Thoughts On Going Away...And Going

The big Scotland/England/France trip was one of those times that feel as if time flies by--but, at the same time, also feel like 2 weeks laste about 2 months. When I returned to work this week, it seemed as though I was gone longer than I thought. My office was covered in a thick coating of dust, cobwebs and even moss.

Apparently, my work friends missed me very much. (And had little to do.)

I didn't expect any pranks to have occured while I was gone, but I was very amused by it. The cave look was well done. I was concerned that the "dust," aka powdered sugar, would be a pain to clean up. But actually, it was a cinch to clean thanks to a dust buster and lots of furniture polish. Besides, had the pranksters not done the dust coating everywhere, I wouldn't have gotten one of my favorite parts: the spot on my desk where someone (you know who you are) wrote "Wash Me" in the dust.

Because so much time has elapsed since we left--and much happened on such a whirlwind tour, I'll try to recap the highlights in more detail later this week in a list of the Top 10 Coolest Trip Stuff--and a Bottom 5 List of the Not-So-Cool Stuff.

To kick off the Good and the Bad Lists, I have an important report to submit. On this trip-- quite unexpectedly--I discovered Europe's very best and very worst bathrooms. Really.

My bathroom obsession started at our hotel in Harrogate, England. The hotel, The Majestic, is amazing. Right off the bat, I was very impressed with it's decor, it's rooms, it's dining room and food. And then, halfway through dinner, I found the main floor men's bathroom. I was shell shocked. In fact, I ran up and got other guys on the trip to come back down with me. I had to show it off. I've never seen a men's bathroom like this. I know women get big, fancy bathrooms all the time. Guys don't. We get caves with holes in the floor. This was such a luxury. I even took video of it. And several photos.

The room is about the size of a battleship (give or take). It's all marble and tile. There's 12 different stalls--and they aren't just stalls. They are individual rooms with wooden doors and automatic lights that come on when you enter. The sink wall in the picture is just an island int he middle of the room that separates the stall wall from a line of about 20 urinals.

On the end of the room is my favorite part: a long bench, bookended by trees. I imagine it's there so you can just sit and think about the majesty of the bathroom.

We only stayed one night in the Majestic but I tried to milk all the time I could in that bathroom. I miss being there. It was my home.

On the flip side, I also found Europe's worst bathroom. In France, they aren't big on privacy or actually building bath-ROOMS. Instead, they very often only give guys walls with urinals hung on them. In one small town we visited, we saw several of these--where you'd just walk down the sidewalk and see a guy pulled up to a urinal. Here's one I used:

This one was actually a deluxe model with a ceiling and two-feet of tile before getting to the urinal. Another one we saw was literally a wall--with no doorway at all.

While I was going, some German woman was standing behind me talking on her cell phone. It was very distracting. Another woman came over and washed her hands in the sink--with me relieving myself an arms-length away. I couldn't really concentrate. I just closed my eyes and imagined I was back in Harrogate...