I'm writing in this journal after my trip... so I won't have too many names of restaurants and things like that in here. I'll make each entry brief and to the point. I hope to just have this as a little reading for somebody who hopes to make a trip to Europe. Here are some things I did, which may come useful to you.
* I purchased a large backpack from Eastern Outfitters, which did the trick. I packed enough clothing for about 7 days, with the intent of doing laundry at some point. I had to rewear a few shirts, but it worked for me.
* My friend made fun of me for it, but I purchsed an under-the-clothes money belt (like a discreet fanny pack under your clothes). Yes, it was slightly uncomfortable at times.... but, I was at peace of mind the entire trip! I eventually ended up holding my friend's passport and ATM card because he knew it'd be secure.
*We stayed in hostels backed by "Hosteling International." Each of them was clean, safe, and overall comfortable. We booked the rooms in advance, so we knew we'd get rooms. The only problems was we couldn't change our schedule if we wanted, but we didn't mind.
*Try overnight trains... it'll leave you precious time you can use exploring rather than travelling. We purchased the tickets first thing in the morning the day of. If it's busy season, you might want to do it a day or more in advance if possible.
*Call your credit card company/bank and let them know when/where you're travelling!!! If you don't, they may freeze your cards overseas... then you'll have the fun of trying to call them from Europe to get that taken care of. I withdrew several days worth of cash each time and kept most of it in the money belt and the rest in my pocket.
*I brought a travel book with me for reference in case we needed advice. It worked out when we tried to figure out how to get to a certain location far from Frankfurt. Rick Steve's book gave us the exact trains we needed to take to get there.
*We got a 15-day "Eurail" pass... expensive, but totally worth the money!! We got 1st class on each train and we could literally go anywhere in the EU within that time period.