And what an excellent trip it was!

Europe on a shoe-string! At least accommodation wise.

Its a good feeling to be finally back home. Germany, Denmark, England (well, just London really), and Iceland! Its an unusual mix for this time of year given New Zealand is heading into summer, and I’ve just gone to a number of countries which are getting colder right now. Certainly Iceland was the icing on the cake (pun intended) and ground temperature at time of landing was 3 degrees celcius. A vicious wind with what was seemingly sleet kept my blood from flowing.

I’d caution anyone planning on visiting europe to consider a few things which got me by surprise from the countries I was in:

• In Germany, many of the public toilets cost money. Seemingly between 30 and 80 euro cents. Learn to not leave your place of accommodation without emptying out first!
• additionally, not all places seem to have toilets in Germany (compared to NZ where any place serving food/drink, or any service station will have a toilet)
• Im still unsure of the proper protocol, but restaurant waiters don’t pop by at regular intervals to check up on you. You’ll need to awkwardly catch their attention to get service, and you won’t get the bill unless you explicitly ask for it (even if you have finished and all your dishes have been cleared from the table).
• I suspect many places don’t like the English very much, and like to see you squirm. Don’t let them make the situation awkward, and if you’re not from Britain, helpfulness can improve markedly if they find this out.

I’m sure that last point may offend some folks, but essentially its true. Had a few people roll their eyes and make some comments about British tourists when the found out I wasn’t from those parts, but to mirror that I was in a queue at Heathrow where an English woman made a comment about ‘the mentality they have there’ (talking about scandinavia).

Maybe I just bumped into the right (wrong?) people to give me this impression!

Still, it was an awesome trip and I’d happily do it again next year if it weren’t for the obscene cost in going anywhere besides Australia from New Zealand.