Lessons learned on a mad dash round Europe

No matter what angle he tried, she kept sticking her head in the way.

Along with various facts about Amsterdam canals and a profound understanding of the habits of the Austrian monarchy, my six days, six nights, six countries and approximately nineteen train journeys have taught me some invaluable lessons about how to travel.

Learn to pack light. Of course you intend to wear all four pairs of shoes, use every millilitre of conditioner and read all seven books when you are cavalierly throwing them into your suitcase. However, when you are standing forlornly at the bottom of the fifth flight of stairs you've come across in one Metro station, chances are that you would happily exchange Life of Pi or the red trainers that match the cardigan for the extra boost. Besides, when you’re collapsing into a train seat after a hard day of trekking through palaces and scoffing pastries, an iPod and magazine are more than sufficient entertainment.

Motorists in Europe will try to kill you. Be aware that motorists in Europe see pedestrians as sport rather than obstacles to be avoided. The friendly green man on the pelican crossing is not so much a signal that you may cross the road without danger of death as a challenge to try and do so. The traffic lights may officially be red, but be prepared for trams, motorcyclists and BMWs to hurl themselves at you without remorse. Indeed, every road crossing becomes somewhat reminiscent of that old game, in which you are frog trying to make it across the road without being squished. After employing many strategies, I discovered that the safest approach is to form a large group on either side of the road and cross together. While this may seem like a rather touching act of mutually beneficial camaraderie, it’s not: the aim is to make sure that you are in the middle with everyone else acting as a buffer between you and certain death at the hands of a malicious French driver.

No matter how high your grade, GCSE German will not help you. While certain phrases may have been useful when crafting that coursework or desperately trying to understand what the distant voices on the tapes were saying, in the real world no one cares that ‘Ich gehe gern ins Kino’ or that ‘je m’entend bien avec ma famille’. Confronted with a sign that doubtless conveys some vitally important information, the knowledge that ‘Ich habe eine Schwester’ suddenly seems deeply unhelpful. Furthermore, when you do work up the courage to respond in the native tongue (or a variation thereupon), the other party will inevitably respond in perfect English, which may even extend to sarcasm. Either book yourself into that foreign language course now, or avoid further humiliation by admitting defeat, tearing up the phrase book and going to America.

It is possible to execute a night-to-day look in a train toilet. Night trains may be a useful way of covering long distances, but they are not exactly conducive to stylish dressing, personal hygiene or daily skin routines. While the train company proudly advertises the onboard washroom, this turned out to be neither a room nor somewhere it is possible to wash more than a finger, owing to the fact it is actually an upright coffin with a sink thrown in. However, with a careful combination of wriggling, balance and grim determination, it is possible to enter as a pyjama-clad, make up-free, tired and dishevelled mess, and emerge a jean-clad, made-up, tired and dishevelled mess. Make sure you take baby wipes to replace your shower, a steady hand for the mascara and leave your best, carpet-scraping pyjamas at home. And if all else fails, throw on the dark glasses, grit your teeth and think about the croissant calling your name from the next exotic location.

Map reading is a crucial life skill. Consider the following exchange:

“We need to go down this street, through the park, along the canal and turn left.”

“No, it’s straight ahead, second left, first right, over the bridge and then third left.”

“That’s what you said yesterday, and we ended up in Calais.”
“Actually that was Hamburg.”

If you have ever found yourself in an unfamiliar location with a friend/relative/significant other, chances are you have had a variant of this conversation. It turns out that along with percentages and the names of the Tudor monarchs, map-reading is actually useful in real life as well as in school. At some point in your travels you will be lost. It may be that you are standing at the statue of an entirely different King Maximilian, are in the wrong city, or are desperately trying to find your Amsterdam hotel in the rain as it gets increasingly cold and dark. At this point, the ability to read a map correctly, preferably the first time, will seem very important. Fortunately, many big cities have large maps at various points in the city. While standing in front of these arguing may reveal you both as embarrassing tourists, if it means saving you a sprint to the station or a wrong turn down an alleyway, it’s worth losing the je ne sais quoi and finding that ‘You are here’.

These are not necessarily the most important lessons I learned on my travels. As you may have noted, there is no mention of how to securely attach your passport to an unused part of your leg, how to operate those foreboding lockers in train stations, or even details about the military planning required to send a postcard back to England. However, should you ever find yourself planning your own mad dash around Europe, I hope that these brief lessons will help you avoid discomfort, danger and deep humiliation.

Feel free to share any travel tips, tales or terribly unnerving warnings of your own below.