Cultural minutiae

Three things that struck me since I've been home:
1. Ketchup bottles. I don't have to pay $0.20 for each small packet of ketchup that I want anymore.
2. Bathrooms actually in/on the premises of restaurants.
3. Water extravagance. I think (and hope) I'm going to be a bit more water savvy and conserving than I was before. I'd like to get one of those two-flush or low-flush toilets. One of the elderly people I had dinner with in Melbourne had a small bucket in her bathroom sink: all the water that was used to wash hands/brush teeth drained into that bucket, and then she would re-use it to water the plants in her house, instead of just letting it go down the drain. Because it is such a precious and increasingly scarce commodity in Australia, they are gradually starting to learn to steward it like the treasure that it is (not to say, of course, that they use water the way the majority of the planet does, but I think they are more aware of water wastage compared to most of the West). In even the very small ways that I have seen them carefully use water (turning off the shower while soaping up, never using warm or hot water laundry washes, turning the tap on only after they have soaped up their hands to rinse only, not washing their cars or watering their lawns) have been subtle, but, as we all know, small individual ripples can become a tidal wave...