I’m into the third week of traveling in Europe. As mentioned in my previous travel in Europe post I’m also working part-time while traveling. The first week I spent in Munich, including a visit to Oktoberfest and the second week in Istanbul, Turkey. Now I am visiting Prague, a beautiful city which I highly recommend.
Probably the biggest disappointment has been my Droid’s ability to connect to various wireless networks. Maybe it’s because I’m a relatively new smartphone user and somewhat clueless. In Munich, at first it had full connectivity, but then uploading of pictures to Facebook and Google+ failed, although email continued to work. In Istanbul it just wouldn’t connect to the private wireless network we had in the apartment, no matter how many times I typed in the password correctly, meanwhile the laptop, my clunky Windows XP Dell, didn’t have a problem. Now it’s having fits over the fact that I changed my gmail password and keeps prompting me to enter the password and failing.
Setting up a plan so that I could use it for voice and SMS was a good idea though. I’ve only used it to call once due to the expense, but having the ability to text (5 cents to receive a text and 50 cents to send one) has been very handy.
BTW. I’ve visited one or two internet cafes – and everyone is still using Windows XP. No Vista, no Windows 7.
Most everything else has worked well. I’m a new fan of Skype. I got a monthly subscription to call the US and Canada and that has worked great. You simply start up Skype and use the “call phone numbers” option. The calls are clear (you’re calling from Istanbul, really? But it’s so clear!) and it has worked very well. I dare say it’s clearer than calling on a cell phone! Unfortunately I haven’t tried Skype mobile yet, due to the challenges I’ve mentioned above.
One thing about travelling and work is that in each place you are never quite sure of what you might encounter or how your schedule might work. However by being flexible and taking advantage of “downtime” with some flexibility you can mix work and travel.
I have 5 little kids and, although my boyfriend and I talk about taking road trips, sometimes the thought of actually going is overwhelming. That being said, we’d love to show them as much of the world as possible : )
I make a point to stay in the city of my flight the day before. (Our closest airport is 2.5 hrs away.) This allows me to have a bit of a getaway, decompress, and enjoy a change of scenery. (Not to mention, catch a flight first thing in the morning.)
When dressing for airplanes, I make sure to wear layers, super thick socks and a blanket scarf to keep things cozy. I wear a favorite pair of pull on Chelsea boots to get through security quickly.
