If you just ate, come back to the post in an hour or so.
Traveling German freeways, autobahns, has been a source of bewilderment and wonder to us.
First and foremost, there is nothing mythical about them. Ribbons of asphalt and concrete used to move people and goods are nothing to rave about.
We still feel exploited by the "pay 2 pee" system they set up here. In neighboring countries, too, but that's a different fecal matter.
With some in this nation screaming at the top of their voices for more road building money, this is as good a time as it gets to revisit the shit that happens at service stations and rest stops.
Some small rest areas happen to have free bathrooms but it seems most of them are shut down, so don't let your bowels relax as you approach a rest stop with the WC sign.
The wonderfully privatized service stations will let you into the stalls for 1 Euro. You get a coupon worth 50 cents, redeemable at the ludicrously overpriced cafe or convenience store. Bad deal.
The hushed up problem with pay 2 pee is, of course, that not everybody is willing to pay. Instead, people seek accommodation in the bushes and shrubs lining every self-respecting freeway rest or service area.
Hey, what's the fuss about a turd or two, I have some sit in office cubes nearby? you might say.
To which we, trying to go for a walk after doing the pay 2 pee thing will quip: Turd Alley, my friend, Turd Alley!
Posts have been composed about the terrifying old style German toilets, but articles about pay 2 pee skirt around the collateral damage just as we skirted around brown mounds topped by crumpled up toilet paper on the way to the nearby fields to get that walk before embarking on a couple of hundred extra little miles or kraut miles (km).
No, it is not the dogs doing them turds. The paper and the characteristics of the human turd producing population prove it. It takes a certain attitude to count turds, and we performed the investigative task with detached efficiency.
Only to stop counting when we reached 100 in an area of about 20 meters square.
Stopping at that point was important to prevent the possible formation of PTSD (Post Turd Stress Syndrome). Even so, for a day or two after exposure, one of our travel companions experienced turd flashbacks and some turd hallucinations.
Frightening.
We do not have time to delve into turd politics. Germany is a transit country for Dutch, British, Danish etc. motorists, and we know for sure that there would be an uproar in politics if foreigners and locals could shit 4 free. They don't pay a cent to use our roads, and now they want to shit for free!
In the words of a friend "it is hard to get a handle on turds", but we want to say that we do not regard any society that makes long distance travelers pay 2 pee as civilized. Period.
Rest stops without attached service stations (gas/restaurant) still seem to be mostly free.
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