soap

I have taken for granted the fact that there is always, or at least generally, hot water and soap in bathrooms. I learned quite quickly after coming to Spain that I was not going to get hot water anywhere very easily, but it somehow took me much longer to learn that soap is also a luxury. There is one bathroom at my school that has soap, luckily it's the bathroom in the building I'm in 95% of the time, but none of the other bathrooms do. Nor does the Casa de la Juventud- a popular place that offers lots of classes (music, dance, art, sports, etc) where I take my salsa class. I commented this to a friend the other day and she told me it's true- soap is something you have to bring with you if you want to use it. She explained how when she was in the hospital (for a routine visit, nothing bad) that she went to bathrooms in several different locations and not a single one had soap- in the hospital!!! Nor were there any of the hand sanitizer things on the walls that we have gotten so used to seeing after the H1N1 outbreak. Seriously?! I mean I can sortof maybe understand business wanting to save money, but in a school full of kids getting sick all the time, and especially of all places in a hospital there should definitely be soap available for use!!