Before I get started...

I FINALLY have all the pictures finished and uploaded to the blog! Woohoo!! It took me a while because I was a little obsessed with finishing Landon's Ironman scrapbook, and my blog was not letting me upload pictures for about a week. Now though, the scrapbook is completed and blogger is my friend again and I'm ready to tell the story of our once in a lifetime/last trip before we settle down European vacation, so that when we're old and looking back, we can remember all the details and all the fun. :)

First though, I thought I'd share a couple of things we learned from our travels and from planning a trip overseas:

1. A cruise is a great way to see a lot of Europe, especially if it's your first time going there. However, if we go back sometime in the future, we'd probably pick an area and just go there for the whole trip, so we could relax some and really get to see the area and eat the food and enjoy what they have to offer.

2. If you're doing a cruise, don't do all of your excursions through the ship--you can get MUCH better deals by booking the tours (or whatever you want to do in the different cities) on your own. However, if you do book it on your own, make sure to print out all the confirmation notices with the dates, times, phone numbers etc. on them. Do this even if you have a trip planned for the week before your trip and only have one day to pack, or else you'll end up spending WAY too much on crazy slow internet because you realized you have no idea where you're supposed to meet your tour guide. Not that I speak from experience or anything...we're way to organized to forget to do something like that!

3. Look up the address of your hotel in the city your plane lands in so that when you get off the plane in a country whose language you don't speak, not even a little bit, you know where you're headed. Or at least can tell someone where you need to go. It's much easier than trying to remember what Paris looks like on Google Earth and where your hotel is in relation to the Eiffel Tower. Although, I must give Landon major props because we got there on our first try using the Google Earth strategy. It was just a little stressful. :)

4. I totally recommend packing in backpacks, rather than suitcases. They were a little heavy, but we were able to pack all we needed for a 12 day trip and it was so much easier to ride on trains/busses and walk down the streets--and SO nice to have our hands free.

5. When traveling to Europe, do all you can to sleep on the plane. And then try really hard to not sleep once you arrive at your destination, even though your body is screaming at you that it is the middle of the night. Give yourself a day to get over being jetlagged, where you have some things to do, but not a crazy busy day. I promise, the second day is much nicer than the first, after you've actually gotten a full night's sleep. Then, the real fun can begin!
____________________________________________
First stop...Paris!