On the Road Again

And We’re Off

I’m sitting in an Uber on the way to the airport. After so long staying put, it feels weird and a little nerve wracking to be flying overseas.

My son Graham, is doing a semester for his Masters in International Business in Bergen, Norway. He is there on a student visa but the Norwegian borders are still closed to Canadians coming for tourism so we could not visit him in Norway during his reading week. Instead we are all flying to London and then from there flying on to Cyprus for a week  after which Graham returns to Norway. John then decided that the two of us would continue on to Jordan as it’s close to Cyprus before returning to London for a few days on our way back to Canada.

Keeping the Home Fires Burning

In preparing for this trip, I took care of coordinating pet and house care by arranging for a house sitter. I found an amazing person through the Housesitters Canada website.  There is no charge for the service- our housesitter, Marie, gets to stay for free in our house and in return looks after the pets and plants. Marie has done this all over the world and it is easy to tell that she really loves animals…even the leopard geckos.

Travel During Covid                                                                                                                                             

John planned the itinerary and went through copious amounts of paperwork and rules around the covid entry requirements for each country. Hopefully it will all work out. At the  check-in for our flight to London people were showing up without the mandatory UK passenger locator form. So they had to go off and start trying to complete the online application and hopefully get the QR code emailed back to them in time to catch the flight. For our trip we will have to get two PCR tests and one rapid antigen test as part of the various entry requirements.

It definately is different from the last time we traveled. The airport seems very quiet.

Horrifying Discovery

As we move quickly through security, I make a horrifying discovery…I left Bob (the rubber chicken) back at the house. This is the first trip he’s missed in over fifteen years.

We are flying Air Transat to London/Gatwick. The plane is an Airbus 321 NEO which means its a smaller plane with only one aisle with three seats on each side. It really doesn’t matter to me since I got up at 5:00am; henceforth will most likely sleep the whole way.

Let the adventure begin…