Old habits die hard but this is just stupid

As I left the bakery with my pave de Henri, the misshapened loaf of yeasty, crusty, fresh-baked bread made by Henri, the bakery owner, I tried to push the door open. It opens inward.

Raised in the US where public doors are required to open outward ever since the Coconut Grove Fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire left 300 dead when panicked people piled up behind the doors that opened inward thus trapping them.

There are no such requirements in either France or Switzerland. It hit me. Next year it will be 20 years or 31% of my life since I first moved to Europe. I won’t even begin to estimate how many doors I have opened inward including the same bakery, yet the behaviour pattern of my childhood still automatically had me pushing the door instead of pulling it.

Old habits die hard, but this is just stupid.