Butler Family Travels

As I look back on our trip around the world I am reminded of all the incredibly delicious food we ate. I think about the 6 months that I didn’t have to cook! After some discussion, we decided that if we could go around the world in just one day for the sake of our mouths this is where we’d go: Breakfast – Feta pastry and coffee in Greece Lunch – Picnic food from the Farmer’s Market in the south of France. ‘Fika’ – Coffee/Tea and pastry in Prague (even though it is a wonderful Swedish tradition.) Dinner – Ying Yangs on the island of Koh Tao in Thailand – hands down best food on the trip. Dessert – Garaway’s in Israel or the Sakakini’s in England. Late Night Cap – Glass of wine in Italy. There you have it! A party would definitely be taking place in our mouths that day.

Once upon a time mortal travelers could afford Eurail Passes.  Almost any mode is cheaper now and many times air is the cheapest of all.  Ticket buyers beware, though, it may not be so simple.  Poking the ‘buy now’ button feels good when the price is 15 Euro. But wait, there’s more…taxes are another 15. If you want to bring a 15 kilo bag that is another 35.  Still, you can fly point to point for around $100 usually.  Not bad! Except that you will embark from a farmer’s barn 40 miles from the nearest town.  The good news is that they will have syphoned all the fuel from his tractors.  It will definitely be enough to fly for at least an hour and allow you make a safe landing at one of the many available WWII auxiliary fields between you and your destination.  Busses will be staged there and for about the price of your airplane ticket they will take you on to the city that you thought you were flying to.  This is good because flying over all the sights so high up there and through a tiny little window the size of an ipad would suck.  It is nice to see some of them through a great big bus window and from ground level which is much closer. Also you get to push and shove for your seat, but that is no big deal because it only cost 15 Euro. xoxxoXoxxoO 🙂

Don’t: Get lost driving around at night (It wastes a lot of time!) Trip on the black cobble-stoned streets (especially in front of cute Italian boys). Cry when you see the Sistine Chapel. Get run over by a moped or a smart car (Pedestrians are 2^nd class!) Bother asking for directions. Drop your tiny gelato spoon (You might not find it.) Pass out at the Vatican (Like the little, old lady who did.) Ask to use a toilet (Makes you wonder if they want you to be here…) Punt a pigeon (Jeb and Levi!) Expect free wi-fi to be free. Stand in line at the Colluseum (Buy a Roma Pass!!) Stalk the gladiators in the grocery store (Rebekah and Jolyn!) Take pictures with Glutenous Maximus (It’s not free so it’s good we didn’t try it.) Go with your buddy to take profile pictures for dating.com (@ the Trevi Fountian). Sign the walls of the Catacombs (Don’t worry, we didn’t, but stupid people do.) Antagonize the local crow (Well, actually, you should. It’s really fun!) Expect to pop your head out of the Metro hole on the correct side of the street. Get stuck in the ancient elevator (at the apartment bldg. you’re staying at.) Get a sore neck from looking up at all the amazing ceilings.

It is interesting how the tour books suggest that one should travel to modern countries first and ease themselves into the 3^rd world. The culture shock could kill you. The Butlers are finding that the best way to do it is start in super cheap, and underdeveloped places like Thailand and then ease ourselves into the money-sucking ones. The shock has been non-fatal. For those who are interested in how we are doing since arriving in the Eurozone…  30-50 euros for food, about 50-60 euros for a hotel with free camping whenever possible, 10-20 euros for entrance fees, 20 euros for a car (when rented) equals/averages about 125 euro a day for all 4 of us. Not bad, but we have just left Greece and arrived in Milan so we’ll see how we fare as we go north. Thankfully we will get to do some more couch surfing at some point. Travel Tip:  This is a good way to send packs onto airlines. It keeps your straps all tucked away and safe in a neat bundle. We had to catch a shuttle bus from the airport outside of Milan to the Central Train Station where we were then able to walk to our hotel.

We flew from Tel Aviv in the middle of the night and arrived in Athens, Greece early in the morning on Thursday. Sunny and warm with clear blue skies! Wanted to hop on a public bus into the city, but, guess what? They are on strike! No can do. A 30 minute taxi ride later and we were walking through the squares and streets looking for a place to stay. Our strategy worked this time. Got a super duper deal at the first hotel we walked into. It’s a great place, centrally located and has a killer roof-top garden with amazing views. Skip ahead… Our plan was to hop on a ferry tomorrow morning to Paros Island, but guess what? They are on strike. No problem. We’ll go to the Archeological Museum tomorrow instead of today. It’s free on Sundays. That saves us $50. Maybe that was part of the strategy?!  The strike will end sometime and then we’ll go. Or, who knows, maybe we’ll end up somewhere else entirely. The only other result of the political unrest that has affected us is the amount of political/slogan graffiti on the walls. Such a shame…unless of course it is done artistically and then it makes great pictures. Travel Tip #16: (You missed the ones in between since I’ve been kinda busy.) Have a no-stress strategy and absolutely no agenda. Oh wait, I think that was tip #2?

Getting around Thailand would seem to many a logistical nightmare, but it really isn’t if you just go with the flow and have no deadlines or itinerary. We left the beach in the back of a truck (Sofa, the owner of Lola Bungalows gave us a ride to town) and hopped on the next train south to the city of Chumphon. Once there, we rode 12 km in a funny, open taxi to the shores of a river. We planned to hitch a ride at midnight on the open deck of a fishing boat for 250 baht each, but learned that that boat was ‘having problems/broken’. So we went down the way and found another boating company. There were boats docked around that looked decent so we paid 300 baht each for a birth. We waited until 11 at night and then were led onto the unlikely barge/boat that was loaded with supplies – literally beached and partially on its side. There were a handful of other foreigners with us. This must be normal. Dark out and calm, we watched and waited from the roof of the boat for about a ½ hour while they worked  to motor off the sand. Once free, the boat leveled out (a good sign) and began its way down the river to the Gulf of Thailand. The smell of fish was strong as we passed by miles of fishing boats at their docks. We were on our way to Koh Tao… finally. This was the “slooooow boat” so the sun was rising as we arrived at the pier. What a night! Travel Tip #2 – Don’t have any expectations! Click on the first picture here to see the story unfold.

Here’s logistics for you. There is such a thing as the date line! Ha! A bunch of research, an hotel reservation, plans to explore the streets of Shanghai for 30 hours… Yup. Just a 5 hour layover. Duh! Shanghai will have to wait. So here we sit LOVING China Eastern. It took almost 2 hours for them to decide whether we were going to get on the flight, or so we thought. It turns out they took one look at Jeb and spent that time moving people around so we could fly in comfort. Hot wash cloths, wine, personal flat screens with unlimited movies and games. Thanks China Eastern! Travel Tip #1: Don’t forget about that dateline.