Covid Chronicles: Travel and MIQ Day 0

I write to you from managed isolation in Central Auckland. I’ll tell you exactly where later, just in case I say something that incriminates me or someone else. 

It is presently 4am and I cannot sleep. Apparently my new sleeping hours are from 9pm-2am, and that’s all I get. This could make the 8am walk (at run speed) more challenging that it ought to be. 

Perhaps I need to start putting myself to bed as I would a child – have a bath, have a bottle. Though of what exactly, I’ve yet to decide.

People have been asking me for weeks if I was excited about going home. I don’t think I’m much of a catastrophiser, but I had imagined every single possible scenario that would keep me from leaving Ireland or enjoying isolation – getting Covid myself, being a close contact, dying of covid before I could board the flight, flights delayed, flights cancelled, flights actually turning out to be a scam and no flights actually existed in the first place, plane going down in mid-air, bags ending up in Russia, being sent to a terrible hotel in Hamilton, and not being able to order anything good on Uber Eats. You know, genuinely terrible stuff. 

I basically forbade myself from admitting how desperately I just wanted to be home because then Murphy’s Law couldn’t come and take it away from me. I think, dear reader, you will realise how badly I wanted it from the sheer magnitude of things I imagined that could take it away. 

I was bracing myself for the worst possible scenario to happen at all points, because obviously that’s what happens when you dare to dream these days. Everything else that I thought would go one way in 2020 went completely a different nother other way, so why not this?

Perhaps in 2021, one can hope for the best again. 

I didn’t have even so much as a delayed flight. The whole thing was like clockwork. I couldn’t believe my luck! 

I have copious amounts of time on my hands and this week as been an ordeal, so there is probably more detail than there needs to be. In case you’re not so well-endowed in the time department this week, here’s the highlights reel:

• Jared dropped me off at the airport and I almost didn’t cry
• Sleep is for the weak
• Dubai has great sleep pods and you should use them
• 17 hours on a flight is too long
• MIQ staff are utterly amazing, as is NZ in general
• My hotel is pretty great – and it’s actually one I stayed in when I was 12 and in Auckland with World Vision.

Travel Day

(It was one giant long day for me, so it can be for you too)

Friends of ours had recently travelled and just been finishing their 2 weeks of isolation, so we had a delayed New Years/Farewell to celebrate the night before I left. Consequently both Jared and I were feeling a little worse for wear, having only crawled into bed at 3:30 am. I woke up about 7:30am, before our 8:45am alarm. The prosecco wasn’t sitting well with me, and I honestly feared that I might be sick. I downed half a cup of coffee and half a donut, and that was about as much as I could stomach. At 9:45 my ability to chill had evaporated, and I called a taxi. Jared had taken the day off of work so he could take me to the airport, which I thought was very sweet, so off we went. 

Jared and I headed to the airport on Friday morning, 8 Jan. My COVID test had come back negative, and this was very positive news (though I had to convince the lady checking me in to look at the paper work for it).

My travel agent had advised me to be at the airport 3 hours before my departure time, which seemed a bit excessive, but just in case they had *something* going on at the moment I decided I better abide by this hellishly early edict. 

It was rubbish. The place was a ghost town. There was absolutely no need to be that early – other than to check in and get a good seat – nor was there anywhere to buy a coffee or anything before security, so Jared walked me up to security and said our goodbyes. I had come carrying a banana in my hand, thinking that might help to settle my upset stomach – is it an upset stomach or is it actually hunger? 

I said goodbye to Jared, realised that carrying a banana through security would be ridiculous, turned around to find somewhere to eat it and realised that he was still there, waiting to wave me off. Just then an older lady who had just been farewelling her son walked past, bawling her eyes out. I had been fine up until this moment, but her tears triggered my tears, and I let a few slip. I awkwardly ate my banana while dabbing my cheeks, and Jared watched me with I’m-going-to-miss-you eyes. He is a remarkably selfless person, but I could see that his plan to make me happy was making him decidedly unhappy. He’ll be fine, that’s his modus operandi, but I think we will both struggle with being apart. 

I went through security in about 10 minutes, and was then through the other side with a full 2 hours to kill before departure. I meandered through the duty free sections, unsure if I could take alcohol through Dubai, unsure if I was allowed to bring alcohol into Managed Isolation (MIQ) or if it would be confiscated at the hotel. (Turns out it would have been fine. Argh!) Still having champagne swirling around in my stomach, I decided to leave the pink gin and chocolate Baileys safely where they were. 

I ventured into the book shop in search of a mindless magazine to tide me over the 36 hours of travel in my immediate future, where I’m always in this don’t-give-a-fuck malaise, and struggle to do anything of ‘value’ or ‘importance’ like my choleric brain tells me I should – write a blog post, edit my book, find a documentary to watch, read that book that’s been on my bedside table for a year. In a magnanimous act of self-compassion I decided to give myself a break and just get some crosswords instead, and a couple of National Geographics cos they’re pithy as well as pretty. 

I walked all the way to my gate, just to see how far away it was (quite far), and then came back to get a snack, at which point the departures screen flashed ‘boarding’ next to my flight. I hurriedly grabbed my snacks and went back to the gate. Utter lies. I found a corner, sheepishly de-masked and ate my chicken caesar wrap, but stashed the crisps for later. 

Soon, my flight was boarding. No delays, no extra covid tests, no Lauren you can’t get on your flight just because of [reasons]. They scanned my ticket, glanced at my passport – ‘Take your mask off so we can check it’s you please’ – and I made my way to my seat.

Flying Emirates was everything everyone said it would be. Luxury! Even in steerage. There was some social distancing, though maybe not two metres between everyone. I had a row to myself, and I was happy with that. 

I watched Radioactive – it is an excellent movie about Marie Curie, and rewatched The Personal History of David Copperfield, read, did some crosswords and made a point of moving around the plane as much as possible. The seven hours from Dublin to Dubai seemed interminable and I wondered to myself about how people must have survived the boredom of their 9 month sea voyages to New Zealand back in the 1800s. Humans do crazy things in the name of adventure. How the hell was I going to survive the seventeen hour leg from Dubai to Auckland? 

We arrived at Dubai at midnight local time, and I set about finding my Sleep n Fly sleep pod. After an hour of walking around the airport (always good to get some steps in!) I found it hidden underneath the escalator in the Duty Free section downstairs. Obviously. Why would you have visible sign posts? 

I always have those moments when I see a stereotype-looking person for the first time where my initial reaction is like seeing a new animal in a zoo – oooooh, aaaaah, do they really look like that in real life? There’s always a moment where my basic bitch rules the roost, before my inner educated person can catch up and remind me that actually Arabs in traditional dress exist, and this is fine, and you’re actually in their country, and you’re the freak here, not them. Besides, their clothing looks like it’d be so comfy and cool to wear, you should actually be a little bit jealous. 

I’m a hot sweaty mess just from walking up and down the terminal, something cool and comfy would be super right about now. They’re obviously onto something.

1:30 am local time (9:30pm Irish time) I crawl into my sleeping pod and make my nest. It’s small and no-frills, but cute and comfortable, about the size of your avertage toilet cubicle with a recliner that transforms into a bed. I eventually drift off to sleep somewhere around 3am (11pm Irish time), getting about 3 hours before my 6:30 alarm, my jacket and scarf proving sufficient bedding. I pack everything up, get changed, and head to find a morsel of food before my flight. 

I get to checking the departure times at around 7:30am, and there’s finally a gate listed, and it is at the other end of the airport and apparently my flight is already ‘boarding’, so I hightail it in that direction, only to once again find that it is nothing of the sort. There are an awful lot of people getting on this flight though! Maybe loads of them are getting off in Kuala Lumpur, where we have a brief refuel stopover?

No. The entire plane was full of kiwis, probably 150-200. All of them equally glad to have a haven to retreat to when the rest of the world is on fire. 

I did survive the seventeen hours (stopover time included) though I couldn’t really tell you what I did in that time. I only watched about 2 movies, but did listen to loads of podcasts, and do heaps of my crosswords. There were some periods of rest, but not very long. Maybe two hours of sleep on each leg? 

As we passed over Indonesia, there was a lot of turbulence, and the captain said they were changing course slightly to avoid a storm. Having now spent perhaps more time than I should have working out where I was in relation to where the tragic Jakarta airplane crash happened, I was somewhere over the Indian Ocean at the time, strapping in because there was a fair amount of turbulence happening for us as well. 

We had left Malaysia at sunset local time, and travelled through the night over Australia. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to chase dawn down, despite crossing so many time zones, but eventually it did break, when we were half-way across Australia. I internally leapt for joy when I saw we were again over water – the Tasman Sea! The home stretch. 

Finally, New Zealand came into view. The white sand beaches of the Bay of Islands first. Such a beautiful sight! I nearly cried. The sun was shining and everything was resplendent.

We touched down in Auckland, Biosecurity staff came on board and did some sort of spraying thing. Difficult to say if it was for pests or for COVID. 

While leaving the plane, I struck up a conversation with a girl who’d been across from me. She’d been living in Italy for the last 18 months, and decided it was time to come home for a bit, leaving her boyfriend and her job. 

“Wanna take bets on where we’ll end up?”

“The long haul flights usually stay in Auckland, people say.”

“It feels a little bit like coming back from a war zone doesn’t it?”

“Yea, like I feel a little bit like I have PTSD from the last year – constantly being reminded of death and disease, constantly reminded of your own mortality. ”

“There’s this constant fear that you have to make yourself live under, a level of vigilance that is just exhausting, isn’t it?”

“Yea, I lost my job about September and I’ve been living with my boyfriend and his family since. I felt so helpless.”

“I lost my job in September also. The family I was nannying for could see another lockdown on the horizon and didn’t want to pay me to sit at home. So I went sub teaching, but it was a bit fraught with everything going on, and I didn’t really want to become a super spreader.”

We were interrupted by an army officer who gave me a replacement mask – “Cloth masks are not up to standard, sorry. You need to put one of these on.”

“But mine has a filter?”

“Sorry, it’s policy. Everyone has to do it.” It’s kept me safe 9 months so far, but who am I to argue?

We went through customs, and were greeted with unusually chipper customs officers (No, don’t worry about that, I’ll lift that for you) who breezed us through. There were lots of ‘welcome home’ greetings from staff who could see the relief in our weary faces. 

Once we were through immigration and customs, we went through to the airport exit. I saw the whiteboard that someone else had warned me about, but it was blank and there was a woman hand writing down how many people were being sent where. A bus had just filled up and left with the first half of our flight. I was part of a new group being sent to a different hotel. They were very careful to write down our names, who was going where, for contact tracing purposes. In my head, I’m comparing Ireland’s poster bonanza, hand sanitiser stations everywhere, and we-trust-you-to-isolate-at-home attitude to Covid. New Zealand’s advantage seems to have been swift action and thorough enforcement. What could’ve been, Ireland.

Another girl I spoke to while waiting for the bus had been living in Leeds with her British boyfriend, and lost her job because of Covid. She complained about how hot it was inside Auckland airport. It’d been snowing in England and Ireland the day before we left.

The bus we boarded had a huge screen installed so that the driver was protected, and upon arrival to our hotel, we were instructed to come out of the bus in our bubbles. 

Then chastised because we were waiting in the aisle not in our seats and social distancing. The laxness of Ireland, and the rest of the world, has made us slip perhaps? 

The army officer called me down to identify my bags. While I was waiting for the Indian couple ahead of me to identify their bags, I said him, 

‘I bet this isn’t what you thought you’d be doing when you signed up for the Army huh?’

‘I’m defending my country from attack and working to keep New Zealanders safe. It’s exactly what I signed up for.’

‘Perhaps with a few less bullets though? Just as well we’ve amazing people such as yourself to keep us safe.’

There was a thoroughness, a diligence about everyone in the MIQ facility that has just been lacking from my life abroad. They thoroughly understood that the rest of the world is a scary place to be right now, and seemed glad to be part of a team that was helping people return to this beautiful Covid-free island paradise. Staff happily used hand sanitiser at every corner, wore masks properly, worked from behind screens. It was a beautiful fusion of professionalism, competence, empathy, care and efficiency. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder to be a Kiwi. 

‘I just need to check your payment eligibility for managed isolation. Have you left since 11 Aug? 

‘No, I’ve been gone for 2 years.’

‘Are you planning to stay for less than 90 days?’

‘No, more. I’ll be here until the end of April.’

‘That means you won’t be charged for managed isolation then. Do you have a NZ sim card?’

‘Not currently, no.’

‘Here’s a free one from 2degrees.’

So smooth, so easy, so painless. Everything from the welcome packs to the staff had this kind, competent vibe, and it was so reassuring. I picked my luggage out of a line up, and it was brought up to my room after me. The lift was called for me, so I didn’t have to touch anything, a bag of lunch was carefully passed to me by gloved hands, and I went to my top floor room.

I settled in, wiped down every surface with antibacterial wipes, and unpacked. At this stage I’m on 8 broken hours of sleep in the last 72. Not too bad, but definitely tired. I worked out how to get 2 sims into my phone, and called Jared, as I knew he’d be anxious to hear from me, even though it was 2am Irish time. I had been texting him while I got my NZ SIM and WiFi figured out.

Jared was very relieved to know that I’d arrived safely, and he had called my mum to reassure her that I was safe and sound. He had put on social media that I had arrived and should be pestered accordingly, and so I had messages from a host of lovely people as I settled in. 

I clawed my way to 8pm, and settled in for a long beautiful catch-up sleep. 

Day 0 done.