I feel dirty.

I wish America had more bath houses.Um, no, not that kind of bath house, this kind of bath house...
...where, for relatively little money, you get to hang out in a palace filled with pools, hot tubs, saunas, steam rooms and Hungarian masseuses with dubious credentials. The baths in Budapest weren't as intimate/intense/culturally fortifying as the banyas in Russia, but they were still pretty therapeutic and a lot of fun.
Americans don't bathe; we shower. The rich among us pay exorbitant prices to go to spas, where they get wrapped in seaweed so they can look thinner or have smaller pores or something. And I'm guessing that even the fine gentlemen at the top of this entry don't go to bath houses to take baths. (By the way, what an amazing picture. Google Image Search rocks.)
I realize I'm being a bit unfair--baths are more of an Eastern European thing, not an everywhere-but-America thing--but, well, this country just has a tendency to piss me off. Like today, when I was riding on the Metrolink and the conductor woman told me my 10-trip pass wasn't valid for travel past Union Station (I hadn't known that) and wrote me a citation. That action in and of itself was fine--it's her job and all that. However, as she was writing me up, a group of LA County sheriffs seated next to and across from me (one of whom looked disturbingly like this guy) started laughing and saying things like "I knew she was trouble right when I saw her!" and "Want us to get her fingerprints for your records?"
And then the conductor started laughing right along with them.
First off: damn do I need a car.
Second: Yes, I could see that same situation happening in, say, France, but in that case the bystanders' remarks would've been a lot more witty and the laughter closer to malevolent snickering than big-throated guffawing. I wouldn't have minded that so much.