Interlude: European Quirks

European Quirks

Amesterdam Southwest Station, the grass underneath the rails is riddled with artificial tree stumps. I’m not entirely sure who put them there or why, but they’re there. Large, faux tree stumps.

Back in Belgium, all the escalators were entirely immobile. In America that means they’re broken, and when I first noticed this I started to avoid the immobile escalator until I realized that they were all immobile excepting the ones with passengers. See, rather than keep them running all the time, in Belgium they have pressure activated pads in front of the escalator that start it running as soon as someone steps onto it.

Did you know that along the Red Light District they have large plastic things left along the street as urinals? Toilets sitting in the streets with no bathroom in sight. I mean, the design of the thing allows men to pretty well hide their vitals pretty well while they’re doing their business in public. But still, I would like to call your attention to the second part of that sentence, “doing their business in public”. No equivalent toilets for the ladies that I saw anywhere. I guess we can see what gender the Red Light District markets most to.

They have a type of bird about Europe that eats with the pigeons. But I don’t actually believe they’re pigeons. A closer look, and they seem to resemble a variety of crow acting like a pigeon more than actually bothering to be one. But their eyes have the same intelligent look to them that crows eyes have.