If you are ever planning on going to Europe here are a few things I just didn't know.

The hotels in Europe are amazing. America's inn keepers could take some serious lessons on how clean a room should be. Even in the cheapest room I had ($47 per night) it was spotlessly clean if sparse. On the downside they don't know what a washcloth is and most times the only soap is body wash. There also was no shampoo or conditioner in any of the rooms. The only way to get ice in your room is to find a bar and beg or buy some.

If you go be sure to take your GPS. My car got upgraded and had its own GPS which was great - except that I was never able to get it to speak English. Speaking of cars I was amazed that I had a car for two weeks for $190 - much less than the one week price for a car in Vegas. And 90% of the rentals in Europe have a manual transmission. My car also was a diesel which over there was good news since the fuel was a dollar a gallon less. Of course it was still around $5 a gallon. When driving the "freeways" get you there a lot faster but most do not go through the small towns and the scenery is lacking. And most of them are toll roads. The one between Paris and Saarbrucken cost around $30 so its not cheap. I took the back roads from Wiesbaden to Bonn and the sites are a lot nicer and the trip very relaxing.

Depending on your nature you may want to make sure your schedule has a lot of flex time in it. I spent more time planning my two week trip than the trip itself took. And I had every minute pretty much planned out and when problems occurred I was just very flexible. But you may want to leave an extra day free to just relax. My plan was to visit as many casinos and flea markets and antique stores as possible so I was going every minute. How much was I going? Despite eating out all the time (of course) and drinking like a fish I lost 5 pounds.

You always hear stories of people, especially in France, who do not like Americans. I am here to tell you that if it was not for the help of many, many people along the way my trip would have been even more difficult. Little things like how to buy a train ticket from the machine, where a certain store was located at, how to get to where you want to be when lost, etc. Many over there speak at least a little English (way more than my French!) and communicating is not as difficult as most expect.