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Take a travel alarm clock with you. I took my battery-powered one this time, and it was quite handy. It is common for hotel rooms in Europe not to have alarm clocks. In Germany and Spain at least, it seems that they expect you to rely on the hotel wake-up-call service. Having a battery-powered clock meant that I did not have to worry about electrical adapters.

Take a direct flight whenever possible. I had a couple of connections each way on my last trip, and they caused problems. On the way there, the middle flight was late, so we missed our flight for the final leg of the trip. We got booked on the next flight, but that an extra two hours of sitting in the airport. On the way back, the flight for the final leg of the trip was canceled, so we got booked on the next flight. That meant an extra three hours of sitting in the airport.

I recommend against using US Airways (and those surveyed by Zagat agree). See above post for background information. For some humor, see the survey outtakes. And on the last flight, the one that was three hours after the original flight should have been, someone decided to wait for another plane that had passengers connecting to our flight. So we sat for another 30 minutes for this other plane’s passengers. After that time, the pilot announced that the other plane had not yet landed, so we were going to take off. But since we were just sitting and waiting, the ground crew for our plane had been pulled off in order to assist another plane, so we had to wait for them. It was a long day of waiting. But the flight itself went smoothly and safely. However, I have not had the logistics problems on other airlines that I had on this trip with US Airways.

Take plenty of cash, in Euros probably. Many places in Europe don’t like credit cards. Even a restaurant in the Barcelona airport would take Visa but not Mastercard. If the card reader prompts the cashier for a PIN and you don’t have one because it is a credit card not a debit card, then just press Enter without entering a PIN. This one threw me off for a few tries, which is why you need to have cash on hand, in case something is not right with the credit card transaction.

Tomato soup in Spain may be served cold, so if you don’t like V-8 juice, then ask about the temperature of the soup beforehand.