Electricity is expensive in Europe so don't be at all surprised when you step out of your hotel room at night into a pitch black hallway. You have a few options. The most economical is to just grope along the walls near your door and feel for the light switch that could be anywhere. Hopefully your room is not close to the stairs. Another way to go is the stylish miners lamp that you wear on a headband and must never take off, least you forget it when you need it most. If none of these work for you, your cell phone can be a crude but effective flashlight, if you have it on and if your wallpaper is a picture of the sun.
Along the same line, when you enter your room, you may be perplexed that none of the lights come on and the television seems to be broken. Do not be alarmed. Look by the door of your room, see previous paragraph if it's nighttime, for a slot for your room key. It works like this. Putting your room key in this slot turns on the electricity for your room, removing it when you leaves turns off the electricity, saving the hotel hundreds of dollars as you can not leave the lights, TV or hair dryer going as you head out for a night on the town.
Trains. My favorite topic. When you finally find out what track you are on and scurry over to wait for your train, you are not completely done. Remember your train may be coming from somewhere else and may only stop for a few minutes. Your train may be long. Haste is required. Look for a board on the platform that you just hurried to. It's easy to find because everyone else will be going over to look at it too. It tells you where on the platform your car will stop, and what letter you need to stand by. For example, if I'm in car (voiture in French) 6, the sign will show me that I need to stand by the big letter "W" on the platform. When the train rolls up, voila, you step right onto the train.
When you go to Starbucks you have to ask for the wifi login. Also the receipt will have the key code for the bathroom. Which doesn't change very often so you can use it on subsequent days. Europe is weird when it comes to restrooms, most places like train station etc will charge you 50 cents (the euro equivalent) to use the facilities. Remembering the key code at Starbucks can come in handy.
Train employees will only tell you the bare minimum. Ask lots of questions. Not that it really matters because none of them speak English. Warm up for your trip to Europe with lots of charades. Their job is to sell you a ticket and to make sure you don't step onto the tracks, period. Everything else is up to you.
Some ATMs love spitting out 50 euro notes, which is a pain because most places do not like to break them. In such a situation, look for a McDonalds or a Starbucks, or any American food service company. They never seem to mind breaking large bills... of course you gotta order something.
For getting around Europe, sometimes trains can be expensive. Taking the train to Toulouse from Lisbon would have taken a day and cost me over 200 euros. If you go to the usual travel sites, Expedia, Orbits, etc, the flights can be just as pricey or more. Try EasyJet. It's Europe's version of Southwest. My flight to Toulouse, with a checked bag, was 88 euro. It's a cattle call, first come, first served seating, and anything you drink or eat will cost you, but it's very well run and the web site is cool.
Last tip: Don't go to Toulouse.
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