Epilogue

It was a long trip full of adventure, surprise, disappointment, and awesome food. There's definitely stories i've forgotten to write into the journal, or simply felt the journal was better off without, since i'll neither confirm nor deny they are about toilets and things we've found in them.

But the real reason i wanted to write an epilogue is just to go over some things that we've learned from all of this. It was a great trip, sure, but it wasn't as life-changing as New Zealand was, or if it was, it's not immediately apparent just yet. But there's definitely a few things to take away from this.

For one, we take public restrooms so for granted in the United States. Elsewhere in the world, they can be hard to come by, and when you do you often have to pay to pee. Or bring your own toilet paper, or at least pay for that.

Nextly is the water situation. I'm not sure what Switzerland's deal with the water was, i bitched about it enough in that entry, but there were other places where there wasn't free-flowing clean water in public that they were charging obscene amounts for bottles of it. We're so lucky to have fresh, potable water at the twist of a tap. We did end up paying a lot for water, because it was so hot and we were so active and needed to stay hydrated. But an interesting observation: in many European countries, soda is cheaper than water.

Don't use toe shoes as your only shoes all day every day. They've got a purpose, and that's not it.

Most infuriatingly, European trains DO NOT RUN ON TIME NEVER EVER EVER TRUST THEM TO. I don't know where Amanda/we got the impression that the Eurail was efficient, but it is a lie. I think we had three total trains out of the 20 or so we boarded that weren't late.

And all of this has been a lead-up to this one important lesson that i've picked up through all of this: trust. Trust in our fellow humans.

We spent much of the vacation leaving our things around, whether they were in multi-occupant hostel rooms, stuck in hotel luggage rooms with many other unmarked bags, slept amongst it right out in the open in public, or just abandoned at ends of trains out of our view. And nobody messed with it, ever. We, out of necessity, provided many opportunities for anonymous strangers to steal or vandalize our things, and not a soul went for it. In fact our bags were looked after by people who had no real reason to give a damn one way or the other about our things, and they remained safe and unmolested for two and a half weeks. Even in Greece, with its current economic crisis, or Bulgaria, which looks like it's perpetually poorer than anyplace else we've ever been.

On top of that, all the help we received from complete strangers, everywhere in Europe. When we were looking lost, usually someone would come ask if we were ok. If we seemed confused, they'd try to clear things up for us. And when all else failed, they'd tell us terrible jokes (in Liverpool, anyway).

So on the whole, no matter where we went, i always felt like someone had our backs.

Faith in humanity, restored.