That's odd... I lived in Germany for 2 years about 19 years ago, and I didn't see one sign prohibiting peeing sitting down. I also used plenty of stand-up urinals there. Is this guy smoking crack, or was this some part of Germany that I never saw? I must admit to only having lived in NRW, and visiting only a few cities like Munchen, Bonn, Koln, Berlin, and deep down south in Berchtesgaden, but you'd think I'd have seen one...

About 6 years ago, my parents took me to Germany and The Netherlands. It was amazing. It was in late May - I had just celebrated my 21st birthday.

We spent two nights in Haarlam (it's about a 15-minute train ride west of Amsterdam), drove east to Germany, stayed at a different German town every night for 6 nights (Koln (Cologne), Aachen, Bernkastle, Mainz, Cocham, and Koblenz - the Youth Hostels in Germany are AWESOME, especially Koblenz, we stayed in this re-purposed fortress overlooking Deutsches Eck - The walls were like 6-foot-thick stone... I digress...) and then spent our last two days back in Haarlam. We did some day trips to Amsterdam and Zandfoort as well.

When you get out of the main train station in Amsterdam, you're at the north end of the city, looking south. As soon as you walk out of the building, you'll notice a big multi-story parking structure just off to the right. But its not a parking structure for cars - it's for bikes only. Just outside the train station in Haarlam, there's a space about 1/4th the size of a soccer pitch, just for bicycle parking.

And the Dutch reap ALL the benefits of biking everywhere. Nearly all the women had AWESOME legs, toned, cut... mmmmmm.... MAN I miss it...

You don't see gas guzzlers anywhere on the streets of Amsterdam. The roads aren't NEARLY wide enough for a Ford Exploiter. No one would be able to afford the gas either - what we pay for a gallon, they pay for a liter (over 4x the price - which is weird when you think about it, since the Middle East is closer to them than the US...)

As a side note, the canals WREAK to high hell in the late spring/summer time. When I walked out of the train station, my nose was assaulted with a very foul odor. It was like walking into a barn, but I certainly didn't see any livestock...

I guess you'd get used to it if you were living there...