On this one year trip we picked up a few people to travel with us. One of them was our grandma. Traveling with her has its up and downs but in the end I got to know her better.
When we heard the possibility that my grandma could come and join our trip for a month we were ecstatic because it’s not everyday that you get to travel with all three generations. Since I didn’t know if I would like it or not or if it will turn out terrible, I was pretty nervous to travel with her. I was afraid that when she is with us she would nag and complain about everything. In conclusion, I was terrified that I was going to have a rough time with grandma for a month.
However, that wasn’t always the case. Since my grandma joined us we have been eating like kings. My grandma cooked hotpot filled with many fresh seafood from the market. She also help cooked mussel with white wine sauce and pasta. Every meal we were stuffed beyond stuffed with many great and delicious food that my grandma cooked. Even though grandma couldn’t walk for too long, she didn’t complain and kept persevering to keep up with us. As a result, my dad had to slow down his walking pace or else grandma would be miles away from us. This actually turned out to be an advantage. When grandma is behind we would take turns walking with her and while we walked with her we asked her questions and got to know her better. I feel the best part about traveling with grandma is when we played games. It was fun when we played the card game Bluff, where we tried to win the game by lying. I always had a blast teasing my grandma for lying because she kept on telling us that honesty is good even though she was lying herself.
On this trip we also tried to have one one one dates to get to know each other better. There were quite a bit of things I didn’t know about grandma. For example, before I didn’t even know what job she had, but now I know she was a librarian and worked in a shipping company. She also told me a story about her and her little step sister and through that story she reminded me to always watch what you say. Through this time I got to know her past life better.
One challenging part about grandma traveling with us is her nagging. Whenever she nagged about how we ate or how we should do this or that, it became difficult because I like the way my family shared things and I wouldn’t want to change it. Another thing grandma did that I struggled with is when she talked about some things. The way she talked about it and expressed it, just bothered me. For example, when my grandma said:” When I was young I was really God loving. I would never miss church unless I was fatally sick.” Even though it was a good habit but the way she said it made it sound like she was the best person in the world. Other than those aspects traveling with my grandma has been better than expected.
Traveling with my grandma was a once in a life time experience. Even though it was hard when she nagged, but that was just her trying to show us that she cared for us. And the best part about traveling with her was that we got to know her better as a person and a friend.
