My partner and I just returned from our first overseas trip. Here's a few observations and things we've learned.

Disclaimer: We're from Australia. We visited Rome for a week. I'm not sure if some of these observations are just Rome, or Italy-wide.<br><br>Observations:<br><br>* It seems to matter a lot if you speak Italian. I understand that - I'm not going to walk into a French restaurant here and expect the staff to be able to speak English. But my experience was that if you spoke Italian, people were more likely to be pleased with you than if you're just a tourist who speaks English. I'm not sure if that's true for all of Italy, but I certainly got that sense in Rome. <br>* People don't really smile at you unless they're in the service industry. <br>* Australians tip well. It turns out that Europeans don't. <br>* People smoke like they're going out of fashion. I'm not sure if this is true for all of Italy or just Rome, but everyone was having a dart.<br>* It's a bit of a free-for-all when it comes to pedestrians. It seems like the approach to pedestrians is to just not hit them. Walk where you like, if you get hit it's your own fault. I'm sure it doesn't help that there are no pedestrian lights anywhere, but just the fact that cars have a green light seems to give them right of way over pedestrians on crosswalks.<br>* Actually, cars don't really obey the road rules much. They'll sit in the left lane so you can't overtake, they'll not indicate to change lanes or turn corners, they'll turn against red lights and they'll drive in bus lanes. They don't even yield to pedestrians. Maybe this is just Rome? <br>* You can drink tap water. But it's not like the water at home. It's thick and heavy-tasting. We had a bottle of water from the tap at a restaurant and it really was like a spirit; I've never tasted water so heavy before. I have no idea what's in it, but it wasn't fun to drink. <br>* People there seem to hate the idea of a tip. Any time we tipped our server at a restaurant, they'd always ask "did I do something wrong?" or "is everything OK?" We were asked that so many times. We tried to explain to our server at our hotel that we were going to leave a tip, and he told us that tipping is a rude thing to do there. I have no idea how widespread this is, but it happened to us enough times to be noticeable. <br>* When you get the bill at a restaurant, it will say something like "€20.00, plus gratuity (10-15%)." It will also say "€20.00 plus service charge". I'm not sure what the difference is. Essentially, if you get a bill that's €20.00 plus the above, you've already been charged 25% extra on top of the €20.00 price of your meal. It's not a suggestion; if you pay cash, you will get no change back on the amount you've paid. Maybe this is a Rome thing, but I'm not sure. <br>* If you're paying with cash somewhere, there will usually be a minimum spend. Sometimes it'll be €5 sometimes it'll be €10, but if your bill is under the minimum spend then you have to pay by card or they'll ask you to buy more. <br>* If you're paying with a card, they will sometimes ask you if you want to pay in Euros or your native currency. If you have a card with no foreign transaction fee, always opt to pay in the local currency. You'll get charged a conversion fee if you choose to pay in your native currency. <br>* We were both surprised by how respectful Roman men were to women. We were bracing ourselves for catcalling, but we didn't get any. Maybe we just look too old to be harassed, but we were expecting to be called beautiful/pretty/handsome a lot more than we were. <br>* We had a bit of a problem with our hotel, but nothing too serious. We were both surprised by how unhelpful hotel staff were. You would think that if you had a problem with the room, you'd be helped by hotel staff. But we were just kind of directed to a different person each time. This was disappointing, because we were staying at a luxury hotel. This is just our experience of course, but we were expecting the opposite. <br><br>Things we've learned:<br><br>* If you're gonna travel, get the Amex Platinum card. If you can't get it, get an Amex. The concierge is really good. We were able to get a reservation at a restaurant that was booked out for two months by using the concierge service. You'll need to get a bank loan to afford the annual fee, but if you travel a lot, it's worth it. <br>* If you're gonna travel, get an Afterpay card. Again, it's the concierge service. It's a lot cheaper than the Amex Platinum monthly fee, and the concierge is just as good. <br>* Don't exchange currency at the airport. The conversion rate is not what you'd call fair. <br>* Don't buy anything from the airport. To reiterate, the airport isn't fair with tourists. It's a rip-off. <br>* If you have a credit card with a rewards points scheme, use it for everything. We were able to upgrade our flights based on the amount of points we'd accumulated. I'm not sure if this is all airlines, but our airline offered us free upgrades from Economy to Premium Economy, and then from Premium Economy to Business. In the end, we went from Economy to Business. We've also had our hotel stay upgraded from "Deluxe" to "Superior Deluxe".<br>* Don't be afraid to ask. We were afraid to ask for things, because we didn't want to be labelled as difficult/rude tourists. But when we started asking for help, we were pleasantly surprised at how receptive locals were. We were treated with respect, and even offered help when we weren't expecting it. I don't know if it's just Rome, but people were actually pretty nice to us. <br>* Learn a few words of the native language. We did, and it mattered. Locals really appreciated the effort we put in to speak with them in Italian. <br>* Be prepared for anything, and don't get upset if things go wrong. A lot of things went wrong for us, but we're pretty chill. If you get upset over things not going to plan, then you're probably best off not travelling at all.