Journey to Quarantine

Feb 6 – 9

After months of negotiation, applications, and preparations, the day finally arrived and we were off! We stowed the mattress in a closet, did a final housecleaning, ate a quick breakfast, then packed the last of the luggage (about 15 pieces in all) into the Suburban and left our housekeys on the counter for our real estate agent who would start showing the house at nine.

We arrived at Newark Liberty at seven. I left the family with the luggage at Terminal 3 and then made a couple laps of the airport looking for the car rental return. After a little panic and a few deep breaths, I took the airtrain back to the terminal, feeling uncomfortable with the number of people along the way, trying to maintain distance. The airport was surprisingly bustling for a mid-pandemic Saturday.

We were directed to special check-in due to my bike bag, but we needed it for Penny, too. The plan was to take her only as far as LAX, where Michelle would meet her father outside the airport, hand off the dog, then meet us back inside. We had originally hoped that Penny would come with us, obviously, but by the time we contacted a pet transport facilitator in November, the necessary government certifications wouldn’t be ready for her to travel until mid-March. Then, in January, Air New Zealand suspended all travel of pets until further notice. So it’s not clear when she’ll be able to join us.

A wonderful woman met us at special check-in and we proceeded to spend over an hour together, going over the visa, COVID test certifications, managed isolation reservation, and Penny’s documentation, weighing and reweighing the luggage, chatting about the various pets she’d seen come through (our favorite was an emotional support pony, which apparently used to travel quite often).

We made it through security and barely had time for bathroom breaks before boarding our 11 AM flight. After almost a year of only seeing other people outdoors or at the grocery store, the flight was an anxious experience. I sat across the aisle from a rather low-functioning couple who had trouble with rules, including those related to mask-wearing. There was, in fact, a surprising number of people on the plane flouting those rules, which was hard to square with the fact that we were flying to LA, where air quality-related limitations for cremations were recently suspended to address the thousands of bodies piling up at local hospitals.

Arrival in LA was followed by an epic trudge from Terminal 7 up to Tom Bradley International Terminal. Most of the conversation centered around my unreasonable pace and speculation as to why LA named part of its airport after a sportball player from the East Coast (Tom Bradley was actually quite a remarkable person).

Our layover was about six hours, as we wanted to allow plenty of time to address any mishaps. After some discussion, we decided we’d all go out to drop Penny with Phil and Dora. It was good to see them, but hard to say goodbye. They’re taking wonderful care of her, as we knew they would, but we’ll miss her. The last few months at home would have been a lot harder without her, for all of us.

LAX felt much safer than Newark Liberty. Very few people, particularly in the international terminal, where there were only about 12 flights on the board. Probably 95% of the shops were closed. It felt desolate, but relatively safe. We ate excellent airport sandwiches and ministered to Maika’s feet. She’d been wearing wool socks and winter boots since Newark, leaving her feet in kinda rough shape. I’ll spare you the details. The next flight left at 9 PM, midnight EST. The kids were bushed.

The flight from LA to Auckland was a lot more comfortable. Our fellow passengers ran an interesting gamut from girls in crop-tops and pajama pants to a man in a full hazmat suit. We had splurged on sky couches, which means that we had six seats between the four of us and our leg rests folded flat with the seats to make three seat-wide berths. Not quite big enough for me to sleep comfortably, but great for Michelle and the kids. Though the plane was pretty full, we were less anxious knowing that everyone had tested negative for COVID in the last 72 hours. While the family slept, I weirded out about the fact that this day had finally come. I’d been anticipating it for so long that it felt entirely surreal to be in the moment.

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We kept our masks on well past the twenty-four hour mark, removing them only briefly for meals. They got pretty uncomfortable, particularly around the edges, but the kids were really troopers about it. Maika woke up just as we were passing the island of Kiribati, and we spent a good deal of the rest of the trip messing with the map, reading about the islands as we passed them. French Polynesia, Cook Islands, American Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Fiji.

At about 6:30 AM local time, we arrived in Auckland, a little over 30 hours after we’d left home. They took us off the plane in tranches: first the folks traveling on to Sydney; then a NZ police officer came on board and read off the names of the first group headed for managed isolation, of which we were a part. Auckland Airport was unsurprisingly even more tight than LAX, with tall partitions shutting off most of the airport. We talked politics with our fellow passengers and expressed our relief that we weren’t being sent to Christchurch for quarantine.

Our first stop was a health check, where our temperatures were taken and we were assigned National Health Index Numbers, our individual identifiers for receiving health services in New Zealand. We were each asked a series of questions as to how we were doing, physically and psychologically. It was a nice start. We wended our way through customs and immigration, and picked up the heavier half of our luggage. Two pieces were missing, and unfortunately one was Maika’s. She was quite upset, but rallied by the time we left baggage claim. Customs inspected my bike and our outdoor shoes and gave us the thumbs-up (they’re cautious about invasive species, so you have to clean everything quite thoroughly).

A short bus ride later, we arrived at the hotel where we’ll be in managed isolation for the next two weeks! The room is swankier than we’d anticipated – we’ve a two-room suite on the sixth floor, with a kitchenette and sweeping views of the amusement park across the street.

Quarantine so far is a somewhat dull and uneasy experience, and it’s intimidating to be looking forward to another twelve days of it. We’re not allowed into the hall unless we have a scheduled time in the yard, which most people spend speed-walking in long circles. The food is rather inconsistent, and it’s weird to have to wait for it to be delivered each mealtime. I spend a lot of time at the window. We have to keep the windows open as a general matter, but when we hear the knock for a health check or food delivery, we must close all the windows, don masks, and then we may open the door to the hall. We’re allowed to order one bottle of wine or six beers per adult per day (we have yet to avail ourselves of this privilege). Strange and boring, but in all seems quite a small price to pay for a life without COVID.

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