Ummm... Ma'am? I'm trying to pee here.

Gentlemen's Public Convenience.  Apparently that is what a public toilet is called here in the City of Westminster.  The City of Westminster being a... borough? within the city of London.  As part of my immersion into London I have been trying to wander around and explore a bit each day.  I mean, I got really lost my second day here when I went for a run and... well... If there was a wrong turn to make  on my route, I took every single one of them.

Anyway, I was out and about yesterday just getting a feel for the neighborhood, checking out different gym options, and such when I realized that I *really* had to pee.  Luckily, there are these "public convenience" facilities all over the place.  You know, so George Michael always has a convenient place to go hook up with his random of the night.  I enter and it's actually not too bad.  I mean, it's not the men's room in the Four Seasons, complete with bathroom attendant ready to hand you a towel, offer you some cologne, and a Barbicide disinfected comb to run through your hair, but it wasn't a rat-infested, piss-smelling, hobo-sleeping shanty either.

Oddly, there's a small line to use the facilities, but I quickly get to a urinal while a few others are waiting for a stall.  So there I am, pants undone, urinating when there's a sudden knock on a door behind me I hadn't noticed before and a woman enters the gentleman's public convenience.  Holding a roll of toilet paper in her hand she looks around.  "'ello love," she says to a man waiting patiently for a stall.  "You need the stall, do ya?" At this point I am no longer able to pee.  It just stops on its own.  "'ello lovies," she says rather loudly in the direction of the stalls.  "People are waayyting.  Hurry along," and she closes the door through which she came.

I kinda look around in shock and try to finish my business.  As I'm washing my hands, she knocks and comes in again.  This time fully entering the room.  Once again she says to the people in the stalls, "Lovies... hurry along in there.  People are waayyting."  She then walks toward to stalls with the roll of toilet paper and passes it to the occupant under the door.  I hear him thank her as if nothing is unusual here at all.

All I could do as I left the Gentlemen's Public Convenience was nervously laugh.  I'm still not sure why I was so uncomfortable in the situation.  Meh... Just another thing to get used to I suppose.