So, it was only a matter of time before I addressed this pandemic happening around the world, you can only avoid it for so long. And let me just preface this whole thing by saying to those who messaged any of us: thank you so much for your concern and the amount of love you truly have for us in trying to let us know information whenever you had it. This is not to knock any of you for trying to relay information to us or for worrying, this is just my perspective of our unique experience in trying to navigate through this weird, surreal time while being far removed from it and how I felt while it was going on. I love you all so much!! When I first heard about how serious it was getting myself, Lara, Christine, and Blair were in Iceland and completely oblivious to just how bad the situation was becoming. I know at least I thought everyone was exaggerating.
Blair especially would be getting phone calls, always at 2am Iceland time (10pm back home), that were just more scary and overwhelming than anything and people were texting me left and right saying we couldn't come home....but weren't giving me any articles or information where this was stated. Which was stressful. Every time I would reassure somebody that it didn't effect US citizens, they would tell me that Trump said it does now, but I couldn't find that information anywhere. Turns out they jumped the gun and misunderstood what was being said. That literally happened to all 4 of us over the span of 2 or 3 days. It was stressful because we couldn't always check anything especially when we didn't have wi-fi and we really had no way of contacting anyone about it since long distance calls would have been pricey. Sometimes we would come back from hiking or some other excursion where we didn't have wi-fi/weren't checking our phones, and someone's messages had just exploded. Between jobs, family, and friends messaging us, at least one of us was going crazy once a day. When I asked people to please find out more or to go to the airport back home to let me know what they say since every place was being very vague and careful with the info on their websites and social media and every one calling or texting us wanted concrete answers from us about things we literally couldn't get more information on. But literally no one came through on it.
Then we tried contacting airlines/airports through the phone and social media, as Icelandic Air recommended that we do, to no avail. No one even read our Facebook messenger concerns after they had been sent days ago. Lara wanted to switch her flight at one point and stay longer, leaving with me on the 17th instead of the 14th, we were on hold with Icelandic air for almost 2 hours when we gave up. When Lara got to the airport for her flight, she found out that Iceland Air isn't even taking phone calls, everything must be done in person at the kiosks in the airport, but couldn't be bothered to put a pre-recorded message on the phone line you call and no update about this protocol on social media or when messaging them on Facebook (which was considered the "best" way to reach them). For people trying to figure out if they can get home or not, this must have been driving them bonkers. Just the lack of information everywhere.
So we just kind of ignored it. And honestly we thought everyone was just going crazy for no reason. It is so hard to grasp the enormity of a situation when you're not in the middle of it. Panic hadn't yet reached Iceland and it was still business as usual there. We also didn't have access to TVs for most of the trip and when we did it was in Icelandic, and when we had wi-fi we were mostly updating people about our trip and winding down for bed, so no constant news updates. Nothing was closed down, no notices in windows, everyone milling about not concerned for personal space past the norms, masks weren't a common sight, and everything was really just...normal. We joked when I had to buy pads at one point while there- "who knows if I'll be able to get these back home, better get the big pack" hardy-har-har. I even called my mom and asked if she needed anything from their grocery stores since I had heard that there was nothing left on the shelves. The girls and I joked a lot about it and about being stuck in Iceland, but the reality was that we really could have. I think that we were very lucky.
On our last full day there we started noticing that things were changing. Masks were more abundant, The volcano museum we wanted to check out was closed, there were signs put up on signboards in the middle of streets about COVID-19, and there were now signs in shop windows about staying 6ft away from other shoppers. Again we chuckled "yeah, like that would happen, look at the size of this store," we didn't yet know that this was common practice everywhere else. When we got to the airport it was a weird feeling, but not even right away. We gathered in a large group waiting for the service desk to open so we could check luggage, lines moved pretty quickly and people were wearing masks, but not even as many as we thought there would be for how much "hype" this was getting, and no employees in the shops were wearing them or anything.
It was when we looked at the flight boards that it sank in for me. There were so many cancelled flights, Lara and I were extremely lucky that we were going through JFK, as no flights through there had been cancelled. It was when I got to JFK that everything was different. When we landed we had our temperatures taken as we exited the plane and also had to fill out a travel sheet about where we had been and if we had any symptoms, which we turned into the CDC agents that were taking our temperatures. EVERYONE working here was wearing masks...and gloves and many passengers were abiding by the unspoken mask rule and some even had gloves on as well. When I got home my mom wouldn't hug me when she picked me up, which was definitely weird for me, and was telling me about everything that happened since I was gone. Now I have been quarantined for a little over two weeks and finally went out to do some shopping yesterday. I grabbed groceries, making sure to stay one cart length away, and when I went into Petco I was greeted right away and asked what I was shopping for. I'm not sure if they were going to grab it for me or not as I was picking up an online order, but it felt very odd. But I guess odd is our new normal. Speaking of normalcy, I start back at my delivery job tomorrow, I'm wondering how much that has changed since I left.
Comments