Straaaaya maaate. The laaaaand of Oz, mate.
Cunctator 
Imasquare, ahem…check the spelling of your location, mate. 
Thank you for answering my question.
Now I want a bidet in my bathroom.
There used to be available here in the USA Kleenex brand mildly moist tissue in roll form. Does anyone remember? Know how to obtain some?
The crap ledge on German toilets.
That’s only in about 50% of houses in Australia. Might be a little more, might be a little less. If you’ve ever just settled in to the first few seconds of a long, luxuriating hot shower, and you have a seven year old boy bashing on the door saying, “I WANNA HAVE A POOOOOOO!! NO… I MEAN RIGHT NOWWWWW!!!”, then you’ll see the plus side of this arrangement. However, I prefer the US-style houses myself. I don’t want everybody to know I’m using the crapper. When it’s installed in the bathroom, then I could be doing anything in there, but when you’re in that toilet room, then you’re in that toilet room. Eh, I’m just uptight.
Another thing that isn’t necessarily difficult to adapt to, but remains strange and unfamiliar is the insistence on putting bathroom and kitchen lightswitches outside of the rooms themselves. I guess there is some sort of “water and electricity don’t mix” reasoning here but it was definitely annoying the first hundred times I walked down the hall, past the switch and into the bathroom, only to remember that I had forgotten to turn the light on and have to go back down the hall to turn it on.
I heard about the seemingly mythical “inspection shelf” (the name I heard, although I like yours better) soon after I first came to Germany, but never saw one until about a year later. When I finally found one at a beer garden in the former east Berlin, I came out, grabbed my camera from the table and ran back to the restroom without explanation to the people at the table. Probably made for a couple of minutes of interesting speculation. Unfortunately I’m traveling and the pic is on the home computer and not online so I can’t link to it, but here’s a pic I found online:
Besides, who wants to have toilet smells in the bathroom?
With a towel? With what do you wash your “undercarriage” after a shower?
And how do you know it’s clean after having used TP?
Actually, howcan it be clean using only TP? If you had dirty hands, would rubbing them with a piece of paper be enough?
I think our habbit of only using TP is objectively disgusting…
One more to add before I go to bed: duvets. I never had a duvet when I lived in the States, and never really understood them; I always just bought comforters. Here, comforters appear to be non-existent, or at least rather rare, so I’m stuck with a duvet.
And it drives me absolutely insane. Every morning I have to straighten out the duvet inner because it inevitably ends up at the bottom of the cover. I have considered safety pins, but I’m pretty sure that would just result in a shredded duvet, and at 80 dollars a pop, that’s not a risk I’m eager to take.
Would it sadden you to know that Bounce used to be available in Oz? I suppose it didn’t sell well enough because it lasted only a short while in the supermarket.
I can’t recall how I first found out about the product but a friend was going on a trip to the US so I cajoled her into buying me some while she was there. Carted the stuff around in her luggage for six weeks. 
I prefer to use the dryer than the clothesline because it gets me out of a lot of ironing. :lazy icon:
And, in case anyone’s interested, our dryer broke this weekend (well, I ran into it with the car and it stopped working…I swear it was making wierd noises before that).
jabiru, it doesn’t surprise me at all that Bounce didn’t sell well here. I swear, if they had tried it, they’d have been converted. My husband now understands the value of having jeans that aren’t crunchy and soft, fluffy towels, so there are at least three of us here in Oz who appreciate the Bounce.
Do you know how to fix dryers? I’d trade my extra box of 150 sheets!
You’re lucky I don’t work for Kimberly Clark – if I did, I’d be taking you to court and/or the Pit. 
'Tis Unilever that’s responsible for the scourge that is Snuggle.
Glad to be of assistance
I’ll add that you don’t really need a bidet. Some commodes come fitted with a small pipe at the rear, that directs a jet of water at your crack. A tap allows you to regulate the pressure. I’ve used this on occasion, but I still prefer the hand shower - greater accuracy.
Can someone tell me what’s an inspection shelf that they have in Germany?
If you go look at that link that’s above, it’s basically a ledge that your crap drops onto, so that when you stand up, but before you flush, you can look at your crap and say “Mein Gott! Zwei Kilogram!” or whatever, and then flush it.