Best (and worst) parts of the journey ...

I slept for about 10 hours and feel OK on what is actually a very nice, warm day in Bakersfield -- I guess they'd actually been having cooler weather while I was gone and now that I'm back ... OK, I won't take credit for it, but after almost two months of a mix of snow days, always cold days and even a few days when I felt I should have packed at least one California-type outfit, I find it to be good to be back in a state where the sunshine is the norm (and remember, that's no offense to Giusi and her fellow Italians. I know the good weather will be in Italy before too long).
OK, what I want to do with this post is provide to you a list of best and worst things about the trip so people who have never left the U.S. might want to know (or can even add with their comments about their own experiences overseas).

Without further ado, I present to you questions I don't think I'll need to answer IF you read this list:

Best city on the train portion of my trip: Berlin or London. I'd say Berlin because, if you read my post (We're only humans) it will tell you that I think I might have gained the most from my experiences in the two days I had there. I'll let you read the post again (or for the first time so you see what I mean). With Berlin, much like the many other cities I visited, I could have easily stayed here a week or two to really sink my teeth into it. Then again, with what I did see and do in the limited amount of time I did have, I gained a lot. London would be second on the list, mainly because not only did I see a lot, but I spent the most time outside Italy here and did get a good sense of what it would be like to stay for awhile.

Worst city on the train portion of my trip: Innsbruck and not because it wasn't a bad city. I just really had no time to see the two-time host of the Winter Olympics (1964 and 1976). In fact, one of the big draws to the city wound up being the postcard I sent myself (I did that for every city I was in). An honorable mention would be Brussels because of the circumstances that I put myself in there.

City I should have seen on the trip: Dublin in Ireland and Ljubljana in Slovenia. Dublin is obvious. I had tried to do it because I would have been there for St. Patrick's Day, but then that's the other reason why I didn't make it. Too many people there on St. Patrick's Day meant everything cost way too much for the little time I would have had to enjoy it. As for Slovenia's capital city, much like Prague, it is a city that has a lot of fans (read hype) and I wish now I'd been able to slip in a day for it at least.

City I wish I'd have spent more time in: Zurich, Innsbruck or Brussels. Switzerland was a good way to start my trip and Zurich seemed to have a lot going for it too. Innsbruck (see above as for why) and Brussels wasn't best when it is 3 a.m. and you are literally walking around just to pass the time until the 6:30 a.m. train leaves.

Favorite attraction: Museum for Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. The stories of people trying to find ways to get around the Berlin Wall -- the successes and the failures -- were equally moving and interesting. It is a MUST that you see it if you ever go to Berlin. Honorable mention to the Mole Antonelliana in Torino, Trevi Fountain in Rome and London Eye in, you guessed it, London.

Least favorite attraction: Hard to find one since I saw so many great cities, all of which had a lot of beautiful attractions to see, but perhaps most disappointing in some ways was the Louvre Museum in Paris. Read my post and you'll know why. Or, if not, two words: Mona Lisa.

Favorite food: Either my mexican food in Zurich or eating anything Italian while in Italy. The Italian food, every time Giusi took me somewhere locally or to a favorite place of hers in Torino or when I was with her and her friends for eating in the mountains was a guaranteed great meal as well as the chance to taste some TRUE Italian food. The mexican food in Zurich is likely here because it was an unexpected delight. I wasn't sure what I'd find until I walked inside and found everything at Tres Kilos to be just as good as anything I'd find in California -- and that says a lot.
Least favorite food: McDonalds. I did not go to Europe with the intent of eating here. I did on two occasions, the first while in Torino because I wanted to try it and see the menu to see any differences between American and Italian McDonalds. It wasn't any better. The second time I had it wasn't because I wanted it. When the train stopped in tiny Luxemborg for a two-hour layover before I headed to Brussels, it was a Sunday evening and there wasn't much of anything open except McDonalds. Even when I was in Paris and easily could have had McDonalds -- there are two of them along the Champs Elysees road -- I wanted nothing to do with a Royal with Cheese.

Best drink: If I couldn't be in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, the least I could do on March 17, as I waited for my flight from London's Luton airport to take me to Paris, was drink one of the best pints of Guinness I've ever had. So smooth. So delicious. Honorable mention goes to my "coffee" of choice, cappuccino and Torino's own drink, the bicerin.

Worst drink: Adnams bitter beer, served to me at the blues club in Soho in London. I was told by a certain London bitter beer expert (her initials are B.C.) that I HAD to have a bitter beer. I did, it was NOTHING special. She emailed me after I told her this info and she proceeded to rattle off the names of three or four other bitter beers she had there. Perhaps I could find one or two of them here in California so I can do my own taste test! Honorable mention goes to Grappa, the drink you have after an Italian meal to help with digestion. All it was for me was a chance to burn my mouth because of its potency.

Most interesting person: Ashley, a soon-to-be 21-year-old student, I met on the train I transferred to en route to Prague. She was the one person who not only had done a lot in her young life and been to many foreign places, but talking to her made the last two hours of the train ride go by effortlessly. Honorable mention goes to the guy I met for all of 45 minutes in a hotel bar in Brussels, Frankie. He not only bought one of the two unique beers I had there, but he was a hoot to listen to as he discussed beer in Belgium and how 360 different beers are from Belgium. All of this information, provided to me by a guy downing Jim Beam and Coke at a record pace.

Best hotel: Berlin's NH Hotel Heinrich-Heine. Was hard to find at first because someone had the wise idea to have two streets with nearly the same name within two blocks of each other. Once that was solved, I found that the hotel was solid because of the bed, the shower and the kitchenette, complete with all utensils and everything I needed to cook for myself because the grocery store was just to the left of the hotel. In all, a great place. Kind of pricey (89 Euro a night) but well worth it.

Worst hotel: Paris Best Western Derby Alma. It was expensive because of the location (one block from Eiffel Tower, 1-2 miles from Champs Elysees, two minutes to the metro train stop). A shower that was an adventure and wanting to charge me 10 Euro for 15 minutes of Internet time. If you go to Paris, go elsewhere.

Best decision: Seeing six Olympic events: Two-man luge in Cesana Pariol; Canada's men's hockey team in action against Germany as I honored a late, great friend of mine; U.S. women's hockey winning bronze against Finland; seeing Italy's Enrico Fabris win the 1500-meter speedskating event and see a nation cheer for him (while back in America, the media overshadowing the victory with the Chad Hedrick-Shani Davis "feud"); Watching curling for the first time, in Pinerolo, and seeing the U.S. men win the country's first-ever Olympic curling medal with a victory over Britian; Czech Republic downed Russia in the men's hockey bronze medal game. Honorable mentions to seeing a hockey game IN the Czech Republic, drinking good, different and interesting beer each time and ordering a sorbetto limone for the first time at Il Sarceno. Or was the best decision perhaps going back and getting it a second time?

Worst decision: It could have been the Friday I spent at the Vatican and the mistake I made by not seeing the St. Peter Cathedral the right way, but I made up for it with the return visit the next morning. Instead, I will say the tour of Brussels from 1 to 5 a.m.

Wish I'd not packed: The shoes I wound up wearing too often on the trip. I had these low-cut hiking shoes that were waterproof, but also gave me foot blisters that still haven't completely healed. By the way, I wore my other boots home and left those other shoes, as well as some other winter clothes, to Giusi so she can donate it all to a worthy charity case.

Wish I'd have packed: Less for this trip. Sure, it was 51 days long, but I could have taken less than I did. At least my saving grace was, of course, Giusi. She let me store my stuff when I left for trips to Rome and then the train tour at her house so all I had was one small, easy to maintain bag to carry.

Best city for transportation: Torino did have its act together for buses, trains and more during the Olympics, but Prague, for me, was the easiest place to navigate by train and just shows me that Los Angeles really still needs to work on getting a subway (not the Metrolink) up and running. If Prague can do it, so can L.A.!

Worst city for transportation: Berlin is a fine place and yes, the trains run on time, but please tell me why I needed THREE different trains from the station to get to where I was staying? Would it really be too much to ask for a way to have one train do it all?

Best guide a first-time European visitor could ever have: Giusi was recommended to me by a friend, Alvaro, in Colorado. Giusi, a native Italian who speaks English well, was more than just a guide. She joined me for dinners, took me on trips to the mountains, introduced me to her friends (who soon became my friends), introduced me to great new food (or, at least, how Italy does Italian food) and best of all, I get to return the favor when she and eight of her friends fly to the U.S. in August. Giusi, thanks again for everything you did to make this trip unforgettable.

Great people: Anyone who followed the blog and left comments on it or even just emailed me. I appreciated the company and the responses to everything I did. Thank you everyone.

RTB