The Bathroom is....Where???

Bathrooms. Is there anything that makes us more nervous about a foreign culture?

One of my challenges here in Australia is that bathrooms are referred to as "toilets". A "bathroom" is where you actually go to take a bath. In a public place, you ask for the toilet.

Except, I can't. The word just feels too odd coming out of my mouth. The "toilet" is not the room, it's the actual device and that's, um, too personal?

Also, if you're old enough, you remember "All In The Family" with Archie Bunker (Caroll O'Connor), the patriarch with the NY accent who always called it the "terlet". When I say "toilet", I hear "terlet" in my head.

Stranger still.....many restaurants do not have a restroom (which, I suspect to an Australian ear is a room where you go to rest but I think they've gotten used to us weirdo foreigners who won't say "toilet") of their own. There may be one for the block of shops and restaurants, shared by all the businesses in that block. So, when you ask for the bathroom, you will often get directions like this:

Go out the front door and turn left.
Go past the next restaurant and you'll see an alleyway on your left.
Go down the alleyway towards the car park and you'll find the toilets back there.

And you will and they'll be perfectly lovely (no, it will not be a porta-john). However, you gotta admit, it's strange to actually have to leave the building (well, unless you're in a gas station) to find a bathroom.

There's nothing wrong with the system here. You can usually make it all the way to the bathroom without getting, say, drenched in a rainstorm. Just...odd to this American.