Someone in Europe must have had a really great campaign for automatic fixtures.  During my time on the Camino, I was continually surprised by the ubiquitous automatic lights.  The conclusion I came to was that automatic is not always the best.

For example, there were several times when I was in the bathroom at a restaurant and the lights would turn off while I was in there.  However, it wasn’t that they turned off once while I was in there, but every thirty seconds.  Another place it was the shower.  If it didn’t sense you moving, the light in the shower would turn off.  Besides the fact that it felt creepy to have my shower light motion-sensored, it was inconvenient to have to obnoxiously wave my hands every fifteen seconds so that I wouldn’t be bathing in the dark.

Restaurants and albergues that were quite small would still be filled with automatic lights.  I’m used to automatic toilets and faucets but I didn’t see very many of those there.  There was more than one time that I would internally fume at the lights being turned off at the most inopportune time.

I guess this is what you call a first world problem, huh?