[tvdxer]

1) Do most, few, or no restaurants in your country have free soft drink refills? How about free water?

2) Are toilets in your country generally of the Western-style "sitting" design or the "Turkish" or "squat" design?

3) Do multiple-family dwellings (such as apartment buildings) often have multiple satellite dishes on the top? Would this be unusual: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbean/516138765/ ?

==

1) In the U.S., the vast majority of restaurants in the U.S. will refill your soft drink for free. For $1.50 or $2.00 or whatever they charge, you can have as much "pop" as you'd like. Also, water is usually free in U.S. restaurants and comes from the tap (grifo). I've heard they don't do this in Europe. Why not? I figure a restaurant brave enough to try it might end up recouping the cost of the soft drinks (which is minimal) in added business.

2) Virtually ALL toilets here, except urinals in public men's bathrooms, are of the standard Western design.

3) No, as far as I know, individual satellite dishes are not usually allowed in large apartment complexes, and those that provide satellite TV usually have a master dish feeding all units in the building.

 

[goschio]

Germany:

1.
No, refill is unusual. They don't provide you weith free food either.

2.
western toilet

3.
low class appartments have generally multiple dishes, while more upscale apartments have a single hidden one under the roof.

 

[Dezz]

The Netherlands,

1.
Sadly enough, no refills.

2.
Western toilet

3.
Exactly the same as in Germany. Low class appartments and even some single detached houses have satellite dishes.

 

[Jonesy55]

UK

No free refills but you can get free tap water if you don't want to pay for mineral water.

western style toilets

multiple dishes is fairly common i think

 

[Stifler]

1- It's not common at all to refill your soft drink for free. However, many American-food restaurants apply this policy of 'bottomless drinks'.

You can ask for free water everywhere and nobody will deny it (unless you only order that), but they might look at you with a weird face. Madrid is the exception, where it's extremely common to order free tap water.

2- Western. I only saw one squat toilet here once.

3- I guess there is no national law about that but it's banned in most of the municipalities. However, it's pretty common to see them in the balconies of run down districts, especially if there are lots of inmigrants there.

 

[conquest]

1 no

2 western

3 rarely