Living in Austria - that pile stinks

This post has to do with one of the business parts of the day. I'm not talking about the one where there is a boss or you have a desk or a cubicle, the business I'm talking about has to do with reading a magazine/doing a Sudoku, possibly having some really good ideas, or maybe even just relaxing. Yep I'm talking about the business of #2, numero dos, nummer zwei.
Over here the toilets are a little bit different than the ones back home and in the spirit of trying to share what life is like over here I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything out. In the picture you can see our lovely "toilette" (pronounced toy-let-a). You may notice that there isn't a little handle that you push down to flush. Instead the flushing mechanism in on top of the toilet. The toilets here are like back home in a way, where if you push the lever/button all the way down the toilet will flush with a lot of water. Well, this isn't always necessary, so when you push down on one side of the button and the toilets starts to flush you can also push down on the other side to stop the flow of water. Seems simple enough but I think it is a great water saving idea.
Aside from the this the toilets are pretty much the same, except for one major difference. The bowls. The bowls back home are filled with water, and describing the process aside, whatever you did flushes down in the water. Over here - not the same. The bowls are not filled with water almost all the way like they are back home. There is a ledge that catches whatever you deposit.
Have you ever walked past a fresh pile of dog poo out in the open? It stinks, and you are roughly 6 feet above it, now try sitting 6 inches above it. And then there is the problem of getting what rests on the ledge to actually go down. Have you ever stepped in dog poo and then tried to wipe it off? Not the easiest thing in the world if you don't have water. Same deal here. The ledge is without water and so your business sometimes gets stuck...not streaks, but the piles; and unless you have a toilet brush handy you're better think quick...dook and dash (like dine and dash) or find some way to get it to go down.
Being the reader-of-this-blog-loving-person that I am I will give you some tips if you ever find yourself in Europe at business time.

1) You can put a couple strips of toilet paper down which will act as a barrier on top of the ledge and send what is supposed to go down where it is supposed to go. (this however doesn't alleviate the smell.

2) The better option is to push the flush button as you go (remembering that you can stop the flow of water as well). You can still crack the magazine, think, or work on that Sudoku but this way you can do it in a non-terrible-smelling environment (the people after might thank you as well :) ).