People always talk about how toilets flush in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere, but what about how keys and doors work in the opposite direction in Europe? I’ve been here five months and I still forget that most shop doors don’t open out to the street (you push to get in, pull to get out), and that most keys turn to the right to open and to the left to lock. Or wait, is it the other way around… all I know is that it’s the opposite of what I’m used to, and I wonder why this is. Did someone in the New World make a conscious decision to do these little things differently from European custom? Or is it happenstance?
Other little things are different over here too–and usually better. There are the ubiquitous two-button toilets, energy-saving escalators which start and stop on their own, traffic signals that start to merely blink yellow after a certain hour, windows which open in at least two different ways (horizonally and vertically), remote-controlled lights, and various other everyday innovations. Americans could borrow some of this technology. But let’s leave our locks and doors alone!
