Posted by pinknic38 on June 29th, 2008
Things I learned from my Eurotrip 2008
Filed under: Uncategorized
Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve been around but I made it to Europe and back. I visited both Germany and Poland, and had a fabulous time!
I did learn quite a lot of things about myself, about the places I went, about others, and about backpacking, that I wanted to share here.
1. The German rail system is flawless, in my opinion. I was so freaking worried about getting around in Germany because I know some German but certainly not enough. But after surviving my first journey (Frankfurt Airport to Koln), I quickly caught on. You can make your reservations to anywhere you wanna go (especially important if you’ve got a rail pass… it’s 4 euros to make a reservation on the electronic kiosk, and you can pick your seat (as in window, aisle, in the cell phone area, in the quiet area, etc - and you can get it in English too!) and also you can literately go ANYWHERE. That little electronic kiosk is genius. I wish they had them in Poland, maybe there would have been less confusion. Also even if they speak NO English on your train (they do on all the ICE trains, but some IC trains they don’t), there’s a pamphlet in the seat which outlines the entire journey that train takes, and what time it arrives at each destination, so you can count stops if you’re nervous, so you can enjoy the scenery.
2. Sometimes visiting smaller, less popular cities yields excellent results. Everyone I talked to about my itinerary for Germany was all “Why aren’t you going to Berlin?!!” or “You HAVE to go to Nuremberg!” and all this other stuff, but my itinerary was chiseled out. I do wish I only spent 1 day in Koln and made it to Dusseldorf or somewhere else the next day. But I skipped out on an extra day in Munich or a day somewhere else for a day in Heidelberg and it wound up being my favorite time the whole trip (besides Celine, of course). Heidelberg is much smaller and there is much less to do but it was gorgeous and even though I went on a Sunday when the stores and stuff were mostly closed, it was the best time. So, sometimes it sucks to skip the big ticket cities, but opting for a smaller, “out there” place can be an amazing experience.
3. It’s hard to meet folks if you don’t drink and go to the bars. I know there will be folks out there who disagree with me on this, but I found it hard. My Eurotrip was also a sober one. I did a beer bus thing in Koln and that was about it besides tasting a few beers in Munich. I didn’t have the money to go out and drink and I was also at a point where I didn’t want to drink anyway, so every person I met and hung out with in the hostels, it was like “well we’re about to go to a pub crawl, come with us!” or “we’re going to this bar tonight where we get free drinks, come with!” I’m serous. Maybe it’s my age group. But because I didn’t drink, my Eurotrip was a little lonely also. Which was okay, because I needed to be on my own and think, but looks like alcohol really brings everyone together. Maybe it’s a little cliched to go out for coffee or something?
4. Front row tickets to your favorite singer/band in a foreign country is AMAZING! Front row tickets are already awesome. But it’s different when you’re abroad. It’s like, you’re fucking pumped cos it’s your favorite artist front row, and you’re even more pumped cos you’re abroad. Furthermore, buying tickets to a concert in a foreign country is a great excuse to travel. I’d been putting off a Eurotrip forever, I mean I’ve wanted to like mad, but I just couldn’t decide what to do and where to go because there’s so much I wanna see. But when Celine went on world tour and the presale went out for tix in Germany when I was supposed to be on leave and I went on ticketmaster and got front row, I bought it right away! Seems silly, but when you’re indecisive, all the sudden you have a focal point, and you logistically build your trip around it.
5. If you need to leave earlier, call your airline. I know this sounds like a DUH kind of thing to say, but I didn’t even think when I was going home early, I looked online at one-way tickets first and when I realized a 1 way coach class from Krakow to Chicago was $4000, it was time to call the airline just to see. I flew Air Canada and they were so helpful. Telling me what day was cheaper to go home, asking me about seats I wanted, about connections, etc. I ended up paying $100 to change my flight to 2 days earlier so I could go home and take care of something. I hope that never happens again while traveling, going home early, but it’s nice to know if the situation does come up, it’s affordable to do it.
6. Apparently Americans are the only ones who eat sweets for breakfast. Seriously. I’m in Germany and Poland and everyone for breakfast has eggs or some sort of sandwich with meat or buttered toast/bread, whatever… I’m like can I get some fucking pancakes over here? Where’s the Waffle House? IHOP? Shit, I’ll take Cracker Barrel! I mean yeah you can go grab a danish somewhere but I’m talking about the good stuff man. 4 days of no sugar for breakfast and I was ready to take hostages. I was at the train station in Koln and had a huge pretzel that was cinnamon-sugar covered and I nearly died and went to heaven. I guess maybe Germany and Poland are not the places to go if you’ve got a huge sweet tooth. France, maybe. OH!! In Germany! So I’m at the train station in Dortmund, it’s midnight, my train doesn’t come til 2am, so I’m hungry and cold and tired and the crepe place is still open. I have a dude make me a big ol crepe with applesauce in it. SO GOOD.
Okay those are all the lessons for now. There are more to come!
June 29th, 2008 at 11:33 am
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