Tales of the WC

My first day on vacation was spent mostly on airplanes....but it was very short as on the airplane we boarded in NY we set our watches to Swiss time, so my birthday May 2 was celebrated for about 30 hours. Most of the plane ride was uneventful cept the take off in Newark.....we boarded at 6 p.m. and didnt leave the ground till 8:15 p.m. but once in the air things went fine....just a bit of a backup on the takeoff and landing strip.
So once in Switzerland...9:30 a.m. on May 2 my story begins....we landed and got the rental car a Renault stationwagon and headed for Zeruck to see the city. Once finding a parking ramp, we couldn't get the car to lock....some nice people who parked next to us tryed to help, and even called Hertz and followed all the instructions in german but it still would't lock....so they sent out a service man to fix it for us....well in the mean time I had to find a bathroom and was sent across the street to a WC (a large cylander shaped thing, that cost 1 franc to enter, only I only had 2 franc coins....so I paid 2 francs to get into this thing. The door automoatically open once the coin is inplace and then you step in and the door closes and everything seems wet...well it is! You do your thing...but cannot find a handle to flush the toilet, so I touch the handle and the door opens and you step out and the door closes behind you and then you hear it flushes and totally washes down the whole inside (Karen suggests if I stayed longer i might have gotten a shower for the same price!
Back to the car....a man finally arrives and somehow fixes the problem, but we had to pull out of the parking ramp for him to do so, and then he wanted to charge us 170 francs. We refused and said we wanted to talk to Hertz....and the man angry got in his truck and left. So we were off to see Zurich.
As in the last months bathrooms have become my friend....I decided I would write on all the interesting things i found. At the airport the bathrooms were very clean....but i had a little problem trying to find the button to flush as it was a metal plate on the wall, that didnt look at all like it would be it....but it was. At one of our first stops (Starbucks) we needed a code to type on a keypad to get in....but free to the costomers. Later as I needed to find one again....we walked by a McDonalds so I walked in and down one flight of stairs to find the restuarant counter and looked left and saw a sign pointing up another set of stairs to the toilets....So I raced another young women up 2 flights of stairs and was happy to find 3 stalls there. Once to Karens (which is a lovely old 1700's home, but has interesting plumbing) I needed instructions on how to flush as one toilet had a no tank, but a pipe with a knob above the seat which needs to be turned on as you would a faucet....and off again to stop the water....and then another toilet on the main floor that has an oblong metal piece cut into the traditional ceramic cover of the tank that you press to make it flush. All this and the wonderful bathrooms on the airplane....and it has been an intersting and informing trip so far.
Karen and Reudi served us a wonderful dinner and gave us a tour of their business and then after dinner took us to their tasting room which had a surprise cake and balloons with cows on them and swiss ribbons and then served us our choice of several brandies....It was a wonderful and long birthday....Love you all, more soon. m