Sunday June9th:

On this day we left for HKNC. We decided not to go to church on this morning as we didn’t get as much done the day before as we had planned. So sunday morning was packing and wrapping up last minute items for our trip. We left on our SEPTA train at 11:43am. We arrived in Philadelphia a little before 1pm. From there we transferred to our Amtrak train after a 10 minute wait. Our Amtrak train left Philadelphia at 1:30pm. The Amtrak train had several stops on the way to NYC Penn station. When we got to Trenton NJ, our train had some engine trouble. We sat at the station for about 25 minutes before they figured out what to do. In the end, we had to transfer to another train. The difficulty with this was that there were already passengers on the train that we got on. The Redcaps, I think that is who was helping us, kicked out a few other passengers so that we could sit down. I didn’t know this until later. Transferring trains was lets just say stressful. I understood that we had to transfer trains, it was only across the platform, but then we had to walk down quite a few train cars to get to one that we could get into. There were two people helping us, but I could not hear what they were saying, nor did I know what truely what was going on. I told Pup to follow hubby, and for the most part she does. I felt bad for all the people who were forced to stand in the isle. There were luggage every where. this put us behind.

We finally arrived at NYC Penn station around 3:30pm. The train that we got on, stopped at several additional stops more than the original one was suppose to. The new train had air conditioning so for this I was pleased, as the first did not.

I also realize from this train transfer experience, that when I am not sure what is going on in my world, in my environment, because I can nor hear or see, I get a bit grumpy and short. I am not sure how to do deal with this at this point. I know that this is one of those things that because I have lived in the hearing world my entire life, and now longer do, the lack of that imput frustrates me.

Once we arrived at the NYC Penn station, we waited about 15 minutes for a Redcap person from Amtrak to help us. We were catching it very close for us to catch our LIR train. LIR= Long Island Railroad. Finally someone got to us, and we were on our way running literally to the LIR. Its not far, but the NYC Penn station is confusing and very large, with hundreds of people in and through it. We made it with seconds to spare. The LIR is very similiar to SEPTA. the trains are different, nicer in a way, but about the same. 

authors note here, SEPTA in Philadelphia needs to take a lesson from the LIR in New York. First the website is accessible, including the schedule look up. the trains announce each stop. And the LIR employees are very nice and helpful. I can’t hardly say the same for SEPTA.

So on the LIR our to Port Washington, we had about a 45 minute ride. We arrived at the Port Washington station around 4:25pm. We then had the difficulty of finding out how to find a cab. From looking around the station a bit we found the ramp, and then found a cab. So off we were to the HKNC, a little late but on our way.

We arrived at the HKNC around 5pm. the cab dropped us off at the right building, and we were able to get in with minimumal difficulty.

Once in the residents building, we were shown to our room. We briefly freshened up and went to dinner. Unfortunately by the time we arried at dinner, there was not much to eat. For dinner there was ribs, that by the way were very messy. Salad, and drinks. Ribs were okay, just not much meat. We had brought along snacks and ended up eating some of them later on in the night. In the cafertia, staff were nice and helpful. But did not make much other conversation with us. We were a little put off by this at first. Staff would introduce themselves, ask if we needed anything, but then not speak to us the rest of the evening. There were no instructions, on where things were, how to get into out of the building, where to park the dog, when meals were. Nothing.

On Sunday night there was an ice cream social. Staff invited us to join in, but we were sort of outsiders. Let me describe the room we stayed in first then I will describe more of the building that I knew about up until this point.

Our room was in the basement of a three story building. It was at the end of the hall, down the hall from the residents dining room. the room was small with two twins beds. One bed had a mattress made of bricks, the other was softer but still not comfortable by no means. there were two dressers, with one that had a few broken drawers. And one desk. the bathroom was small but functional. We had to ask for more towels as we were only given one towel, one hand towel, and one wash cloth.
In the dining room, once you entered, there was a place where you entered into the food line. First were the fruit, like oranges and apples. then you got to the trays, above were the napkins. Next down the line was the silverware. Above that was the tea packets. Most of the bins were brailled so I could tell what was what. next you cam to two closed cases. In the two days we were there, I didn’t see those open. Then you came to drinks. The coffee was already in cups, the hot water was already in cups, and so was the juice and water. Each drink had its own place with label in braille. Above the juices and water, was salads, desserts, more fruit. Then you got down to the main course. The workers would put the plate up on a raised shelf. there was a tray holder counter too, that you would slide your tray down the line. Once at the end of the line a staff person would assist you to a table.
Now to describe some of the rest of the building. If you walked in the main doors of the residents building, to your left was a office area and a waiting room area. this waiting room area had the most comfortable chairs in the whole building that I saw on our trip. Granted I could have been missing them. In this lobby area, I am not sure what was on the right of this area, as I didn’t explore it. If you walk a little more forward, you would come to a hallway, on the left being the elevator. The super cool thing about the elevator is that the buttons pop. I know this sounds strange. Each button has braille. When you get in around the walls of the elevator there are sets of buttons. For this paricular building there wwere only three floors so there was not too much confusion on the different sets of buttons. You might be asking why so many sets of buttons. As you press your floor the button gets pressed in, When the door opens on the floor you have chosen, the button pops out. In other words the button pops out so that a deafblind person knows when it is safe to get off. For exampel if I pressed the 1st floor button from the basement, the button would pop out when I arrived on the floor one, and it was okay for me to deboard the elevator when the doors were open. Hubby also mentioned that the elevator makes a very high pitched sound when someone is in the door area, so that you can’t close it. I can’t hear this sound, but I will take his word for it.
Ok back to our description of the building. If you go past the elevator, you arrive at a foru way hallway. In front of you are the stairs to go down or up stairs. If you go left, you come to a lounge area and residents rooms. If you ahve made a left into this hallway, there is the lunge area on your right, and then other end of residents staff offices.
The lounge is a large room with TV, sevearl tables, and games. there is a ramp into this room too, from the stairs area.
If you turned right from the main hallway, on the right is a kitchen, and more residents rooms. At the end is a laundry room. Each floor is a copy of the prevous floor, with a minor change on the third floor, as this is where most of the residents sleeping rooms are. this is what I knew of the building thus far on sunday.

after dinner, hubby and I freshened up and then went to that ice cream social. After eating our ice cream, we played a game of scrabble in the lounge. We didn’t keep score.

We went to bed around 10:30pm. Once we arrived pup wanted to sleep, so she hung out in our room in her crate. She was very good at going to break when I needed her to.

Like I said our first impressions were not as much as we had hoped. I can’t exactly say what we had hoped but I guess as visitors it would have been nice to have been welcomed a bit more. I was going to mention that our room was very much like a dorm room, like the ones you have in college.

by the time we got to bed, we were both extremely tired. All day I had sort of been on a high, just in antapication of what was to come.

More about tomorrow in my next post….