1. If you want to breakfast like an Italian does, you better not have diabetes. Seriously, I don't even consume that much sugar in my desserts.
2. If one is to buy a lovely new leather purse in Florence, and transfer one's belongings from the old purse to the new one, don't congratulate yourself on being uber-tidy and throwing out unnecessary bits of paper, when one of those now-thrown-away bits of paper is the deposit slip for your luggage left at the train station. Fortunately Italians are not known for sticking to the rules, so I did get my backpack returned safe, but not before a lot of frantic rummaging through handbag pockets and cursing under my breath like a mad old lady.
3. As an introvert, I have accepted that I need my downtime and I'm getting better at not feeling self-conscious about it. I prefer to get up early in the morning so I can sightsee while it's quiet; this then means, though, that by the time early evening comes I'm so drained from all the stimuli that I physically and mentally cannot cope with the stereotypical backpacker experience of going out drinking. I prefer to hole up either in my room or in a quiet corner of the bar if the hostel has its own, and read my book or surf the net. I've more or less stopped caring what other backpackers think of me, as I care about my sanity and wellbeing far more - and I know that if I let myself get too tired out, I just feel homesick so I'd rather avoid that.
Having said that, I did manage to successfully interact with actual real live people in the hostel in Copenhagen; I drank in the hostel bar two (two!) nights in a row, and even talked to more than one person on each night. I know, right?!
4. I still feel permanently guilty whenever I have to interact with a local, for the sole reason that I don't speak any other language. I feel like prefacing every sentence with an apology for being another stereotypical mono-lingual English person.
5. Following on from the above, I've more or less accepted that I don't understand what's going on around me most of the time. Bill Bryson writes in Neither Here Nor There that he likes being in a country where he doesn't speak the language, because he doesn't have to listen to an overheard boring conversation between strangers. As clever and witty as the man is, though, I can't agree with him here. One of my favourite things about public transport is gaining a picture of the people around you by the things they talk about, then making up ridiculous backstories for them. I initially felt like I was missing out on such minutiae away from the UK, but I've come to terms with it now and mostly just wander round in a state of amiable cluelessness - which is probably something I'll bring home with me, to be honest, because it's actually quite freeing.
6. Kindles (or other e-readers) are an absolute, 100% god-given lifesaver for travelling, solo or otherwise. It's kept me company in many restaurants, and has provided relief from the busy crowds. When I'm tired of walking but it's too nice to be inside, I can sit outside in a park, square or piazza and escape from the world. And it helps me to sleep at night. Of course, ordinary printed books do all this too, but at the rate I read I would have needed a second suitcase just for books. I'm only three weeks into my trip and already I've re-read the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series; two other novels, and three works of non-fiction. Not gonna lie, I feel pretty smug about this.
In addition, I have a selection of phrasebooks stored on my Kindle so I can quickly check how to ask for the bill while I'm sat in a restaurant. I even have the Kindle app on my phone for the same reason, just in case I happen not to have the Kindle itself out.
I wholeheartedly eat and retract any negative comments I may have made about e-readers in the past; I'm a convert (though real books still have a firm place in my heart).
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