switzerland
I left Hong Kong. Yup, after 1 year and 5 months in a single city we decided it was time. The current quarantine policy (7 days in a hotel upon return) was palatable enough, we missed travel, we missed our people, so we bit the bullet and decided to go. We chose to go to Switzerland (where there is no quarantine on arrival, unlike NZ) for catching up with family and friends and a desperately needed change of scene! It’s no joke planning travel in these covid-crazy times but we had our jabs, our antibody tests, our carefully researched quarantine hotel, our normal suitcases packed, our quarantine suitcase packed and we were out of here!
Our flight was a Sunday night and that weekend we’d started to hear some rumblings from a friend-in-the-know that things might be changing, so we thought there was a chance our quarantine might increase from 7 to 14 days, we decided that was a risk we were ok with and headed off to the airport.
Woah, the airport is WEIRD. Almost every shop and restaurant is closed for business permanent-like, theres no hum, vibe, hustle or bustle. It’s like a ghost town. We were a hundred years too early because I thought it’d be really complicated to check in and show all the bits and pieces but in fact it was way faster than usual and we were left with hours to kill in an airport bereft of entertainment. All went fine with the flight, it wasn’t super fun having to wear a mask on board, but otherwise it was all relatively like the old days. Entering Switzerland was also much more straight forward than anticipated, and there we were, we’d travelled, we did it!
We were collected early Monday morning at Zurich airport by my parents-in-law, and headed straight to my sister-in-laws place, where they all breakfasted while I locked myself in a bedroom to work remote for the day. Not long after telling my colleagues in a meeting that everything was surprisingly easy with the travel, we received the bad news. Quarantine for travellers from Switzerland was increasing to 21 days. This was a shock to be honest (unsure how I am still able to be shocked by the HK govt but there you go), we had never considered 21 would be an option. The reason is mind boggling… someone had tested positive on day 10 (after a 7 day quarantine) because they CAUGHT COVID IN THE QUARANTINE HOTEL so the solution is PUT US IN QUARANTINE HOTELS FOR LONGER. Anyway… so we went through all the stages: shock, disbelief, denial, anger, frustration, maniacal laughter, ironic laughter and finally acceptance. This was happening, all we could do now was figure out what to do about it.
Unfortunately Cathay Pacific doesn’t really have an HR department of friendly folks who you can call as a Pilot and say “oh this happened could you just adjust my roster for next month to accommodate the extra quarantine please” so the 3 weeks quarantine was going to be rather problematic for practical reasons. Also we just really didn’t want to do 3 weeks, we both spent enough time locked up in 2020 to know it isn’t that fun. So we made the decision to try and get back to HK before the rule change kicked in on Thursday at midnight. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded, the rules had changed for around 15 countries so thousands of people were scrambling to get back before this cutoff. Flights were difficult but not impossible if you were prepared to fly via some random places, the tricky thing was the quarantine hotel spaces. We went through all the ones on the list looking up their availability or calling them and concluded there was nothing available. At one point we thought we’d nailed it, booking one online, only to figure out that it was available because it wasn’t actually a valid quarantine hotel (until the next cycle) - damnit! We’d just about given up hope when a hail-mary text thrown to a friend (whose wife works in a hotel) came through with the goods - she’d held a room for us! And at The Kerry Hotel no less (one of the very nicest yet still (just) affordable quarantine hotels). We managed to find a flight via Dubai that got us back in time, confirmed the hotel booking and breathed a small sigh of relief.
Having spent hours hunched over phones and laptops figuring that out we quickly cranked into planning mode. How to see as many people as possible in the very little time remaining.
Luckily on Monday we’d managed to do lunch with Grandma and nieces and nephews, plus dinner with our new-baby godson and his parents. So we had most of Tuesday (apart from sneaking in a pre-flight covid test) and Wednesday morning left. We sent a group message out resulting in one lot of mates turning up for a morning cafe coffee, had lunch with the in-laws and then biked down to the lake-front where different groups of friends turned up throughout the evening. We ordered pizza, drank beer, hugged everyone hello and goodbye, met new babies, laughed, cursed the situation and just generally caught up on life with everybody we could. A couple of close friends were on vacation so we arranged for breakfast with them the next morning (met another new baby) before hustling home and heading to the airport. What a freakin’ whirlwind.
It was sooooo nice to be in a plane again, to breath crispy Swiss air, to see Zug in all its beauty but most of all it was soul-filling to see our Swiss people in person again. FaceTime is all well and good but it really doesn’t hold a candle to actually hanging out in person together. So even though it was the stupidly shortest holiday it was still 1000% worth it.
The trip back was nerve wracking, we didn’t have a ton of leeway for getting back before the cut-off for the rule change, and having heard so many horror stories about paperwork issues meaning people weren’t allowed on planes, or delays to flights caused by said paperwork etc. We were literally on edge until the moment we were handed our quarantine order with the 7 days written on it. Thank goodness that all worked out ok in the end.
It was extremely painful arriving into HK, taking around 6 hours from landing to getting to our hotel, tons of queueing and waiting for all the various procedures and processes and then even once we got to the hotel there was more waiting around to check in, as they only check in one room at a time for ‘safety ‘ reasons (we just travelled 45mins in a mini-bus with these people). We eventually made it to our room at some ungodly hour on Friday morning but WOW what a welcome.
Our room was lovely, with sweeping harbour views plenty of space and a huge comfy bed. They offered welcome meals which were apparently delicious (I went straight to bed haha) and the room was thoughtfully fitted out for quarantine purposes with clear information and nice touches. Because we landed late at night we woke up already on day 2 of our quarantine, to a delicious breakfast enjoyed with the epic morning harbour view and honestly felt a little like we were still on vacation. I had to work but afterwards I was able to wind down from the madness of the week with a glass of wine and that view again. We had a wonderfully lazy weekend eating the delicious meals, savouring the views and catching up on sleep, it almost felt like a staycation. One of nights we could even enjoy the live music from the Red Sugar outdoor terrace flowing up to our room! After a few days working from the room, easily staying sane with morning exercise and evening wines and enjoying all the good food, we were done! The 7 days flew by, we were super impressed with the Kerry and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
So yea, epic travel fail but no regrets and feel pretty grateful the way it all worked out. It’s definitely burned us on the travel front, so we won’t be too boldly travelling again any time soon but so glad to have snuck this ‘adventure’ in nonetheless.
