Hey! I just stumbled upon this board from google and have learned more reading this for the last hour or so then i think i have in the last month reading everything else! so now hopefully i can get a little more personalized information/advice~

My boyfriend and i are planning a trip in July/Aug 11. We will be 20 at the time and there for 21-25 days about (leaving Washington state on july 17th). My only exact date perference is to be in Paris on the 21 ( it's our 2 year so i figured Paris would be the perfect place, but if anyone has any other suggestions i would love them!)

Our plans started with a ton of countries for a very short amount of time, but after reading everything about less is better ive narrowed it down to the places we want to see the most

Barcelona
San Sebastion
Paris
Berlin
Amsterdam ( after reading here that a little less time in berlin and more here may be better??)
Rothenburg
Somewhere in Switzerland (Bern maybe?) he's swiss and just wants to see it quickly
and Rome

Ok theres the overview- now onto the questions!

We've had a bunch of friends do this- some took trains (right now we plan on getting the youth 21 day rail pass) but some other friends suggested local planes? is this a good idea? where do i find information on it? the train pass is $500 each so would we really save all that much?

Weve searched plane tickets from Portland Oregon to every where possible and found everything to be in the range of $950-1,300, anyway to cut that down???

Any Must see places i should include in this trip???

Hostels- i looked online at a bunch of hostels and obviously their calendars dont go all the way to July yet, but they do go to about march- and even then all the cheapest bunk type rooms say they are already sold out! are we going to be able to find a cheap hostel to stay in there??

that's all i can think of now but ANY and ALL advice is much appreciated!!

( oh and i guess i should add that yes we are 20, and yes we do plan on going out a bit- but we dont want to waste an opprotunity like this getting drunk - i realllllly love the old old stuff which is why i'm really excited for rothenburg and when i raed about the Anne Frank museum in amsterdam that sounds like something i can't miss
My boyfriend also enjoys these things but in addition is catholic and really wants to see all of the churches around
I'm sure we will also go to a few museums since we both enjoy art too, but only the most suggested ones!
Hope those interest help a bit in your suggestions-)

Thanks again you guys!