Random Thoughts on Traveling Abroad

Sunrise as we arrive!

As you may (or may not) know, I've been gone this nearly whole month of September traveling across Europe. This time with the husband and his parents. I had great plans of posting while out and about, but that never seems to work, so now I'm home and will share some stories in a few separate posts (or at least that's my hope.)

But first, some random thoughts about traveling:

• There's culture shock when you first arrive and get acclimated. But it's surprising how much culture shock there is coming home and getting used to your normal world again!
• I always forget what a commodity water is!
• If you pay to pee, you are better guaranteed to have a decent potty.
• September, it turns out, is a pretty perfect month weather-wise for European travel!
• Some places totally live up to their reputation: the Rhine River valley, Bavarian villages, old castle ruins, and even the Eiffel Tower isn't overrated. 
• Guys, some things I really miss while travelling. Milk is one. Music is the other. Is that weird?
• All WiFis are not created equal.
• Staying in Airbnbs remains one of my favorite things. I'm a fan.
• Tour guides are mostly always awesome. Especially ones from England who have a passion for all things WWII and can spout off dates and names and stories like crazy, and who have actually written to Nazi war criminals and gone and personally interviewed them, just for fun. 
• Other tour guides... former members of a Metallica cover band and radio DJ, former US army dudes who were stationed in Germany and loved it so much they never left, random dudes who hang out in cemeteries in order to show clueless tourists around and tell them risque stories about all the dead people there. Yes. These things can spice up any random touristy experience!
• When you reach up to turn the airplane air on to let it blow in your face and ease your claustrophobia, and realize the air turner oner does not exist, you know it's going to be one long airplane ride.
• The Paris metro is both an awesome and crazy experience.
• Uber exists in Prague and Paris, but not in Germany or Austria, just in case you ever wanted to know. 
• It's sad to see the effect terrorism has on popular tourist destinations. PS: guys in full military fatigues with machine guns are really quite intimidating.
• The only notice my wearing kpop/korean related tshirts out and about in the world was by a very tall very nice oldish (like my age) Korean man who said to me... "where'd you buy that shirt? It has Korean symbols on it!" I told him I made it and yes I totally knew that it had Korean on it! LOL!
• (P.S. I just saw that one of my favorite kdrama actors posted an Eiffel Tower picture yesterday. I missed him at the tower by THREE DAYS!! I'm sure I would have totally seen him and talked to him and get a selfie and everything...)
• Speaking of selfies, I suck at them. And I even took a stick...
• German food is better than French food.
• Traveling is a blast, and coming home is pretty awesome too.

I'm anxious to get back into things and here's hoping blogging again is part of that! Stay tuned for a few more travel posts, some review catching up, some kpop crap, some readathon posts and more!