Since my last post in March I have: finished school, moved out of the apartment in Vancouver, moved back to Toronto, and visited Vienna, Prague, and now Berlin, and by the end of the week will be in Madrid.
Therefore, been in 6 cities in 5 countries in just over 3 weeks. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, soon I shall ask travel for it's globally hand in marriage and will live happily ever after galloping into many different sunsets.
But how could you not compare each one of these beautiful places? All so different, different locations, currency, language, history, food..... mmmmmmmmmm the food.
ANYWAY what I'm getting at is this:
While planning a euro trip at home
DO NOT:
1) Pre-pay anything accept hotels n flights n trains.
WHY? : THEY DON'T WORK... and if by some chance it does, you're losing money. You may think you're being all cleaver by paying in Canadian dollars, a head of time, having a great plan, etc..... Well, to your unpleasant surprise, you can show those group passes you payed for online to the museum/ tour bus/ show ticket office, the people will look at you with one eye brow raised, smacking the dated gum on the left side of the jaw, blink once, slide the paper back to you, wave their right hand around a bit and say in broken English... "No good". .... End of story.
2) Do not assume that just because Europe is nicer than North America that the weather will match that.
3) Packing EVERYTHING you might POSSIBLY need into your oversize suit case such as:
a) 6 clubbing style dresses
b) 2 shoe horns
c) 4 oversized purses
... will NOT help you during your travels especially when you're
a) not using them
b) traveling by train
c) needing to either run to catch the train, or attempt to use a WC (European "Water Closet")
BONUS: DO NOT EVER, EVER EVER ...EVER TRY TO REPEAT CATCH PHRASES YOU'VE HEAR IN FORGIN MOVIES YOU MIGHT GET THROWN OUT OF THE COUNTRY (aka my father saying during our stay in Berlin "Das ist gut YA?" to the cab driver, receptionist, and waiter).
but DO THIS:
1) Bring your camera wherever you go.
WHY!? It's your only chance to embrace being a Chinese bucket hatted, map sprawling, fan pack wiggling, binocular groping tourist. And European cities are generally just unfairly photogenic.
2) Actually use a travel book (like a top 10 book), they KNOW what they're talking about.
3) Bring a plug converter... or else you will spend the first half of your trip with massive hair, and a dead cell phone, camera, and laptop... and that might just ruin your plans.
That concludes Merry Somers Guide to The Euro Trip and Merry Somers Life Lessons.
Take what you can from this !
(These are some of my favourite pics from the trip so far)
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