Some Differences from There to Here

--I have probably mentioned all of these at some point already, but they give a better picture when you stack them on top of one another.--

Distance is both smaller and larger here here. At home a few hours drive would take you across a state, or to a different city, but here a few hours drive will take you to a different sovereign state. Different language, different customs, different money, different wins and loses, and often a different attitude. You man not be able to see the border, but I think they can feel it. Like birds and magnetic north. However, you can scarcely go a kilometer without running into buildings, structures, and accretions of history. Many of them even come with people.

There are not mechanical dryers here. Everything is hung outside in dry weather, and on wire racks indoors when its wet. The preponderance of radiators is good for drying socks or quickening a pair of jeans.

The toilet is always in a different room than the bath. If you're lucky there is a sink in the same room. These toilets tend to have a broad shelf where your offal lands and it is then sluiced down into the hole by water released from a separate tank roughly a meter above the throne. Or more modern toilets have two-part buttons on the top of the tank planted directly upon the throne. Unless you are visiting a building remodeled in the last ten years, the plumbing has a mildew and vinegar odor.

Most bathrooms have no shower curtains. The majority have a shower-head wand on a flexible tube that sticks straight form the top of the faucet. Even tubs that have the hanging rod for a curtain must be used carefully, because a standard shower curtain is not long enough to cover everything.

Water heaters are boxes stuck high on the wall, which ignite with a 'whooomph' when you require their contents.

There are no closets, but wardrobes and built-in shelving abounds. Beds are narrow firm affairs, low to the floor. Its normal not to have a sheet, but just a large fluffy duvet. Herringbone patterned wood panel floors are common. As are electric kettles and one section sinks.

Light switches are black rockers in square white panels. Electrical sockets are round and recessed. They have holes for two circular prongs of identical size.

Houses are not simple one family affairs. Most are row houses, set back a little bit from the street with giant open green spaces on the far side of them. There are at least two flats in every three story building, even if it's only one room in width. You may have a yard, but it could be shared with other people, if you're even allowed in there.

Most everything is made of brick and stone, with stucco type facades. Nice buildings have been painted and colored since the Communists fell, but many are flaking and peeling, dropping sections to reveal their lumpy skeletons. It feels much worse to me than any house with peeling paint. Its even more disconcerting when the building still has all the original carved stone flourishes and cherubs and gargoyles, which are dirty, because they emphasize how nice the building must once have looked.