Washers and Toilets

Alas, my clothes-washer fears have proven true. No offense intended to any of our European readers, and in spite of being generally green-conscious, I must admit, I am partial to large, fast American washing machines. And American clothes dryers.

Too bad for me! When we got here, laundry was the last thing on my mind. I glanced in the laundry room, saw the washer and clothes rack, and did not think about laundry again until it came time to do some. Then I realized how this party was going to go down. Here, as in our new place, we have a typical tiny European washing machine. And a drying rack, as opposed to a drying machine. Having spent a lot of time in Europe, I thought, no problem, this is familiar, no worries. But in Europe I never had to get ready for work, never worried about ironing anything, and generally was not so busy that the washer taking three hours was a big deal. Now, with Harry working a lot and me soon to be we hope, these minor annoyances will become major problems. One tiny load takes three hours, then must to be hung to dry, which takes two days even though this is a desert (the air has a lot of humidity and you can’t leave clothes outside due to the dust). Then you must press everything because it is stiff and crunchy (not a pleasing feeling for undies and socks), fold, and put away. This is some time-consuming sh*%^!! Not to mention really hard on the clothes.

Thankfully, I have a solution. In the Indian neighborhood, having laundry done is cheap, so in addition to all our dry-cleaning, I have decided to send almost everything else for laundering and ironing (jeans, pants, casual clothes, etc.). Quite frankly, once I have to iron underwear and socks, other things will put me over the top. Call me a spoiled American. I miss my German mommies.

(In addition to this of course we have no dish washer—the one luxury above all others Harry and I have been fantasizing about. I guess we will have to continue to do so for the next long while.)

Moving on to toilets. Here I had no fears as I like Turkish toilets so would have been fine with either Turkish or “western”. It turns out "western" is the norm. Bathrooms in Dobby are spacious and plentiful, although the mall restrooms are a mess of women and children, many of whom don’t know how to keep a que or care that you were there first—it is truly survival of the fittest. Further, in our apartment search we observed that every apartment had guest bathrooms, even the one-bedrooms had 1.5 to 2, and larger apartments had even more. Our one-bedroom has two full bathrooms, yeaaahh! (we don’t have a guest room, but when you come visit, you get your own private bathroom :-).

But what I did not expect (silly me—I should have) were all the bidets. Yes, every bathroom has one. And I mean EVERY toilet, including public restrooms in the malls, restaurants, grocery store, gym, offices, etc., all the apartments we visited, and of course our own. Sometimes, as in our hotel apartment, the bidets are the style I am familiar with – the kind you sit on. Most of the time however, the bidets are basically a hose coming out of the wall with a spray nozzle on the end (i.e. kitchen sink hose/nozzle for doing dishes) which you then use strategically to accomplish whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. This style is rather intimidating as it appears deft maneuvering is required – a skill I do not have and probably will not fret over for now. All I can say about these bidets, and forgive me for being graphic, is that it is rather unpleasant to enter a public loo after someone who has used one, water is just about everywhere.

PS: I have included this post for those of you that find this stuff interesting (yes you M&M), plus, when you have been traveling for five months like we have, and visiting more than a fair share of public toilets, you start to notice and care about toilet details far more than anyone should in normal life.

PPS: See this funny article about public loos