I had a chance to travel to Germany, more precisely to Düsseldorf, when I was young🦕

One of my Japanese friends was studying violin there, and she had been asking me and another mutual friend to come visit her while she was in the university because she was supposed to return to Japan after graduation. If we missed the chance, there would be no more free accommodation or the free tours she promised to provide.

We saved up for a couple of years and were finally off on our trip, and I was very excited because I'd never been to Germany.

We arrived at the airport in Düsseldorf safe and sound.

While we were waiting at baggage claim, I went to the restroom.

For many Japanese people, using public restrooms in foreign countries can be an exciting and challenging experience: it can be quite different from ours.

I'm talking exclusively about women's restrooms and about large public toilets. It really depends on the country and the building, of course, but I have an impression that there's less privacy than in Japan.

The doors are often shorter, for example, not going all the way down to the floor. The lower part of the stall is visible, and if you're lucky🥴 there will be about an inch of a vertical gap even when the door is closed.

This is unthinkable in Japan, where all toilet compartments are securely closed when you are inside: each stall is a perfect, tiny room where you have complete privacy.

I imagine it has to do with several cultural aspects, but I won't go into detail about it now, even though it sounds interesting to write about.

Long story short, I always get nervous when I go to a lavatory in a foreign country for the first time.

You can't imagine what awaits you in there, really.

The first thing I noticed, in a huge restroom in the airport of Düsseldorf, is that the stall door was even shorter than I imagined. It seemed ridiculously shorter, but no, it only looked shorter because the door had been installed higher.

What the heck?

Then I went inside a toilet stall, and I couldn't keep from laughing.

The toilet was ridiculously tall.

Imagine a tiny Japanese woman of 152 cm (about 5 foot)...yes I'm short even by Japanese standards, thank you very much... trying to use a toilet with a seat that comes up to almost the middle of her thighs.

I usually don't sit on the toilet seat at a public bathroom, but, I had no choice but to sit on it this time.

While I was doing my business, dangling my feet like a child, I giggled a lot, muttering and cursing.

(The restroom was devoid of people, just to be clear.)

The reason was obvious, and I knew it as a fact, but I was still amazed at how tall German people were. I felt like a child all the time looking up at them.

I remember a lot of great things about this trip, but I cherish this trivial memory because it always makes me laugh.

Thanks for reading and sorry about the topic!😂

(The picture is by Juan Marin on Unsplash)

✔Corrected