alt Hacker NewsI wish Americans would stop conflating some small part of Europe with the entirety of Europe. Scandinavia is of course within Europe, btw. Things may be handled vastly different depending on where you are in Europe. One small part of it does not define the rest of Europe. This is why you can't really compare "the EU" to "the USA" (Norway, while being part of Europe, is outside the EU btw). Not directly, anyway. Maybe some day, Europe will be much more homogeneous, but for now it's a pretty culturally, politically and economically diverse continent. Some European countries have epic public toilets. Others, not at all. It all depends on which country or culture you visit.
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My conflation comes from the fact that in Canada, you're almost guaranteed to have terrible washrooms at gas stations (and frankly, in most public venues outside of really nice hotels and restos) coast to coast to coast.
A washroom at at an Irving in rural New Brunswick will have the same weird smells and nonspecific grossness as a Petro in North Vancouver.
Granted, I also haven't visited most of Europe since being a kid, though at that time I remember a few Orlans in Poland and Elfs and Mobils in France having a much cleaner vibe than the gas stations back home.
> Some European countries have epic public toilets
Which mainland European countries have epic free public toilets as a rule rather than as an exception?
I'll admit it's possible these countries exist, just that they aren't any of the ones I've been to.
Since the mainland European countries I haven't been to are mostly either microstates (which I'm not counting) or post-Soviet, I doubt your claim.