About to hop in the shower...

...and speaking of such, Caelus just asked in the comments below about my experience with showers over here.

Glad you asked, because it reminded me of one more small observation I've been meaning to post about since I got over here.

But first, showers in general... Caelus and his wife just returned from Italy, and found the showers to be roughly the size of a small phonebooth. Yes, my friend, that is very common across Europe. I think the smallest shower I had was in my room in Venice. The entire shower plus bathroom was smaller than many closets back in the US (and FAR smaller than the mid-sized cave that was my closet in my room in Chicago for those who were familiar with it). But many others in Ireland, Scotland and other places are not any different.

I'll add that size aside, the best shower I had in my entire time over here was at the Bayfield Backpackers Hostel in Portree, Isle of Skye. Clean, great temperature control and water pressure like a firehose!

The other interesting thing about showers over here is that most of them are electrically operated. There's often a switch on the wall (often *outside* the bathroom) that has to be turned on to operate it, then a dial or button to turn on the water. Some, like ours here at the house, make this gawdawful racket when they're operating. The room I was in until Conal left was right against the shower wall, and when someone turned that sucker on in the morning, there was no more sleep to be had.

Now, one more bit about our shower here that has amused me on a nearly daily basis:

Our shower is not tiny. Not huge, but not a phonebooth, either. Rather, its a normal (well, okay, smallish) tub, with a shower unit on the wall. The shower unit is on the back wall, near one end of the tub though, rather than being on the end wall like you might normally find it. The result being when you're standing in the shower with your back to the unit, you're facing out staring at the shower curtain, instead of the other end of the tub.

Our shower curtain has fish on it. Fish with assorted colors and patterns. This is the fish that is directly at eye level such that I spend most of my shower staring at it:



Notice anything funny about the pattern on the crown of his head, particularly? Now, wanna tell me this whole thing wasn't just meant to be???