Agreed. This is a strange topic for an article, little delicate, even. But if you’ve traveled far beyond your immediate circle of comfort, you’ll also agree that there are things to know when leaving home.

For the most part, you can travel all over the United States and find the same stores, household names, and consistent quality. With a few inconsequential variations, you can go to any mall, be it Santa Rosa, California, or Baltimore, Maryland and find your favorite clothing store, that good smelling candle shop, and the place with all the sports stuff. Not so in Europe. This also applies to your sanitary facilities.

However, before you can use one, you must first locate one. In Europe, this can be difficult. Sometimes you will be lucky and see a clearly marked sign: “Toilette” or a similar word depending on the country you are in. But usually, no matter where you are in Europe, you only need to know two letters: WC. This means odorless. Once you find one, you are good to go, so to speak.

The toilets in Europe, whether in the hotel room or at the train station, used to intimidate me. I would approach them in dread, not because of sanitation or lack of it. In fact, I’ve found that they are generally pretty clean. No, instead my concern arose from not knowing how to blush.

Go ahead, laugh, it’s fun. I would stand in the bathroom, my eyes roaming the porcelain, throwing myself towards the wall, the floor, looking for some clue. Inevitably, each time the task would require a different procedure. Do I press, pull, stomp, flip, or just do nothing? But the fear eventually turned to fun and now whenever I use a European toilet, I consider it an opportunity to play a twisted version of “Where’s Wally?”

Those Europeans! What a sense of humor! Perhaps they are laughing behind hidden cameras that capture the frenzied antics of unsuspecting Americans. Maybe they are smarter than us. Probably both. But I never stop imagining what we must be like, those of us who are used to the single silver lever placed reassuringly on the side of the toilet tank.

Sometimes it takes me a while, but I always find the elusive secret. I have successfully pulled strings hanging from the ceiling, pressed round buttons to the top of the tank, pulled round buttons to the top of the tank, pressed with all my might in wide segments of the top of the toilet, flush (no pun) with its surface. I’ve used my foot to stomp, my toe to hit. Sometimes, to my delight, I’ve just had to stand up.

So what about those bidets? My Italian cousins ​​have them all at home, for crying out loud! What the heck is all that? They were surprised to find that backward Americans not only don’t have them, we don’t want them. We don’t even know how to use them! After listening carefully to my cousins’ patient explanations, I still can’t fathom how these gadgets could actually do the trick. I once spent several days in a Venetian hotel in a room that contained one of these bidets. Silently, she sat on the side of the closet like a modern art sculpture waiting to be appreciated. Looking at him suspiciously, I continued walking towards the shower and bathroom at the end of the hall … one floor below.

And what about Greece? On the wall next to every bathroom in the country, even in your hotel room, there are signs that clearly warn you NOT TO PUT TOILET PAPER INTO THE TOILET! HEY? Greece’s delicate septic systems can’t seem to handle it. And in case you can’t read Greek or English, the sign is accompanied by a small picture of a toilet and paper overlaid with a big red X so there is no confusion in the message. Instead, next to each toilet you will find a small trash can with a lid to deposit all the paper. And I mean everyone. If you don’t follow the rules, you’ll be even more embarrassed when the hotel owner has to enter your room to dive in and scrub.

Despite the Greek baths, venturing into the world of European public baths is even more exciting. Attendees are often there to greet you, unsmiling as they hand out two or three squares of precious paper when you enter a booth, and waiting for a coin or two when you leave. (I suppose you would be serious too if you had that job).

Sometimes you can’t even go to the bathroom without paying first. A coin-operated mechanism controls the flow … of visitors, that is. This sometimes presents a problem, especially if you are missing gears and the waiting bus is just around the corner.

Of course, let’s not forget to mention Amsterdam’s clever solution to the unwanted use of its streets as toilet facilities. Throughout the city, especially on busy streets, you will find green metal cages (called pissoirs), where men can step in for a few moments, their feet still visible to the world. Although not designed for a woman, I would expect a museum anyway, thank you.

Last but not least, you can never claim you’ve had a true European bath adventure until you’ve experienced the infamous “Turkish bath” – think of two porcelain footprints on either side of a hole in the floor. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. Yes, I have had this adventure.

But don’t let all this dubious bathroom talk scare you off. Actually, European toilets are modern and clean and if you know how to do it they are readily available. If nature calls you, whether it’s while exploring the busy streets of Rome or wandering through a remote hilltop town, find a coffee shop. Entering with confidence and a smile, head to the back until the WC sign appears above a door. You will be home for free. So the only thing left to figure out is how to rinse …