>When I was living in Germany (a duration of 3 years) it was the custom to only bathe once a week. The water was too harsh for anything more and they were big believers and practioners of water conservation even back then (they employed the same conservation practices with utilities). I still bathed once or even twice a day and slathered on the lotion afterwards until my skin grew accustomed to the hard water. We had to clean the tubs and showers with vinegar to remove the deposits. While the water was not as hard, it was the same in France and Spain and Switzerland. I wasn't in Netherlands long enough to know what the culture was back then although I visited twice. This was the mid 80s. Complete opposite of the Japanese who bathed often but had a different routine (they didn't bathe in the bathtub but in a little area by the bathtub with a couple of buckets. The idea was to be clean before entering the bath because other people would use the same bath water.)

>Either the custom has totally changed since then or you, yourself have not travelled as much as I thought. You have however, managed to become ruder as demonstated by your disparaging comment as reply to John. Since his daughter travelled just recently, I put some weight into her statements. They also match my own experience although it was 20 years ago. Rather than answer with information on the custom as you know it in Netherlands, you call him a red-neck and claim he cannot be converted. Converted to what exactly?

When I was young we already took a bath ourselved at least twice a week. Nowerdays I take a shower at least 4 times a week. If you have more dirty jobs it is common to shower each day (as my father did) It is not common up here to take a bath or shower only once or twice a week. I know that was common a some decades ago but nothing I can remember. I can't speak for all europeans of course as though I'm traveling quite a lot, I'm not a citizen of that country and only staying in hotels etc. Let the europeans up here speak for themselves.

As to john, I can't take johns remarks seriously. First of all they are always US patriotic flavoured and out of touch of reality. His remarks about bathing only once a week is totally off the mark by me.