In Search of Things....

The Cow Count

Since we arrived in Switzerland (land of cow) Natalie has been counting them, sort of an unofficial census. She counts them when we drive around and when we're on the train. She is careful not to count German or French cows. The grand total cow count is 781.

Toilets of Europe

Everywhere we go Natalie inspects the toilets, whether she has to go or not. By the way they don't say bathroom or restroom, it is "toilet" or "water closet". Which makes sense because you neither bath nor rest in these rooms. Anyway they have some very interesting toilets in Europe. They range from the natural way to high-tech toilets. Here are the details of her findings:

Some of the very old buildings and public parks literally have a hole in the floor with foot pedestals for squatting the natural way. We avoided these like the plague.
Many toilets of the standard brand (pun) but with a variety of flushing mechanisms such as push buttons, levers you pull up, levers you push down, chains you pull, buttons you step on, and levers you step on.
The infrared automatic triggers are very popular in many of the urinals and sinks, even though the building may be 500 years old. They also have this cool foam in the soap dispensers, this was like a bonus to find.
Then there are the public pay toilets in many of the large parks. They are semi-portable cylinders that open up for about 50 francs. When you are done and leave (the floor is pressure sensitive to make sure you've left) it completely washes down the whole inside. You *don't* want to sneak in after someone leaves just to save 50 francs. No the towels don't get wet, there is a built-in blow dryer.
In Holland they have to most unexplainable toilets on the planet. This is the only place we saw these and every toilet we visited in Holland was like this. Try to picture these, inside the bowl there is a ledge or upper level pool that collects everything deposited (get the picture?). So *everything* sits in on this pool ledge until you flush. Why?
The Swiss love high-tech gadgets, they far exceed the world in toilets. Very common are computerized toilet seats. When done you push a button and an arm comes out from the back and lowers down on the seat seemingly grabbing it with a robot hand. The seat then rotates 360 degrees around while this hand sanitizes the seat, all the while showing the current status on the back 3 lights (red, yellow, green). Then the arm retracts and the green light goes on ready for the next customer. We often just flushed these toilets for the show, got some pictures too.
And possibly a Swiss man who actually lived in our village made the greatest invention of all time. This toilet seat does not require toilet paper. When you are done with your business, you stay seated. It proceeds to clean you with a jet of warm water, then dries you with warm air. This inventor was really into cleanliness. No, we never actually tried this one. I know this sounds like an Internet joke flying around, but there really is no tampon removal option. If you don't believe this one, you can see it at the Standard of Excellence in San Marcos or Mira Mesa.

Le Petit Fleur

Since we heard of the Le Petit Fleur, we've been trying to find it. We saw the international press releases and began our search. Where could this little flower be, they said it was in Zürich. We desperately wanted to find it.

A friend asked us if it really existed and what the plant actually looked like. So we took that challenge to find the fabled Edelweiss (you have seen the Sound of Music, right?). So one day we took a drive across this tiny country and were determined to find Edelweiss. We started from Lake Geneva and drove through the northern Alps towards Lucerne. Every field we saw with little white flowers we stopped to inspect. Nothing. As we ascended into the chilly peaks of the Alps we stopped at every bend to look closely at every little white flour. Nothing. We drove all the way home with no little white flowers.

We made one of our required stops at an antique store along the way. They had a picture that looked like Edelweiss (the shop owner said it was), so we bought it determined not to come home completely empty handed.

Upon arriving back at our home, we chatted with our landlord about our search and showed him the picture we got. He informed us that the picture was not of Edelweiss, just a little white wild flower. Bummer. But then he continued that his wife was growing some Edelweiss in the garden. We took a look around and found that little white flower growing literally 3 feet from our front door. Bummer.

Anyway, here is the picture we hunted all of Switzerland for:

There is also a shop in Zürich named Le Petit Fleur, I wonder if they sell these pretty little buds too?