Going over Half of Europe with Mak

salam, hello!

I've just came back from my travel and feels that I should write something about it, lest I forgot. Mainly these are reminders for me but if they somehow helped you, then, good for us.

I went on a trip with my mother and Maklang(aunty) who decided about a month ago, to visit me here in Europe. My study is almost finished and with MAS having a sale during Merdeka(31 August), my mother decided to come and brought my maklang along as a companion. There's roughly a month before they came so I didn't have much time to plan and book stuffs, but it seems in the end everything went quite well. 

The places we went to were Cologne(Germany)-> Paris-> London-> Vienna-> Deggendorf(Germany) before going back to my hometown. If you looked at the places, we seem to travel for quite a distant in 10 days time. This bring to my the first note to my self: Try not to travel to too many places. 

The original plan was to include Spain among the five places. Fortunately my friend advised against it, or else our travel would be so crammed that we would have to rush. Still, the revised plan has times where I wished I would have allocated more time.

The reason behind that is my mind didn't wrap around the idea that parents are elderly people and likewise, they cannot travel like young people. So the second point would be: Bear in mind that you're bringing your parent.

Avoid travel plans where you need to rush and try to allocate a lot of extra time for delays. In this case, I think cheap flights are very unsuitable for travelling with parents because the flight provider treats passengers as luggage and are rushed from one point to another. You can, and I did use Ryanair but I would prefer in the future to pay more than submit my mother to the stress and strain.

Other things that I learned about travelling with parent(s):

1. They are a bit particular about food and its times. I've been on travel where we didn't eat in the morning because we will splurge on dinner and in effect we save a few bucks. Please don't submit your parents to this kind of torture.

2. They have different view on travel and it was a good thing to travel with your parents as it'll allow you to know them better. My mom it seems, likes to window shop. Monuments and arts doesn't interest her.

3. Coldness gets to them, more than they affect us. This might seems common sense but it sometimes slip through my consideration.

4. Plan ahead, carefully. And even if you don't know the place, act calm.

5. Try to have fun. And don't forget to clean your room. haha

6. They love you. <---Most important thing learned.

I don't know when will be the next time or even if there'll be a next time, but all in all I am grateful that I had the chance to travel with my mother and maklang.

If you have the chance, go and take your parents to a trip, regardless of the destinations.

Cool people eat ice creams. Or is it the other way around?

Thanks for reading.