that if Ireland ever wants to have any kind of global impact, they need to re-think their plumbing. In my opinion, a nation rises and falls on the strength of its public toilets. I think that's what has made America the great nation that it is. We may have economic crises to face, we may be divided on important issues, we may face international ridicule for some of our policies or laws. But, by gosh, we know how to do public toilets.
And that's what I'll be celebrating this July 4th, dear blog readers. This great nation called America, and its remarkable system of public bathrooms. I can go into almost any store in America, ask to use the toilet, and be pointed in its direction. And that, to me, is what freedom is all about.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
28 April 2010
It's not the years, it's the mileage. No, seriously, what's up with the mileage?
Ladies and gentlemen, I have lost my mind.
I think.
A week ago, I noticed that the odometer in my car was at 123417. Sort of random, but in my odd little mind I realized that I would soon be rolling over 123456. Which would, of course, be awesome. I made a mental note to keep an eye on my mileage so I could properly document this momentous event.
And then, promptly, I forgot all about it.
I have a receipt from the gas station that proves that I put twenty dollars worth of gasoline in the car a week ago Monday. $20 buys a little more than half a tank. Two nights ago, I got in my car to go to the mall. The gas gauge told me I had less than a quarter of a tank left.
I was puzzled. By my calculations, I should have had between 1/4 and 1/2 a tank left. I decided I must not be getting the MPGs I once enjoyed - the car is, after all, thirteen years old. I briefly glanced at the rest of the dash, just out of habit. What I saw shocked me.
I had missed 123456. I had missed it by a lot. The odometer read 123722. That would, I knew, account for the missing gasoline. But I was deeply puzzled. Because I did not put those miles on my car.
I've gone back over the past week or two seven or eight times. I can account for 80, maybe 100 of those miles. Which still leaves me with 200 miles I can't account for. 200 miles.
My first thought was that perhaps one or two of the neighborhood miscreants had taken my Camry out for a little joyride. That would explain the miles and the gasoline. But that can't have happened - I Club my car every night. Unless said miscreants had spent hours driving back and forth in a straight line, that wasn't my explanation.
I know of at least one instance in which I have sleepwalked. I wasn't very adventurous at the time. I organized my sock drawer. Driving seemed unlikely.
I asked my mother if she'd been dosing me with Ambien. She plausibly denied it. So I'm stumped. All I can conclude is that I must have gone somewhere in that car and been traumatized horribly enough that I've blocked it out of my mind. That can mean only one thing: the mafia is after me, and I am in serious danger.
So if someday soon I call you up to report that my kneecaps have been broken, don't panic, I knew this was coming. But do be kind enough to drive me to the hospital. In your car, not mine. Because mine is out of gas.
I think.
A week ago, I noticed that the odometer in my car was at 123417. Sort of random, but in my odd little mind I realized that I would soon be rolling over 123456. Which would, of course, be awesome. I made a mental note to keep an eye on my mileage so I could properly document this momentous event.
And then, promptly, I forgot all about it.
I have a receipt from the gas station that proves that I put twenty dollars worth of gasoline in the car a week ago Monday. $20 buys a little more than half a tank. Two nights ago, I got in my car to go to the mall. The gas gauge told me I had less than a quarter of a tank left.
I was puzzled. By my calculations, I should have had between 1/4 and 1/2 a tank left. I decided I must not be getting the MPGs I once enjoyed - the car is, after all, thirteen years old. I briefly glanced at the rest of the dash, just out of habit. What I saw shocked me.
I had missed 123456. I had missed it by a lot. The odometer read 123722. That would, I knew, account for the missing gasoline. But I was deeply puzzled. Because I did not put those miles on my car.
I've gone back over the past week or two seven or eight times. I can account for 80, maybe 100 of those miles. Which still leaves me with 200 miles I can't account for. 200 miles.
My first thought was that perhaps one or two of the neighborhood miscreants had taken my Camry out for a little joyride. That would explain the miles and the gasoline. But that can't have happened - I Club my car every night. Unless said miscreants had spent hours driving back and forth in a straight line, that wasn't my explanation.
I know of at least one instance in which I have sleepwalked. I wasn't very adventurous at the time. I organized my sock drawer. Driving seemed unlikely.
I asked my mother if she'd been dosing me with Ambien. She plausibly denied it. So I'm stumped. All I can conclude is that I must have gone somewhere in that car and been traumatized horribly enough that I've blocked it out of my mind. That can mean only one thing: the mafia is after me, and I am in serious danger.
So if someday soon I call you up to report that my kneecaps have been broken, don't panic, I knew this was coming. But do be kind enough to drive me to the hospital. In your car, not mine. Because mine is out of gas.
19 October 2009
On the Upside, There Were No Mountain Lions
I don't usually use this blog to talk about specifics of my life or what I've been up to lately. I have another blog for that, and it is appropriately pathetic. But I just got back from a trip to Tucson and suffice it to say that an acid trip would have been less upsetting.
I got directions to the hotel from the hotel's website. It was fairly specific, down to the fact that one road would change names after I'd been on it a few miles. However, it then specified that I needed to stay on said road with changed name, so when I was on Skyline and saw that I needed to turn left to stay on Skyline (the road was, just for the hell of it, changing names again, which the website didn't mention), I turned left. There are a number of places in Tucson where, for reasons unknown, the same street intersects itself. Skyline intersects Skyline, Sabino Canyon intersects Sabino Canyon, and Kolb runs parallel to Kolb in one place. Sort of a nexus-of-the-universe thing.
I should not have turned left. As it turns out, I needed to stay on Sunrise, which was once Skyline, which was once Ina. It would have been nice if the website had mentioned that.
But Jill, you might say, how hard could it have been to find a giant resort built into the side of a mountain? And perhaps I could have found it by myself had it been daylight. But this was Tucson, and for reasons I can't explain, they aren't big on things like streetlights or signs or roads that go in straight lines or roads that actually lead somewhere. But they especially hate lights - I have never been in a darker city. I think there may be some sort of city ordinance where no one is allowed to use anything brighter than a ten-watt light bulb, even outside. The hotel wasn't lit up and the street wasn't lit up.
After an hour or so of trying to find my way around Tucson, I found the hotel. My mother checked into the hotel. It's supposed to be this luxury resort. Well, I don't know where all the money goes, but it isn't into their electric bill. We drove around the hotel for ten minutes trying to find the parking lot by our room, but again, it was too dark to see where I was going. We returned to the lobby area and one of the valets drove a golf cart in front of us to show us where to go.
The hotel is quite literally built into the side of a mountain. Our room, which had an outdoor entrance, faced this:
My mother was afraid that a mountain lion was going to come down and eat us. I was more concerned about the unusually large cockroaches, several of which seemed to be enjoying the lack of light around the hotel. We got into our room. My mother claimed one bed, so I went to the other one. It had hair on it. I don't mean two or three long hairs. It looked like this all over the bed:
Apparently, the Wolfman is on the housekeeping staff. I am highly allergic to dogs and their fur, but Loews prides itself on being a pet-friendly chain of hotels, which apparently means dogs are allowed to frolic in freshly-cleaned rooms. I found hairs in the bathroom as well. The front desk was called, and hell was raised. I got fresh bedding. I inspected it closely for more mystery hairs. It seemed to be okay so I went to bed. I was looking forward to seeing Tucson during the day. Unfortunately, the money and marketing conference my mother and I were attending went from 8:30am to 5:30pm, so by the time we got out, it was too dark to do anything. I gave up on having any sort of good time and commenced drawing cartoons in my notebook.
We checked in on Wednesday night, and while I was waiting for housekeeping to de-fur my bed, I looked out on the balcony. There was a grassy sort of area outside the patio and a woman was walking one of those nasty little furry crap machines - pomegranates or whatever they're called. So on Saturday night, when I heard a strange grunting bark outside, I figured someone else was walking a dog out there. But the dog sounded sick. Really sick. And angry. I opened the curtains to see what sort of dog it was.
It wasn't a dog. It was a pack of javelinas. Javelinas, or collared peccaries, are a sort of wild desert hog. They are alarmingly large and noisy, and they were hungry. I'm an idiot, so I went out on the patio with my camera. Of course, it was too dark to get a good shot. Not because it was night time, but because there are about two light bulbs lighting up the whole of the outer hotel.
I saw the javis again in the parking lot on the way to find a Denny's. I almost ran one over with my mother's Highlander. But the car's headlights illuminated them a bit better, and I got this picture:
Apparently, my mother should have been more concerned about javelinas than about mountain lions. There was also a frog by the ice machine, and a coati by the swimming pool, and of course the world's largest cockroach hanging out on the stairs, and a few grasshoppers that were determined to gain entry into our room. The mountains are indeed beautiful, but it was all just a bit too much nature for me.
I've decided I hate Tucson. I don't ever want to go back. Maybe someday, if they decide to invest in lighting. But I'm getting a room inside, and I'm taking a gun in case the javelinas get aggressive.
I got directions to the hotel from the hotel's website. It was fairly specific, down to the fact that one road would change names after I'd been on it a few miles. However, it then specified that I needed to stay on said road with changed name, so when I was on Skyline and saw that I needed to turn left to stay on Skyline (the road was, just for the hell of it, changing names again, which the website didn't mention), I turned left. There are a number of places in Tucson where, for reasons unknown, the same street intersects itself. Skyline intersects Skyline, Sabino Canyon intersects Sabino Canyon, and Kolb runs parallel to Kolb in one place. Sort of a nexus-of-the-universe thing.
I should not have turned left. As it turns out, I needed to stay on Sunrise, which was once Skyline, which was once Ina. It would have been nice if the website had mentioned that.
But Jill, you might say, how hard could it have been to find a giant resort built into the side of a mountain? And perhaps I could have found it by myself had it been daylight. But this was Tucson, and for reasons I can't explain, they aren't big on things like streetlights or signs or roads that go in straight lines or roads that actually lead somewhere. But they especially hate lights - I have never been in a darker city. I think there may be some sort of city ordinance where no one is allowed to use anything brighter than a ten-watt light bulb, even outside. The hotel wasn't lit up and the street wasn't lit up.
After an hour or so of trying to find my way around Tucson, I found the hotel. My mother checked into the hotel. It's supposed to be this luxury resort. Well, I don't know where all the money goes, but it isn't into their electric bill. We drove around the hotel for ten minutes trying to find the parking lot by our room, but again, it was too dark to see where I was going. We returned to the lobby area and one of the valets drove a golf cart in front of us to show us where to go.
The hotel is quite literally built into the side of a mountain. Our room, which had an outdoor entrance, faced this:
My mother was afraid that a mountain lion was going to come down and eat us. I was more concerned about the unusually large cockroaches, several of which seemed to be enjoying the lack of light around the hotel. We got into our room. My mother claimed one bed, so I went to the other one. It had hair on it. I don't mean two or three long hairs. It looked like this all over the bed:
Apparently, the Wolfman is on the housekeeping staff. I am highly allergic to dogs and their fur, but Loews prides itself on being a pet-friendly chain of hotels, which apparently means dogs are allowed to frolic in freshly-cleaned rooms. I found hairs in the bathroom as well. The front desk was called, and hell was raised. I got fresh bedding. I inspected it closely for more mystery hairs. It seemed to be okay so I went to bed. I was looking forward to seeing Tucson during the day. Unfortunately, the money and marketing conference my mother and I were attending went from 8:30am to 5:30pm, so by the time we got out, it was too dark to do anything. I gave up on having any sort of good time and commenced drawing cartoons in my notebook.
We checked in on Wednesday night, and while I was waiting for housekeeping to de-fur my bed, I looked out on the balcony. There was a grassy sort of area outside the patio and a woman was walking one of those nasty little furry crap machines - pomegranates or whatever they're called. So on Saturday night, when I heard a strange grunting bark outside, I figured someone else was walking a dog out there. But the dog sounded sick. Really sick. And angry. I opened the curtains to see what sort of dog it was.
It wasn't a dog. It was a pack of javelinas. Javelinas, or collared peccaries, are a sort of wild desert hog. They are alarmingly large and noisy, and they were hungry. I'm an idiot, so I went out on the patio with my camera. Of course, it was too dark to get a good shot. Not because it was night time, but because there are about two light bulbs lighting up the whole of the outer hotel.
I saw the javis again in the parking lot on the way to find a Denny's. I almost ran one over with my mother's Highlander. But the car's headlights illuminated them a bit better, and I got this picture:
Apparently, my mother should have been more concerned about javelinas than about mountain lions. There was also a frog by the ice machine, and a coati by the swimming pool, and of course the world's largest cockroach hanging out on the stairs, and a few grasshoppers that were determined to gain entry into our room. The mountains are indeed beautiful, but it was all just a bit too much nature for me.
I've decided I hate Tucson. I don't ever want to go back. Maybe someday, if they decide to invest in lighting. But I'm getting a room inside, and I'm taking a gun in case the javelinas get aggressive.
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