A few weeks ago, as we were wandering (or rushing) through Brussels looking for a public restroom, we started to think about what may be one of life's great ironies.
Those who have traveled in Europe know how hard it is to find a public restroom there, assuming that there is no McDonald's nearby. When you do find one, they try to charge you to use it. In the Milan train station, we paid 1 euro. In Luxembourg City, we held it when it cost 1.10. (Occasionally, men can pay less to use a urinal, an option women don't have.) We even visited one restaurant where, after paying for a meal, we were asked to pay more to use the bathroom.
In the abstract, I don't have any problem with them charging to let me use the restroom. They are providing an important service; why not charge for it? But coming from the U.S., where to the best of our memories, neither of has ever paid, or even been asked to pay, to use one, it's hard to stomach. The irony is that all of these countries have national healthcare. In other words, they see healthcare as a right, but using the bathroom as a privilege. Which is opposite from at home.
The one happy exception was Paris, where pay toilets have apparently been converted to free. In Switzerland, toilets are free, but we read that they also don't have national healthcare.
Fun fact: When we visted a McDonald's in Delhi, India, hoping to use a bathroom, we were suprised to find that there was no bathroom at all. What?
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So, in Paris they have free health care AND free toilets, but no free-dom fries? You know, despite what Halliburton would have us believe, what you can't put a price on is freedom; or maybe you can pay for it, but not get it? And i think you have exposed a great hole [if you'll pardon the expression] in M. Moore's obviously biased documentation of health-care in Europe. Thanks for the note; and for the tip about traveling in Delhi.
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