"The Pond" means the Atlantic Ocean (apparently there's been some confusion)

I was umpiring little league baseball last night, and I told my "boss" about the trip to Europe. When I tell most people about the trip, they "oooh" and "aahhh" for a few minutes, ask me where I'm headed, and that's about it.

So I tell this guy Pete about the trip, and he says, "well are you prepared to go?" I thought he meant, excited, or maybe had I planned everything. I told him yes, and then he asked what I thought my chances were off getting robbed or mugged. I told him that a ton of people had warned me of this, so I figured pretty small, I'm not going to be carrying much around with me at any given time, so I told him not very good.

He then went on to tell me he thought the same thing, and that he had heard all kinds of rumors of people getting robbed while in Europe. I've heard a bunch of stories too, but he went on to say "have you ever heard of people getting robbed on overnight trains?" I said no, and he went on to tell me this rumor that people on overnight trains get gassed in their compartments, and then robbed of everything they've got. While he was telling me this, I was thinking two things:
1) Who the heck would this ever happen to? and...
2) Why the heck is he telling me this?

Turns out, it actually happened to him! Pete was on a train from Paris to Rome (which was the original plan for our trip, until we changed plans to fly easyJet), and people had warned him that overnight trains got gassed and robbed all the time. He said he laughed at the idea, but slept right in front of the door of the compartment. Sure enough, he woke up the next morning and everything was stolen. I'm not sure how he knows he was gassed, but he seemed pretty convinced. This story may be the only thing that doesn't excite me about Europe.

I put it in the blog because it was funny more than anything.

We leave in more or less four days, and I'm at the nervous stage. The farthest from home I've ever been is California, and I was only six then. There's a lot of planning that goes into these kinds of trips. Before I sat down to plan this all, I thought travel agents were pointless, but now I can understand why they're in business (I bet the internet kills their income though...)

So four days till we leave, I'd love some pointers or funny stories about stuff overseas, I'm a rookie here...