Random observations ...

Quick-hit items I found out during my trip:

Dogs mind their owners very well everywhere I went and because I was in places with different languages being spoken, dogs must be fluent in a lot of languages!

No matter how many times people are told to not feed the pigeons inside the train stations, people still do it.

Considering I was in Europe in February and March and the weather was cold, I saw no bugs. I did finally see a rat scurry into a hole in front of me while I walked in an area of restaurants and places to live close to the beach while in Nice, France. He was too fast to know if he was a big rat, but I don't think he was as big as the one I saw some years back in a New York subway terminal.

I did get a little claustrophobic at times because of:

1. Crowded trains (where 6 people sit in one small area).
2. Too many people walking too slow.
3. Anytime you would choose to slow down, that's when someone else would be RIGHT behind you.
4. In Europe, especially London, if you don't keep up, you'll be run over by other people. It is a fast-paced city, especially when you are talking about the tube (London Underground).

It was amazing how quickly I adapted to each new city's train system. A good tip for those who travel to Europe and stay like I did, get the three, four or five-day pass for transportation. In some places it covers everything (Paris was this way), you don't need to dig up enough change for tickets and some of these places (Berlin) also give you discounts to various attractions in the city. In Berlin, ask for the Welcome Card.

Even though you should get the multi-day passes for transportation, you should always carry plenty of change for all kinds of things. Points being:

1. Toilets are all pay toilets and the price varies within the city or country (for instance, it was 5 Czech crown to use the bathroom which is miniscule amount, but Switzerland it was 1 franc for the urinal and 2 franc for the sit-down toilet.)

2. When you give retailers a 10 Euro bill for something less than 5 Euro, they'll often times ask if you have anything smaller because the 1 Euro and the 2 Euro are coins only.

3. Self-service ticket machines for trains and buses and snack machines only take coins, not bills.

I had to get used to breakfast NOT being the important meal of the day. In Italy, breakfast is considered a coffee or cappuccino and a simple roll or pastry. London came strong with breakfast, as did Prague.

Prices in Paris and London sucked. Paris, especially, wasn't worth what they'd seek in Euros. The U.S. dollar really takes a POUNDing in London.

Prague's the real deal: I knew it was an inexpensive place, but it was still surprising for some things. My hockey ticket was 140 Czech crowns for my front-row seat. Sounds like a lot but that's about $6-7 in U.S. dollars. I bought my hat for HC Sparta Prague for 300 Czech crowns.

I paid 7 Euro to enter the Checkpoint Charlie museum (25 percent discount with my Welcome Berlin card which included public transportation for three days) and the concentration camp museum I attended was free (I wanted to leave a donation, but the front office was closed by the time I was finished with my visit), but the chance to see both places for me was priceless in terms of what I learned at each venue.