Nov
10
2008
I’d never fallen in love with a city until I visited Austin. I’d been there a day-and-a-half when I realized I wanted to move there, and even though I never did, the idea will always be in the back of my mind. I felt better there than I ever had in any other city, and I couldn’t imagine there was anything that would ever put me off being there. I’ve been back every year since, at least for a couple of days. This week, I’d like to share with you some of the reasons I love Austin.
What was it about the capital of Texas that so captured my affection? I am fond of other cities, but Austin is one of the only cities I really love. I have a few very good friends there, but that’s not the only reason. The city itself held fascination for me. I spent hours exploring it while my friends were at work, going into stores, wandering down by the river, meandering through the parks, and eating at small local restaurants. Everything was new, and I’m sure I bored everyone terribly in the evenings: I know that no-one could understand my saying how much I liked the grackles, as most long-term residents seem to loathe them like Europeans hate pigeons.
The thing I enjoyed most about Austin was the feeling of independence. I had traveled with the wheelchair before, through Poland, Germany, England and Ireland, but I’d always encountered enough barriers that I felt that I’d never travel independently. Austin was the first city I’d visited and felt that I could go anywhere I wanted alone. The buses had lifts, and the bus network covered all the parts of the city I wanted to get to. The stores were all accessible, the sidewalks all had curb cuts. I felt free and able to go anywhere, and I’d never felt like that before.
I will probably never actually do more than visit Austin. I’m sure the daily reality of living there would be very different to being an exploring tourist. I’ve never been there during the summer, only in the mild and pleasant winter months, and I don’t know if I could stand the heat of the Texan summer. More importantly, I’ve no desire to leave Europe and live in the US. Austin is just my dream city, an ideal born of a sense of not having any barriers to my movement for the first time in years.
Oct
29
2008
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
22
2008
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
14
2008
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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Oct
13
2008
Where do you go when you need to recharge? Although I mainly travel for work and to learn, and to meet old friends and make new ones, I also travel so that I can switch off and regain my equilibrium. For me to really feel rested, my destination needs to be wheelchair friendly, so I can focus on me, and not on the difficulties and obstacles around me, but it also needs to have somewhere green and spacious like a large park or garden. It’s not quite the mountains and woods I used to enjoy, but it’s somewhat close to nature.
Although I often go there to work, Hanover is one of my favorite destinations when I need to rest and recharge. Continue Reading »
Oct
07
2008
I’m supposed to be going to Hanover on Friday, and while the trip is now in doubt because the tail end of the cold I brought back from Poland has turned into the flu, complete with shivers and aches, I had already gone through the process of booking a train ticket, and what a process it was. Deutsche Bahn run a generally good service that I’m satisfied with, but with being sick, the run-around of trying to make the seat reservation was more than a little irritating. German institutions tend to have rules and procedures, and people with authority love reminding you of them.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s important to call and let them know when you’re traveling with a wheelchair, just in case there’s a reason you can’t travel. In the case of the Inter-City Express trains in Germany, the issue is one of space: there are only a couple of wheelchair berths per train, sometimes only one. You have to reserve the berth or risk not being able to travel at the time you wanted, because they can’t take more wheelchairs that they have berths. However, you can’t reserve the berth online: I’ve always had to do it by phone. Not this time though.
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Sep
25
2008
When I first went to London with my wheelchair, I discovered that the Tube was no longer a viable option for me. For a brief time, I thought getting around was going to be very awkward and slow, involving complicated bus routes with several changes of bus, not to mention a little stressful, as I was sure I would have to spend the whole time with my eye on the street signs to make sure I didn’t miss my stop. However, while the buses are slow because of the city’s traffic congestion, the routes were more straightforward than I thought, and the drivers are very good about announcing stops that have been requested. Not only that, all but two of the city’s bus routes are fully accessible, and free of charge to wheelchair users. Even better yet, my friends Tom and Eric found a bus route so perfect for my needs in the city, it was like I’d planned it out myself. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the number 23.
Besides being perfect for my needs, I believe the 23 is a great bus for any tourist who wants to plan a day seeing a good chunk of the city’s tourist attractions. Of course there are many things to see in London that aren’t on this route, but it has enough to plan a great day out around.
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Sep
20
2008
Imagine you’re taking a trip from Los Angeles to Cracow, and you’re trying to work out the best price. You have found some good deals for LAX to London Heathrow, but from there to Cracow seems expensive. However, you’ve found a low-cost airline running a flight there from London Stansted that leaves 5 hours after you land, and flying that route would be a significant saving. The two airports are both London airports, but could you make it from one to the other in time? 5 hours seems like a lot of time, and there is a coach that is supposed to get from Heathrow to Stansted in just 90 minutes: surely that would be a feasible option.
Well, much as it sounds like you could make it, you might want to think again, especially if you’re a wheelchair user. Continue Reading »
Sep
18
2008
London is certainly a well-connected city, with five large international airports connecting it to destinations worldwide. The two main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, are well-known destinations for tourists and businesspeople from all over the world. The other three have flights to many European destinations, but few or no intercontinental flights. Stansted and Luton are well outside the Greater London area, and get most of their business from low-cost and charter airlines and cargo traffic, while London City Airport, situated in the Docklands of East London, serves the city’s financial district and seems to get more businesspeople passing through it than tourists.
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Sep
16
2008
The message of this post is simple: if you’re a wheelchair user planning a trip to London, don’t count on the London Underground. Although Transport for London promises assistance to disabled passengers and does not require wheelchair users to be accompanied on journeys, an analysis of the details of a London Underground journey show that even with staff assistance, there are very few places in Central London that a wheelchair user can realistically go.
The Tube, as it is also known, serves 268 stations in 26 of London’s 32 boroughs, but of those stations, only 49 are fully accessible to wheelchair passengers. Furthermore, of those 49 stations, only 10 are within zone 1, the area of most interest to tourists, and all of those are near its outer limits. To get into the other 219 stations, you need to use stairs and/or escalators, and if you’re thinking of riding the escalators in your chair, as some wheelchair users can, forget it. TfL states that wheelchairs can only be taken on escalators if folded, and only people who can step onto and off an escalator unassisted may use one. Even registered assistance dogs must be carried on moving escalators, according to the TfL web site.
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