Doors

While sitting outside on Friday afternoon drinking a beer after classes ended for the week, I was talking with some American students and one of them was telling a story about how he was having issues with the doors in Europe. See the thing is here, that a lot of doors are push to enter and pull to exit. Couter-intuitive for those of us in the US. You may have never thought about it before, but when you do, you'll realize that it is natural for us to pull to enter and push to exit. Why? Fire codes. Here? Buildings are too old for fire codes. The thing is, we don't usually sit back and think before we are entering and exiting places.Thus, sometimes we look like total idiots when we are trying to leave a bar, for instance. Here we are, pushing on the door to leave, and it just won't open.

Another interesting door tid-bit is that many times the doors here have buttons that you need to push to unlock them. To exit the computer lab at school, there is a button on the right of the door that you have to push to be able to get out of the lab. At the laundromat, there is a button on the outside that you have to push as you enter the place or the door won't open. Once you know it is there, no problem. If you don't know it is there you once again look a little strange standing there staring at the people inside wondering how the heck they got in.

Finally, doors here lots of times lack hinges to make the door close automatically when you enter or leave. Similar situations at homes in the US, but much harder to remember when you are entering and leaving restaurants and bars. I just expect to have the door close behind me.