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Archive for October, 2008

Oct 29 2008

Trip Diary: Amsterdam Day Two, pt. 2

Published by Travelling Blackbird under Accessibility Ratings, Day Trips, Going Out, Trip Diaries Edit This

After dinner on Saturday, the newlyweds had a surprise for all the guests. They’d hired a boat to sail the canals of Amsterdam for a while, something I’d often wanted to do, but never had the time for. The landing stage and boat were inaccessible to wheelchairs, but, as I mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t missing out on a minute of Jonathan and Stan’s big day. We just had to work out how to get around the car that had been inconsiderately parked at the top of the steps down to the landing stage, down those narrow steps, and then onto the boat. The car was the biggest obstacle, as it didn’t leave us a lot of room to squeeze past, and one of the more nervous guests was sure I was going to end up in the canal at one point.

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Oct 28 2008

Trip Diary: Amsterdam Day Two, pt. 1

Published by Travelling Blackbird under Day Trips, Going Out, Restaurant Reviews, Trip Diaries Edit This

The second day in Amsterdam was the day of Jonathan and Stan’s wedding reception. The heavy rain of Friday had given way to a beautiful cool but sunny Saturday, and the weather held for the whole day. The company was great, the beer, wine and food were excellent, and everyone had a great time. Traveling with a wheelchair, especially to a city like Amsterdam, takes planning and effort, and if I ever had any doubts whether it was worthwhile, days like this would dispell them. Being able to be there and be part of such an important event for two dear friends meant so much, and letting the wheelchair stand in the way of that would just be wrong. With effort and the help of the good people who were at the event, I made it to all the parts of the reception, and no barrier stood in the way of us having a first-class time.

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Oct 25 2008

Trip Diary: Amsterdam

Published by Travelling Blackbird under City Overviews, General, Trip Diaries Edit This

I’m in Amsterdam for the weekend for my friends’ wedding. As I’ve mentioned before, Amsterdam is just a short train ride away from Dusseldorf, so it is possible to go and come back in one day, but since my friends are here from San Francisco and I get few chances to see them in the year, I decided to stay two nights. There were a couple of minor hiccups along the way with the train and hotel, but nothing’s spoiling this trip: I’m determined of that.

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Oct 24 2008

Animal Watching in the Netherlands

Published by Travelling Blackbird under Day Trips, Reviews Edit This

When I was a kid, I loved anything to do with animals: the nature documentaries on the BBC; the Life on Earth book my brother got one Christmas; the rock pools on the shoreline in County Mayo; the zoo in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. I never lost that fascination, but I did go through a period where I wouldn’t go to the zoo anymore. I still wanted to watch the animals, but it wasn’t politically correct to like zoos, and I felt guilty about even wanting to go. Recently, I’ve come to appreciate zoos again, especially ones which are really making an effort to provide suitable enclosures for the animals that can’t be released into the wild. I can’t claim to have reclaimed the childhood sense of wonder visiting and animal watching, but I’ve enjoyed the visits. However, zoos present certain challenges to wheelchair users, and I strongly advise doing a little research about the zoo you plan to visit beforehand.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Gaia Park Kerkrade Zoo in the Netherlands. Getting there without a car would’ve been tricky, but fortunately my good friend Thomas (who took the photo for the new banner you can see) was keen to go and check it out, and he has a car with a big enough trunk for a wheelchair. We didn’t do any research beyond checking the weather (it was lovely) and the opening times, and there were a couple of surprises in store for us.

 

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Oct 22 2008

Not learning about Irish history in Wexford

Published by Travelling Blackbird under Accessibility Ratings, Day Trips, Rants Edit This

Over the summer, I visited my folks in County Wexford, Ireland, and my mother and I decided to go for a day out. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of what Wexford has to offer, and we wanted to try somewhere new. Both of us have an interest in archaeology and history, so the Irish National Heritage Park in Ferrycarraig sounded like just the thing. It is an open-air museum with reconstructions of stone age, bronze age and Celtic and Viking era homesteads, burial sites and places of ritual; the web site even promises ancient animal breeds. I’d been to an excellent open-air museum in Poland, and was looking forward to a great day out. Unfortunately, I’d reckoned without the possibility of bad design making the park essentially inaccessible.

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Oct 20 2008

Dwarf Hunting in Wroclaw

Published by Travelling Blackbird under City Overviews, Day Trips, Trip Diaries Edit This

If you ever make it to Wroclaw, the administrative capital of Lower Silesia in Poland, make sure you keep an eye out for dwarfs when you’re sight-seeing in the city center. There are currently over 50 small statues of dwarfs scattered around the old town, each engaged in his own hobby, each representing a different aspect of the city or of Polish life and history. It’s quite a feat to find them all, but it can be done, even in a wheelchair. Actually, it may be even easier for a wheelchair user, cobblestoned streets notwithstanding - we’re used to keeping our eyes on the ground looking out for obstacles and other problems, so we’re more likely to spot these little guys. They are worth keeping an eye out, not only for the art and amusement of them, but also for the aspect of Polish history that inspired them.

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Oct 17 2008

Follow the Red Paint Road

Published by Travelling Blackbird under City Overviews, Day Trips Edit This

Hanover may not be one of Europe’s premiere holiday destinations, but the city has considered how to best present what it can offer visitors. One interesting thing they’ve created is the Red Thread. Starting and finishing at the Tourist Information Office in the plaza in front of the main railway station, you follow a red line painted on the ground, passing most of the places of historical and architectural interest in the city. There’s a map and booklet available, with all the details and stories you could want when visiting a city. It takes between two and three hours in a manual chair, and around two hours in a powerchair. The outdoor part of the trail is wheelchair accessible, although not everything is wheelchair friendly. Some of the buildings along the way don’t have access because to add ramps or lifts would affect their historical integrity, and the old part of the city is cobblestoned, although not in as challenging a way as Cologne or Wroclaw.

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Oct 16 2008

The Best Seat in the House

Published by Travelling Blackbird under General, Going Out Edit This

Sometimes the wheelchair berths are the best seats in the house, and sometimes the worst. I remember calling up to find out if there were still wheelchair berth tickets available for the stage version of Sweeney Todd in San Francisco, and I could hear the hesitation in the ticket agent’s voice. She admitted that I’d be better off not bothering, because the area reserved for wheelchairs at the ticket price I could afford was right behind some columns, meaning I wouldn’t see very much. In cinemas, the area for wheelchairs can be painfully close to the screen: nothing kills enjoyment of a movie like a crick in the neck. So, it was with some trepidation that I set off for the Mercatorhalle in Duisburg this evening for a philharmonic concert. A friend is part of the orchestra, but would I even be able to see him?

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Oct 14 2008

Erkelenz Trip Update

Published by Travelling Blackbird under Anecdotes Edit This

When the train pulled in at Erkelenz, I saw the problem. The small station looked completely deserted, just an empty platform that was even lower than the one in Dusseldorf. To get out, most wheelchair users would need to be carried, but this would be very awkward with the bar in the middle of the doorway and the small steep steps. However, I was already prepared to get out there. I took a leaf out of my wheelchair mentor´s book: I sat on the floor of the train by the door, put my backpack on my back, semi-folded the wheelchair and, when the train had come to a complete halt, rolled the chair out onto the platform and climbed down after it. It´s not a graceful way to get off a train, and it´s probably not even all that safe, but it was all I could think of.

Just as I was about to get the wheelchair off, the conductor showed up and tried to stop me, but, possibly seeing how determined (stubborn) I was, he ended up helping with getting me back into the wheelchair. He wasn´t really that nice about it though - I got the distinct impression he was a bit worried about liability, and now that I come to think of it, he may also have been less than happy with me having lied about a friend helping me off the train. I just nodded, smiled and generally did my I´m-still-learning-German-so-I-don´t-understand- you thing.

As he got back on the train, a young lass of about 18 came up to me, looked me right in the eyes and said “Respect.” It was good to see that some people appreciate ingenuity and determination.

Unfortunately, although I could manage it, if I had a high spinal cord injury or muscular dystrophy, I wouldn´t have been able to do this. Perhaps I could have asked someone else to help, but I don´t know if I would´ve found anyone, nor if I would have been entirely comfortable with the idea. What if someone fell or hurt their back? It´s a terrible shame to have all this extra stress because the offered service failed.

I was going to post about something completely different today, but with this just having happened, I decided to go with it while my impressions were fresh. I´ll return to the regular posts about Hanover and Wroclaw tomorrow.

All the best, Derek.

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Oct 14 2008

Get me off this crazy thing!

Published by Travelling Blackbird under Anecdotes, Public Transport, Rants Edit This

At the time of writing, I´m on a train, unsure of where I can get out. When I bought the ticket to Erkelenz this afternoon, and saw that I´d be traveling by regional train, I went straight to the service point to order the Mobility Service. There are two models of regional train in Germany: an older one with two or three steps up into it and a verticla bar in the middle of the doorway, and the newer double-decker models with the floor of the compartment for wheelchairs lower than the platform. Either way, there´s no getting on without help. Anyway, the man at the service point took dow my details and told me to come back 20 minutes before my departure time, which I duly did, only to discover that there´d been a shift change, and there was now no record of my having ordered any help. They didn´t even know if I´d be able to get on the train, as the Mobility Service staff were apparently all busy.

Of course, like anyone, I find this sort of situation extremely irritating, but I try not to go fro 0 to furious in 60 seconds, and instead attempt to find a solution. I asked if they could call again, and told them that I was going up onto the platform to wait. My real intention was to see if I could corral a conductor or a few passengers into helping.

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