10 Things I Learnt While Backpacking Across Europe

1. Always bring something to wear on your feet in the public showers, unless you are happy stepping on slimy objects in dimly lit cubicles half the size of airplane toilets.

2. Strap everything valuable to your body. Better yet, chain it to your body. You only need to drop your guard one second for those pickpockets to lift away the camera you spent months saving up to buy. Do what I did with my passport: I wore it in a pouch under my trousers, next to my groin. The constant friction was alternately a source of pleasure and discomfort. My girlfriend, to her credit, refrained from asking, "Is that your passport in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?"

3. Always stock up on condoms beforehand. Alternatively, you may experience the delights of bonding with your partner whilst wandering through a foreign city after dark looking for a late-night chemist/pharmacy that understands what you're saying.

4. The French word for condoms is 'preservatifs'.

5. Don't try to do too much in one day. Pace yourself. Take leisurely strolls, stop and smell the roses. Don't rush from place to place in a misguided quest to cram in everything you want to see and do in the space of three days, or you will be exhausted by dinner time.

6. It is indeed possible to be too tired to have sex (Guys, this may seem far-fetched, but it is true).

7. Cultivate friends, especially those from exotic lands. You never know when they will come in handy, such as when you are travelling through where they live and they let you stay with them and borrow their stuff and eat their food and watch their cable TV. Yes, friends are good to freelo- I mean, visit!

8. Learn how to wash your underwear by hand in a sink the size of a shoebox using your own bodywash, and be sure to wring it out and put it on the radiator to dry. Walking around with damp but clean underwear is only marginally better than walking around with dry but soiled underwear. I would advise using your own bodywash if you can, as laundry powder tends to either a) get loose and scatter in the crevices of your bag, or b) be found by customs officials who inexplicably take an interest in a small bag of white powder hidden at the bottom of your bag.

9. Pay the extra couple of euros and make train reservations, especially on the more popular routes. There is a reason why the only empty, unreserved seats on trains are at the back of the smoking section, where the clouds are thickest and the person across from you looks hazy in the blue cloud that hangs over the compartment. It would be almost poetic, if not for the searing pain in your lungs as you hack and cough.

10. Prepare for sleeping in a second class couchette of an overnight train by sleeping in a narrow bed that you just about fit into, meaning that the slightest movement causes you to either hit a wall or stick out into midair, with the bunk above yours a few inches from your nose. Have your friends rock you constantly in a regular pattern the whole night, with sudden jerks, bumps, and stops at irregular intervals. Just as you fall alseep, have someone wake you and ask you for your ticket, which you have conveniently placed in an inconvenient position for security. Play several tapes: 1. A trainload of Vietnamese tourists, jabbering away and laughing uproariously at 3am; 2. A crying baby boy who happens to inhabit the bunk above yours; and 3. A vigourous conversation in Spanish that escalates into an argument. Circulate several odours: 1. The musty, dirty smell of a thousand bums that touched the seat (unwashed) you are lying on; 2. The nauseating smell of the filthy toilet at the end of the carriage; and 3. The dull, permeating odour of the Vietnamese equivalent of Vapo-rub or Ben-Gay that the middle aged Vietnamese tourists who are occupying two-thirds of the carriage are using. Now fall asleep.

and as a bonus...

11. When museums say they close at 4.45pm, it means that they close at 3.15pm. This is not to confuse you but to help you, so that even the last visitor has an hour and a half to wander around. This is for your own good. If you did not know this and are late, it is your own fault and you are ungrateful that they are sharing their national treasures with the likes of you, you filthy, unwashed philistine.