Funny Sights across Europe

It may not be immediately clear what marvel of modern engineering in Amsterdam is, so I will tell you it is a pee deflector.  It is designed to deflect urine back at your knees if you pee on it and intended to reduce public urination on buildings.  In the 1980s, these deflectors were even given an electric charge for a nasty surprise to those that tried to outwit the pee deflector.

Who could forget the ridiculously expensive hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled baby Blanket from the balcony.

We saw a lot of interesting bathrooms and toilets in all the countries we visited, or I guess I should call them water closets.  If you need a toilet in Europe, you need to look for the WC sign.  Some I didn't feel right posting pictures of here, but these two are pretty good.  The first is a particularly organic approach to freshening the bathroom.  The second is a toilet from a train we rode, in which the waste is dumped directly on the track beneath you.  You can see a bit of the track beneath.  This is surprisingly common on the trains that we took throughout Europe.

I wasn't really sure what to make of this warning in a train WC.  It seems to be a warning to all of you who would be tempted to flush an apple core or soda cup down the toilet.

We saw a lot of funny signs around Europe, here are just a few examples.  It took me a while to figure out what the green sign below means, it feels like some sort of puzzle you have to decode, but it really just points to the exit.  They never use the word exit in their signs, but I prefer the ones that simply say "Way Out".

I'm glad they give us the warning before crossing the road.  It really is hard to remember, though not as hard as it is to drive in Ireland.

There are many different ways to communicate the same message, but I like the way they do it in Ireland

Bolshevik crossing lights - there was actually a court battle over whether these crossing lights in east Berlin should be changed, but the people had grown attached to them so they stayed.

I loved this advertisement for the Museum of Communism.