And the water goes the other way, too

North American toilets are weird.



When I first flew into LA, I was convinced that the first few toilets I encountered were flooded. Then after the first dozen, I realised that the water level is just really high.
There's no consistency with toilets here. The one above is in a train station in Chicago, and has a disposable seat cover dispenser. The impossibly-thin toilet paper, in rolls inside the one holder in the stall which had not been set on fire, was lying in strands (in the dry spots) and wads (in the wet spots) on the floor.
The flushing mechanism is usually a plastic lever on the left hand side. Sometimes it's a metal prong low enough to choose between pushing with either your hand or your foot. I haven't seen a top-of-the-tank dual-button flush at all.

Oh, and lightswitches are upside down: down is off, up is on; with sideways switches it's anyone's guess. Power sockets are called outlets, and if they only have two holes, my three-prong plugs are shit outta luck. There is only very, very occasionally the opportunity to recycle anything.