A Grand Ending

Well… after an eventful couple of days Grandma and I are back in Australia.  On Saturday 2nd July (German time) Grandad died in his sleep.  From 6:15 am Saturday morning our Grand Trip was redirected and every single person we meet or spoke to went out of their way to help.  From Lars, the APT driver who took us around the German countryside at 170 km/ hr on the auto bahn, and personally escorted us to the check in desk at Munich airport.  To Pawel the representation from APT who helped coordinate everything, and stayed up to 1 am local time while flights were being finalised.  Barry, the international funeral director who not only spoke English but also helped with the legalities and international procedures.  The crew of Amadiago our ship who made our time aboard both comfortable and fun.  The captain, cruise director and hotel manager who organised and help in interpreting with the German officials.  The passengers who provided their support and thoughts.  To every single airport worker we had contact with including flight attendants who saw to our every need, ground staff who helped pushing Grandma in her wheelchair. Mum and Dad who organised our all important fights back home.  To family and friends around the world who provided support.  

I have never seen Grandad happier than the night before he died.  He and I had laughed so hard we were crying about those ‘baldy head men’!   Grandma and Grandad also enjoyed the chance to celebrate their 61 years of marriage.  The Grand Trip was certainly a Grand ending to a wonderful man’s life. 

In Austria

Yesterday morning we docked in Durnstein, it is a beautiful little city that has only 1000 inhabitants. We were in the gentle walkers group, which meant we had another trip in a mini train. The mini train is great for both grandma and myself, it means she gets shaken around less and I can conserve my pushing energy! In Durnstein we also had wine and chocolate taste testing. I liked the chocolate much more than the wine. Grandad is getting a range of older ladies to hold his hand as he walks along the cobblestone paths. If he wasn't with grandma I am sure he could pick up.

On the toy train in Durnstien

Grandma and grandad were both exhausted after our morning tour of durnstien. So they had an afternoon nap and I had a second and more successful attempt at bike riding. 17 passengers, 2 crew members and 2 tour guides cycled 32 km from Durnstein to Melk. We passed through beautiful scenery! However there were really strong winds coming towards us as we cycled ( I think they are called head winds). Chopper said that normally the wind measures at about 2 when we were cycling it was at 9. It was a challenge, cause even in the flat parts we had to cycle really hard to ensure we were moving forward. As we passed a pub an old guy was laughing and pointing to the opposite direction indicating that it would be easier to cycle with the wind.

Getting ready to start out on my bike ride!

At Melk grandma did not come to the abbey but grandad did. With a couple of other people we had a taxi ride as it took us closer to the abbey. Chopper went off to organize the tickets, as the rest of the passangers were in front of us. He said he would be back to pay the taxi driver. The driver obviously did not believe him and held us hostage until chopper returned! Lol! Grandad did not really like Melk abbey as it was very cold and windy. Here is our conversation as we were approaching the abbey:

Maria: it is very pretty isnt it?

Grandad: I have been here before

M: have you? When?
G: yesterday
M: hahahaha, we were at the palace yesterday (which was also big and yellow in colour)
G: no no no we were here
M: hahaha grandad you crack me!

Grandad has invented a game of trying to hit people's ankles with his walking stick...luckily he hasn't been too successful.

The evening entertainment was 'the sound of austria' if you liked the sound of music you were told not to miss it. Well it turned out to be to OPERA (not oprah) singers. I only lasted five minutes!

Today we had a quiet day. There were three choices: a trip to Salzburg, a trip to the check republic or cruising in the boat. The grandrentals chose the last option. I had time to teach grandma how to use their new iPad. She managed to send so emails and we had a Skype call with mum and dad on my iPad. Teching grandad will be harder work.

In the afternoon we arrived at Passu. Grandma and grandad were resting so I went off by myself. I ditched the walking tour as I could not face any more churches or slow walking and went off by myself. I caused a lady to giggle- there was an ATM in a bank foyer behind some glass doors. I saw a lady exit so I knew it was open and there was another lady inside. I walked up to the doors expecting them to open, but they didn't so I walked back a couple of steps and tried again. Still they did not open. So I tried again. I must have tried about six times, I tried jumping and waving too but nothing worked. The lady inside stopped laughing and showed me that you have to press a button to open it.... Whoops! I also went shopping and brought some shoes- score!

Today was the grandrentals 61st wedding anniversary and the waiter overheard me congratulating them. When they brought out our dessert (apple strudle) they had sparklers in it and were singing 'happy anniversary'. The grandrentals were quite chuffed. A passenger asked grandad what was it like being married to grandma, grandad replied 'Hard!'.

During dinner grandad noticed something funny about three of the men sitting near us they were all 'baldy head men'. Grandad thought that was so funny he was laughing uncontrollably. All one of us had to do for the next half an hour was mention 'baldy head men' and we would both laugh so hard we cried! What makes it even funnier is grandad is not that far off being considered a 'baldy head man' himself.

The water level is quite high at the moment and the crew are worried we might not fit under a bridge tommorrow so cross your fingers for us!

Bratislava and Vienna

Yesterday we cruised from budapest to bratislava. In bratislava we did a walking tour. They had a gentle walkers group, which meant instead of walking for 1.5 hours we went on a toy train ride. It was a fantastic way for the grandrentals to see the sites.

Our toy train in Bratislava

A lovely lady helped grandad walk back to the boat while I pushed grandma in the wheel chair. Getting Grandma on and off the boat in Bratislava was triple the fun. There were three boats tied next to each other side by side, we were the last and furthest away from the jetty which meant we had to go through two other boats. Luckily there was always nice people around to help me get grandma and her wheelchair through all th gangways and ramps.

The three boats I had to navigate Grandma's wheelchair across.

Grandad and I went to a palace today. It is the huge summer palace in Vienna. Grandma decided to stay on board as she was quite exhausted. Grandad must have been exhausted too because he found walking a challenge. Thanks to the suggestion of another passenger i pushed him around in one of the palace's wheel chairs (my wheel chair pushing skills are improving with all the practicing I am getting!). As we got onto the bus on the way to the palace, grandad saw the empty bus driver's seat and tried to climb in it and drive the bus. Luckily I was able to convince him to take a seat where the passengers sit!

My Aussie family and friends will be jealous of me for two reason. The first is for the past two mornings I have eaten this extinct yellow fruit called a banana! It was delicious on my corn flakes!!! The second reason is the beautiful weather. It has been lovely sunny weather, at about 29 degrees. Yesterday I even got slightly burnt, I now have the shape of a bandaid tattooed onto my leg... Lol!

I'm not a fan of the taste of the water, even the bottled water tastes funny. So while we were in Bratislava I braved a billa supermarket to buy cordial. After staring at the drinks section for way to long, I picked up a bottle of what I hoped was lemon cordial. Taking back to my cabin I quickly found out it was not lemon cordial, but the lemon juice that you might use to put on pancakes... Yuck! In Vienna I had another try and this time was more successful- it is not cottees but it does the job!

One option for dessert after lunch is always ice cream. Here is a bit of the exchange between myself and Grandma:
Maria: Would you like some ice cream Grandma?
Grandma: Pardon?
Maria (shouting this time): Would you like some ice cream Grandma?
Grandma: Yes please
Maria: Strawberry or banana?
Grandma: Vanilla
Maria (shouting even louder): They only have strawberry or banana
Grandma: But I only like vanilla ice cream
Maria: But you had walnut ice cream yesterday....

I am finding the closer we get to Germany the more Grandad mentions the Germans, it is like he has an inbuilt sensor. We could be in for some fun over the next couple of days as we travel through Austria to Germany.

Budapest

It is beautiful weather in Budapest (which today I learnt is pronounced budapesHt). The sun is shining and it is is a warm 29 degrees. I had to opportunity today to work on my muscles ( and work off all the lovely food we have been eating). We went on a tour of Budapest and pushed grandma around bits of Buda in the wheel chair. There are lots of cobblestones, we could start a milkshake buisness by puting a glass of milk with flavouring in her lap at the beginning and taking out a milkshake at the end.

Grandma stayed on the bus in Pest where we went to the hungarian opera house as it had too many steps. Grandad seemed to like the opera house, he kept saying to me he had been to the opera house before. At the beginning of the tour he was saying he had been there once before, then twice, then four or five times. But by the end of the tour he was trying to convince me he had been there 40 times before.

Grandad is very concerned with grandma's lack of mobility and tries to suggest solutions. His suggestion today was that we attach a colapsable stick to her belly button, when she wants to get up all she would need to do is lean forward and press the button, the pole would help her to lift herself up! Lol!

There are so many lovely people in the world, everyone seems to go out of their way to help me move my two elderly grandrentals around. From the cruise director chopper, to the crew, to other passengers aboard the silver hair ship, to random strangers we meet on the street!

Our boat the amadiago

Today, I had free time in the arvo while the grandrentals were resting so I tried my hand at kamikaze bike riding. If you have never heard of this sport let me fill you in. Kamikaze bike riding has 4 rules:

Rule number 1- kamikaze bike riding must take place in a foreign non english speaking country where they drive on the other side of the road. An important subsection to rule 1 is that participants must not know their left from their right. This adds some extra excitement to the sport. Kamikaze bike riders get confused as to which side of the path they should be riding on and need to constantly swerve to avoid other bike riders and pedestrians. They also get confused when crossing roads as they have no idea which direction cars will be coming from. This gives the kamikaze bike rider an adrenalin rush when they manage to avoid being hit by a car.

Rule number 2- Kamikaze bike riders must not have a sense of direction. They must ride off on a bike path in a strange country, with out a map (although it probably would not help any way if they did have it). To over come this rule kamikaze hike riders are allowed to follow the bike rider in front of them, however problems tend to occur when the bike rider in front of the kamikaze bike rider speeds off into the distance.

Rule number 3- kamikaze bike riders must ride a strange bike. They may adjust the very tall seat so they can sit on the bike. This results in the kamikaze bike rider needing to adjust the handle bars as well. This also causes problems especially if the kamikaze bike rider is unable to click the lever back in properly, and so rides off with a wobbly handle.

However all these rules do not make for kamikaze bike riding. In kamikaze bike riding the bike rider needs to follow the all important rule number 4!

Rule number 4- the kamikaze bike rider must feel smug and cocky that they have overcome the challenges of rules 1 to 3. This is where the kamikaze part comes in. The kamikaze bike rider decides to add some extra speed, stands up to give that bit more power while crossing the road, swerves to avoid a other bike rider coming from the opposite direction, the loose handle bar spins and the kamikaze bike rider completes a spectacular stack; complete with bruises, cuts and a lump to the knee (I am sure i will feel the effects of my kamikaze bike riding experience tomorrow when I am pushing grandma around Bratislava).

If you are interested in joining the kamikaze bike riders association just let me know as I am currently the only member.

Breaking news

I know what I am about to say will come as a shock to you all.... I am the youngest passenger onboard the cruise. The huge disappointment of the day was that there was no hot young guy escorting his grandparents!

The boat is excellent and my room fantastic! The cruise director is great, very down to earth, great public speaker and very open about which tours he thinks the grandrentals will be able to do. His name is Csabar which is pronounced chopper.

Grandad in their cabin.  I said "Smile, Grandad"  So he did!

We had a four course dinner, so much food. Dad you should have sent me some doggy bags to send some of the food to the starving kids in Africa cause there is no way I can eat it all!

I did another walk around budapest today, I managed to confuse some poor Hungarian lady in a shop by asking if she sold cloth badges (Jules remember the French bakery?). Today grandad tried to convinvce me to tie a leash to grandma to make her walk faster.

Tomorrow we do a tour of Budapest in the morning.

A comedy of errors

Where to start? I swear this trip is like one permanent comedy show. Ok, last time I left off we were in kuala lumpa waiting to go on flight two out of three. Well the flight was slightly delayed, but did not cause any problems. The lovely man who dropped us off at the business class lounge also picked us up. He had been working for 24 hours straight the poor dude. The flight from KLA to Frankfurt was long-12 hours. We boarded at about midnight Malaysian time (2am syd). I pretty much went straight to sleep after take off, and during the flight got about 5 hours. Grandad also slept but grandma did not.

The food was ok. Grandad has interesting eating habits, instead of buttering his roll and spreading the jam on top he ate the roll, then the lump of butter, and then the jam straight from the jar. Cue instant laughter from me! On the flight to Frankfurt I also introduced grandma to the scrabble app on my iPad. She managed to pick it up quite well.

The seat buttons is pure entertainment for grandad and consequently myself. As he does not understand what each button does, it is like a kid on a roller coaster- a journey of surprise! During the flight grandad was convinced that the plane was not moving at all. He thought sitting in the plane while it was not moving was really stupid!

The malaysian air staff were fantastic on that leg as well, very helpful and polite. When we got to Frankfurt we were met by a lovely lady with a wheel chair who took us from the international part of the airport to the European part. It is a huge airport and poor grandad was very tired, when she left us at the business lounge she organized a second wheel chair to come and assist us upon boarding the last flight.

Grandad was very disorientated while waiting in the business lounge in Frankfurt airport, but we had been traveling for about 30 hours at this stage so I can understand why. Grandma was exhausted and consequently really deaf!

Two ladies came to pick us up from the lounge and took us to our Budapest flight. So there was me (not in a wheelchair) and then grandma and grandad each in a wheel chair. Unfortuantely this flight boarded from the Tarmac. We took a special bus to the plane with one other couple a father and his adult son, the father had a walking stick and was being transferred in a wheelchair as well. I walked with grandad up the stairs, so as not to leave him alone. This meant that the airport bus driver was looking after grandma. They evidently decided that she could not walk up the stairs so they installed a lift for her to get up to the plane door.

The flight to Budapest only lasted about an hour. Of course on arrival in Budapest we parked again on the Tarmac. Grandad and I were sent off the plane with everyone else and were bused to the terminal. Grandad was very worried that grandma was not with us, so it was long 20 minute wait for grandma to arrive. After picking up our bags and wheelchair we passed through customs looking for an apt rep. I was pushing both grandma in the wheelchair and their suitcase. I was quite relived to find the apt man. However he was not there to pick us up!

We were not on his list! By this stage we had been traveling for about 34 hours so we were all tired. I was very firm and basically said we had booked transfers so he needed to arrange for us to get to the hotel. He had limited English but rang his supervisor, and put me on. The upshot of it all was that the apt driver took us to the hotel with the other Australian couple he was there to pick up.
After checking in at the hotel all the grandrentals wanted was a shower/ bath and bed. The shower arrangement was a shower over the bath. Grandma decided that she could sit on the edge of the bath to shower, despite suggestions by yours truely she went ahead. Needless to say she ended up slipping and it took a bit of effort from both of us to get her out. But we succeeded and by 3 pm local time they were both having an afternoon nap.

My lovely hotel room (no hint of a backpackers hostel)

The beautiful view of Buda from Pest on my walking tour

I went out for a walk.... Buda and pest are great cities. I ended up joining a free walking tour and had a great time. Grandma and grandad were difficult to wake at our arranged time of 6pm. I woke them and then left them for 30 min to get ready for dinner.... Or that was the plan!

Unfortunately I sat down on my bed to read and ended up falling asleep myself. At 8 pm I was woken by an extremely worried grandma who was convinced I had lost myself in Budapest. She had been ringing my hotel room phone, but when I had not answered she understandably panicked. She ended up ringig reception to bring a spare key to open my door. She was quite relived to find me asleep on me bed.... Whoops!

Tomorrow afternoon we join the apt cruise to Amsterdam.

Leg 1

Drum roll please... I have mastered the art of pushing grandma in the wheelchair while pushing their suitcase (on wheels) between me and the wheelchair with my stomach, leaving Grandad free to pull my suitcase!! It is a sight that looks like it belongs on funniest home videos but I think it is a real talent... Australia's got talent 2012 look out!

Security was fun! It was almost like the movie groundhog day. The bags had to keep going through the xray machine as I pulled out liquid after liquid out of grandma and grandads bags. They had their toothpaste and shampoo confiscated. Then it took me four goes to get through the security arch way!

I think the speed for this trip will be extra slow. Although I am quite quick pushing grandma, grandad walks much slower. Unless he sees one of those moving footpaths. Grandad hoped on one of them and tried to race me pushing grandma, he was actually running on it! I was worried that he would fall and turn in to spaghetti! However he had no such concern. It could be a new Olympic sport- elderly moving footpath races, London Olympics watch out!

I could so get used buisness class flights and that thought crossed my mind even before we got on the flight. The buisness class lounge at Sydney was great. Plenty of (free) food. Grandad decided to sneak into the first class lounge! It took some convincing to come back to the buisness class lounge, luckily after a long winded speech he seemed to forget why he was there. Cue sigh of relief from both myself and the lounge staff member!

On the plane Grandma sat next to a lovely man (about dad's age). I think he now has the full Karbowiak family history. Grandad and I sat next to each other. He was quite bemused with the individual tv screens but did not like the headphones so made up the script to the movies. Grandad's version of Big mommas house 2 is quite funny. The malaysian air staff are lovely. The address you by name eg Miss Lee,every single time they speak to you.

Grandad and myself in business class!


We are now sitting in the business class lounge in KLA, a nice airport dude pushed grandma to the lounge (I doubt I would have been able to find it without him). He will come back and take us to the next flight... Hard life it is :-P

With the first of three flights to our starting destination down, the trip seems quite real!

The Grand Trip

In 1968 Martin Luther King, Jnr had a dream.  His dream was to end racial discrimination.  Whilst some might claim that it is not of the same scale, Grace Karbowiak (aka Grandma) also had a dream.  Her dream was to see Europe through the eyes of a passenger on board a river cruise.  For the past couple of years Grandma has been dreaming of travelling back to Europe. However, Grandma was aware that organising herself and Grandad half way around the world and back may have been a bit to much for her. Thats where I come in.... I guess you could call me the dream facilitator. It was decided that I would travel with the grandrentals (Grandma and Grandad) to facilitate their trip.

For the benefit of anyone reading this blog who as not met either of the Grandrentals or myself here is the low down:

Passenger 1
Grace aka Grandma is 84 years old.  Was born in England but has lived in Australia for the last 50 odd years.  Grandma was the matron of several nursing homes and can be particularly terrifying when she puts her mind to it.  Grandma was my first employer and my ability to dust skirting boards and make beds (with hospital corners of course) is a testimony to the many school holidays spent earning a bit of pocket money cleaning their house.

Passenger 2
Toni aka Grandad is 88 years old.  Grandad is Polish and lived in Poland during World War 2.  Grandad loves whistling, telling stories and dancing. Grandad has Alzhimers Disease and is in the 'zone' of WW2, consequently and not very politically correctly he blames everything on the Germans and the Jews. (We are going to have fun when we travel through Germany!)

Passenger 3
Me aka Maria, Emmy, Ra, I am 23 years old and have just finished 5.5 years of uni. As of a couple of days ago I am now a kindy teacher starting week one term 3.  In fact we arrive back at 7 pm on the Sunday and I start my first day of teaching at 8:50am the next day. (WOOHOO!!!) I am hoping there will be a hot guy escorting his grandparents on the river cruise- fingers crossed!

In preparation for this trip the three of us went on a practice river cruise on the Murray.  Where Grandad caught his first ever fish, embarrassed me with his John Clease style dancing, and proudly informed Grandma, myself and the bemused taxi driver that his mum was actually a guy.  (as a result of this trip Grandad and I took a dancing lesson to curb his enthusiastic and unique dancing style).

I hope to update regularly and keep you all posted on the happenings on our Grand Trip!