Holiday trivia

I'm waiting for the weekend to write about my vacation to the south of Germany and Amsterdam. But here is a quick post on some things I learnt while on vacation -

This is the symbol for a Toilet, so if you happen to be at a place that is old, chances are that this is what you should be looking for, if you are looking for the facilities. I saw this for the first time at an 17th century brewery and again at the Neuschwanstein castle.

While in Fussen I noticed a strange system of house numbering. Now the norm is to have all odd numbered houses on one side of the road and even numbered houses on the other side. This is done to make it simple for guests, courier delivery services and postal services to locate the house they need to be at.
But couldn't quite figure out why some houses were numbered 51/2, 91/2, 121/2. I saw this in Fussen only and so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a story behind it. Wonder what it is...

Another thing that caught my eye was this - 20*C+M+B*10. I found this written in chalk on the main door of most of the houses in Germany.

I was told that it is how the singers of a chorus keep track of the collections they have made for Christmas. 20 stands for the millenium. 10 stands for the year. C+M+B stands for the three kings - Caspar, Melchoir and Balthasar, who went in search of Lord Jesus on the day he was born. Now since orthodox Chrsitians (followers of the Julian calendar) celebrate Christmas on January 7th, the collections for this year were made and Christmas already celebrated.