The French toilet is back in my life

The cool thing about having a blog is that you can write about whatever you want. Now, the subject of today’s post will be the toilet. But not any toilet, oh no… the French toilet!

This is one of those things where there’s only black or white, you can’t be in the middle. I’ve visited many countries in three different continents so far, and France is the only place where I’ve seen the toilet separated from the bathroom/shower room. I’ve had this discussion with French people many many times, and it’s amazing how we cannot convince each other.

Here’s the situation. At home, in France, usually the toilet (like the one in the picture) is separated from the rest of the bathroom (bathtub, shower, mirror, towels, etc.). This means there’s a very small room with just the toilet and toilet paper, and the rest of the “items” are in a separate room. Why? The explanation that I always get is the following: it’s better like this because if someone is getting a shower and you need to go to the toilet, you can.

My dear reader: just because you are reading this I will give you the credit of being an intelligent person. Therefore, as an intelligent person that you are, please think for five seconds how many times in your life you have been in this situation (that you wanted to go to the toilet but it was busy because somebody was taking shower). Not that many times, right? But let’s assume it happens now and then. What do you do? That’s right: you wait. Is it a tragedy? Let’s be honest: no. Even if there is no other bathroom in the house. You wait.

Now we have clarified that the supposed fantastic benefit of having two separate rooms is not that fantastic. We can continue with my second point here. Me, and I’m getting private here, I always, but I really mean always, wash my hands after going to the toilet. It’s one of those things you do in life: you brush your teeth, you get dressed before leaving home, you take a shower now and then… and you wash your hands after going to the toilet. Period. Can you do it in these small toilet rooms that they have? No. Why? Oh, because there’s no place to wash your hands. You have to go to the bathroom, unless, of course, somebody is taking a shower… And then you have to wait. You wait (again). Sooooooo my dear reader: you need the bathroom anyway! You have to wait anyway!

Conclusion: the supposed benefit of having two separate “bathrooms” is not that good, because the positive effect is not really there, and in addition to that, you have a great negative effect: you still need the bathroom.

I’m clearly against these separate rooms, but I can tell you that I have never managed to convince a single French person of this. It doesn’t matter if you give them the logical reasons that I’ve just written, or if you tell them that it’s the only country in the continent that does it, they just think it’s the best system. And of course, the rest we think our system is better.

There are two solutions for this toilet issue. First, if you have a small apartment (not that difficult in Paris…). Since there’s not a lot of room, toilet and shower are together: problem solved. And second, if you are very rich. Then you can call an architect and tell them to change the house and put it altogether: toilet, toilet paper, shower, mirror… Everything.

And thus that’s the conclusion of my Ode Against The Separate Toilet.

Aside from this, Paris offered me yesterday my first real Parisian storm. I was in a 22^nd floor and the view was fantastic. Thank God I didn’t have to go out! And secondly, after three tries (yes, three: one, two, three), I finally have my cell phone. I promise you that it’s easier to win the Tour de France than to sign a cell phone contract… My new cell phone is in Catalan, because my phone gives the option of choosing my language! (There’s also Basque and Galician, I love it!).

To end up with, and being the soccer fan that I am, I’m very happy that Uruguay won yesterday their match against Costa Rica in order to qualify for the 2010 World Championship (for those of you not aware of this, I have Uruguayan roots). We still have the second game pending in Montevideo next Wednesday; let’s hope everything goes well… Spain is already qualified (of course, with most of the team coming from the best club in the world: Barça), and France won over Ireland yesterday too. They have to win next Wednesday as well here in Paris. I think they will qualify too, and I will very happy for them. In any case: ¡arriba Uruguay!