1. You can adopt as many international customs as you want. For example, you can drink chocolate chauds and eat glace every day if you want--even if you're not French.
2. You can drink as much water as you want in Disneyland Paris because you know the bathrooms are not scary.
3. Walking injuries heal. You just have to keep walking.
4. Take Tylenol PM the first few nights you're in a foreign country, or you might find yourself awake for several hours in the middle of the night.
5. Cheese in France does not taste like cheese in the US. Beware of anything with a cheese sauce. On the other hand, anything with a cream sauce is divine.
6. If you walk for miles and miles every day, you can eat ice cream every day. If you don't walk for miles and miles every day, you can still eat ice cream every day.
7. When you get tired of walking, stop in a cafe. Multiple cafe visits per day are acceptable and reasonable.
8. Buy the souvenirs that you want, or you'll later regret not getting them. Don't worry about how you're going to get them home--you'll figure something out. There is no shame in having the "Overweight" tag on your suitcase. It just means you're an efficient packer.
9. Every vacation should include at least one palm tree sighting.
10. Staying in a hotel room with a terrace that overlooks the Mediterranean should be on everyone's life list.
11. When you have to catch a train, make sure you put the alarm clock across the room so you have to get up to turn it off and can't turn it off in bed and then fall back to sleep.
12. The French are young at heart because they are forced to be. They don't believe in escalators--they believe in stairs. And running up and down them through the Metro with luggage because you're late for your train isn't fun. However, catching the train you thought you'd never catch is a fun little boost, even if your hair is unwashed and you look like you've just completed a triathlon. (And perhaps you fit in better that way, anyway.)
13. Limit yourself to 3 chateaux or fewer per vacation.
14. Buy all reading material while in the U.S.
15. Write down all purchases at the end of each day, and organize purchases into categories to make filling out the customs form easier.
16. There is no shame in returning to a store after you've realized that you haven't shopped there sufficiently.
17. There is no such thing as a quick visit to Vieux Nice because you will never be able to find the store that you are looking for when you need it. When you need patisseries, all you can find are frommageries. When you need frommageries, all you can find are caves.
18. Long flights home are made shorter with a good book, plenty of water, and good snacks.
19. Expect to wake up at 4 AM your first morning back in the US. Revel in it. Enjoy all that you can accomplish before 9 AM.
20. Traveling abroad is divine, but there's no place like home.
