Lights and Light Switches

I've been surprised that most houses here have florescent lighting -- the long tubes. I suppose this is probably the most energy efficient, yet somehow it feels more suited to say an elementary school classroom.

Also, lights here switch the opposite way - down is "on" and up is "off".

Finally, the placement of light switch plates to me feel non-intuitive. Here light switch panels -- at least at Nikhil's parents house -- are placed way up high on a wall. This makes them hard for me to find in the dark. For each room they typically contain multiple switches, usually because there's also an overhead fan or two, and also the switches turn on any power outlets as well. The order of these is often not logical to me. Finally, switch plates are often placed on the wall outside of say the bathroom (though this is common in Latin America and Europe and thus wasn't surprising to me).