Well someone's been listening to my gripe about preflight testing for international travelers! As the young family dishes out huge sums of money to get the six of them tested before their flight home, I send them the message: guess what! The testing requirement is being lifted at midnight, on the day of your travel!
You could say -- well that's a bummer! They could have saved a chunk of money spent on documented testing. (They're all negative.) Or, you could say -- well that's a stroke of luck! Had they traveled a day later, they would have been in flight on the first day without the requirement! Meaning all the stranded Covid positive people will have hit the internationals skies, being free to return home.
Cup half empty, cup half full.
Me, I'm past all that. I woke up this morning with my own negative test in hand, ready to get to the airport.
But first, I worked in a Zoom call with my friend in Poland who herself now has Covid. And this is the nastiness of it all: the data on cases is so skewed right now, so unreliable, that you can really fool yourself into thinking that the pandemic is over. So few cases in Poland! No one wears masks on subways or buses. (Unlike in Canada, where everyone on the metro is masked.) We're done!
Tell that to my friend who doesn't feel very done at all. She just feels sick.
There wasn't much time left for anything Montreal-ish today. I poked out for a quick good bye wave to the Old Montreal streets, empty now, because, well, it's early.
And I eat breakfast at the hotel. Granola.
And then I take a cab to the airport. Masking here is required, as it is at the Canadian take off. But the minute we are in the air, the people around me discard their masks (I don't). So done with it! Yeah!
We are a strange species.
(Lovely view of the St Lawrence River...)
I change flights in Detroit, trying to imagine what the day is like for the young family still in Montreal. It can't be fun: they have to pack and clean up the Airbnb rental. They have to not leave anything behind, even as some of the younger tykes have a penchant for stuffing toys, pencils and who knows what else in places you would not believe. But of course, no one ever said travel is easy, and absolutely no one ever claimed that travel with very young kids is straightforward. Nonetheless, those who do it never regret it. The memories, the family lore, the lessons -- they are yours for life. Searching out dropped toys and packing up dirty laundry is a small price to pay for the richness of experiencing life elsewhere.
(Landing in Madison, we dodge stormy cells...)
Me, I pick up my car at the Madison airport and drive home, to the flower fields, the cats, the chickens, the mosquitoes. To Ed.
Hi Ed...
With so much love...
