Global Field Trip – Our “Thirdly” Report!

We have now been travelling on our RTW for just over 4 months and thought we would create a first “thirdly” report on our experiences to date (from July 14th 2014 – Nov. 14^th, 2014).

The Good

• enjoying time together as a family – we’re still loving each other after 4 months!
• meeting some incredible people from around the world – whether fellow travelers, or hosts from Couchsurfing, Servas, and Trusted Housesitters – these folks have all enriched our lives and experiences!
• seeing some amazing historical sites throughout Europe
• experiencing the arts – galleries, museums, ballet, operas, musicals and dramas
• listening to some great world music
• cheap airline tickets on Ryan Air and Easy Jet
• getting extra leg room on above flights

  

The Bad

• parking ticket in Greenwhich, England – $160 Canadian dollars!
• losing Oliver on the descent on Ben Nevis in Scotland – luckily we found him later at the bottom; he took the wrong path!
• pickpocket attempt in Paris – don’t worry – they got nothing!
• inconsistent wifi – talk about a 1st world problem!

The Ugly

• wrestling with a goat during mating season – a smelly and bruising experience (but we laugh about it now – except for Oliver!)

• 

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

As part of our “thirdly” report, we decided to answer a number of questions from our followers – thanks for sending us messages – we love hearing from you!

How are you doing?  

We are honestly doing great! This trip has been everything we have wished for….we have had such a great time and have no desire to stop doing what we are doing!

We are living our dream! We get up when we want, we go to bed when we want, we see what we want, and do what we want….who could ask for more?!

Are you getting tired of going from one place to another? 

Not yet….we are still very excited to go to different places and see what is there, as well as meet the local people.

How are the girls dealing with constantly being on the go? 

I would say the girls are better than us at being on the go…they have bundles of energy and a great sense of adventure. Sometimes, when we are tired, they are the ones to give us a necessary boost. Overall, we all try to support each other.

What have been your problems?

See our good the bad and ugly above– but really overall – it has been amazing!

Perhaps the biggest problem has been getting the girls to finish their blog posts when they would rather be riding camels in the Sahara or haggling in a marketplace!  🙂

Also, wireless is always an issue. We have some mifis (mobile wifi devices), but they can be a hassle and only work in some countries. We are getting better at making sure we have places to keep us connected. I think overall that has been my biggest stress because we need it for planning and organizing the trip, for the girls to do their blogging, as well as my courses at UOIT.

Oh yes – my midnight to 3:00am classes every Tuesday have been interesting!  But it keeps me connected and making progress so I’m sticking with it. We try to plan Wednesday mornings as easy ones so that I can sleep in late and not have a lot of pressure to do too many things that day:)

Where are you now?

On our home page of the site on the right sidebar, we have put a google map that shows you where we are at that particular moment. Our blog is about 10-14 days behind our actual travels as we need time to go through the writing process, upload photos, hyperlink etc…. so we try to build in some buffer time so we can enjoy what we are doing, but still have the blog as a great online journal of our travels.

How do you decide where to go?

We had a general route in mind at the beginning, but we wanted to be totally flexible so that if we liked a place we could stay longer, or if we were finished somewhere earlier than expected, we could move on. Having flexibility really has made a difference for us, especially with housesitting. We booked those in advance so we needed to be in the area, (Limerick, London, Divonne Les Bains, and Bagnere de Bigorre) close to our dates – so we did plan around those locations.

Initially, we were planning to go a lot further into Eastern Europe, but once on the road, we decided to limit our driving to 3 hours per day so that we could enjoy more of the places we were seeing instead of just looking out the window. It also meant that Zoe didn’t suffer from car sickness if in the car for too long.

Our route for Europe turned out to be:

July – Ireland

August – England >>Wales>>Scotland

September – France>>Belgium >> Germany

October – France (Divonne Les Bains ) >>Switzerland >> Germany (Essen) >> France (Bagnere de Bigorre)

November – Spain >> Morocco

Coming up in for the end of November and December – Italy >> Cruise to Greece >> Cruise to Turkey >> Italy >> Israel

What is the driving like?

Oliver here…The driving has been fantastic.  At this point it’s been all Europe.  The only real challenges have been a) some very narrow streets and b) finding parking!

It was interesting at the beginning of the trip starting in Ireland/England/Scotland driving on the left hand side of the road.  In Ireland we rented a car with an automatic transmission, so all I had to focus on was keeping the car within the lanes!  That was tricky enough because some of the roads in the countryside were very narrow and sometimes it felt like we might lose a mirror on the car – either to another car or to the bushes on the side of the road!

By the time we finished up in England and Scotland I had been driving for 6 weeks and it was pretty natural to drive on the left-hand side.  So when we picked up our next rental in Paris it took a bit of adjusting!  When I went to pick up the car I joked to Katina that I was going to purposely drive around the Arc de Triomphe and the round about at the Bastille…two monster roundabouts in Paris.  Well, the joke turned into reality as the GPS took me right through both of those sections in order to get back to our apartment in Paris!  All went well, not a scratch on the new car!

At this time we have driven almost 10,000 km just in mainland Europe.  If we add in the driving in Ireland, England, and Scotland it would be over 15,400 km in the 4 months.

The best driving has been in Germany – and despite my German heritage I’m not biased at all!  While the speeds can be quite high on the Autobahn, I was happy at about 135 km/h.  The car felt stable and I was moving with traffic.  Even then occasionally I would see a car coming up to me at easily 180 km/h and the trick there is to stay out of the way!  What I love about driving in Germany is that everyone obeys the rules – keep right except to pass, and absolutely no driving 100 km/h in the left (passing) lane!  I wish we would see more of that in Canada.

How do you find places to stay?

When we finally decide where to go, we look to see if there are any couchsurfing or SERVAS hosts in the area so we can connect with some locals and find out what we should see and do while in their part of town. If none are available, then we go to VRBO and/or Air BNB. We prefer to stay in flats rather than hotels. They are basically the same price per night and we get a whole house. If we stay for a week, the price goes down, and since we are travelling in the off season, the rates are very reasonable.  We try to find places where we have lots of space for everyone and most importantly wifi and laundry facilities!

Everyday, I look on the new postings for Trusted Housesitters. If there is something that looks interesting, we apply for it and see if we get accepted. You do need to be very flexible in order to use this type of accommodation as it really can take you off the tourist path and into some amazing local communities. It will also keep you local in an area for a certain length of time, so you need to make sure it works for everyone. Our experiences have all been amazing with this site and the girls have really enjoyed all the different pets. It makes going to all the historical places easier 🙂

At this point in time, we tried but were not successful in using the Educator Travel network or Teacher Travel web – I guess the timing just wasn’t right for all involved.

We stayed in a hostel once in Dublin, Ireland. For the same money we could have stayed in a full flat with our own kitchen, bedrooms etc… At hostels, you pay per person. Some of them are around $30-50 dollars a night – multiplied by 4 and anyone can see that a flat would be a much better deal. Not just for the $$, but for the peace of mind. The flats we are staying in have been amazing with kitchen, bedrooms, living space, laundry, wifi– and again, we’re meeting locals who are really enriching our experiences.

How do you convert money?

So far most of the countries we have visited use the Euro, so there isn’t any issue we just take money out of the local ATMs when we need it – just like home. At the stores we often use our credit or debit cards – depending on the country; in this way we get a good rate, ability to accurately track our spending, and points! Countries not in the EU, like the UK and Switzerland, we just try to take out enough money from the ATM and make it last until we leave:)

One of the really interesting things we have experienced is that places you would expect to be able to use a credit card in Canada are not always “credit card friendly” on the road.  For instance, we have had some meals in Switzerland where we thought a credit card would be usable and ended up having to pay cash.

In the past we traveled with traveler cheques…access to cash is now so easy through ATM’s that there is no need to have traveler cheques any more.

Is it warm or cold?

It is warm. We are chasing summer! We have no desire to be anywhere cold. We have this one chance to skip a Canadian winter and we’re going to take it! I wouldn’t say it’s hot…we honestly like the temps to be around 18-22 degrees so that we can enjoy touring and not be too hot and sweaty. As you can see from most of our photos, we always have a sweater and/or light jacket. Overall, we could not have asked for better weather. I think we’ve only had a few days of rain but not that much overall.

How are you doing with food? 

So far so good!  When we stay with other families we love to eat something from their country so we have an idea of the local dishes. We also try to prepare something Canadian too and contribute to whatever is on the table.

When we are on our own, we prefer to go grocery shopping and just eat how we usually do at home. This includes cereal in the morning, sandwiches, lots of fruits and veggies throughout the day and a regular supper at night.

Most grocery stores across Europe have the same self service we do, so roasted chickens, quiche etc… are great for dinners. Of course we always try to eat local favourites so that we can enjoy the culture.

How did you pack for your trip?

We packed summer clothes and some layers.  As you can see from our photos – we don’t have a lot of variety in our outfits – but we’re doing fine!  For the most part, we’ve been in capris/shorts with tshirts and a light jacket.

If we don’t have things – the supermarkets here are just like at home, so we just try to buy local products.

What time is it?

We are GMT+1 – which is 6 hours ahead of Toronto time

What are your Skype accounts so we can chat?

Katinapapulkas

Otutte

Ztutte

mtutte

Contact us

If you want to ask us questions or write to us personally, (we love hearing from everyone!) please use the Contact us link on the blog as it goes directly to our email.  It may take us a couple of days to get back to you – but we will eventually!

Please let us know if you have any other questions for us.  Part of our trip mission is to inspire others to travel and have fun.  If there’s anything you want to know about a place, or logistics – just ask:)