Home, Kinda

We had been traveling for days to get home and even though it had been uneventful I think we were still sort of feeling hyped up from the anxiety of transitioning home. You never knew when a flight would be cancelled or you might be denied boarding due to new restrictions. Check in counter service staff were continually being handed print outs of the latest updates and we were probably holding our breath a bit without even really being aware of it. It was all such a weird experience. Driving home through the quiet city streets felt slightly eerie.

We arrived at my mom and dad’s place. They have a code lock so we hadn’t had to arrange to get a key. It was exciting to unpack our bags, do laundry and settle in. We even had groceries in the fridge thank to my cousin. She had gone out and grabbed some essentials for us which were badly needed. My parents were completely unprepared. This was surprising because I remember my dad stocking up on everything for Y2K. He and my brother are the type to be over prepared, but not this time. The cupboards were actually pretty bare. Luckily my aunt was happy to be our personal shopper over the next few weeks. We had arrived home on the Tuesday and my folks arrived home on Friday, so we started our 14 day isolation count again.

Rental Situation

Now to our home situation. We were so absolutely lucky with the wonderful young woman who rented our home. She had been a dream tenant. In our efforts to get back to Canada we really had not had time to stop and think about the fact that we had no home to go to. We knew we could crash with my family and that’s as far as we had gone in terms of thinking about a roof over our heads. So we were caught off guard when a few days after arriving in Edmonton we got a call from her explaining that she had just been laid off. This was to be expected, but like I said, we had not had time to think about much more than just getting ourselves back onto Canadian coil. Her company wanted to know if we would be interested in breaking the lease. She would return to Calgary and we would move back into our home.

We both looked at each other and shook our heads with wide eyes. Neither of us wanted to jump back into our mortgage and all of our bills and insurance when we had been planning on living on a budget suited to a developing country for the next 3 months. As naive as it sounds we were also trying to remain optimistic and thought that just maybe we might be able to get out east to see Andre’s parents before our leaves were up. Or, maybe even go to the west to visit a friend in Victoria and take his camper for a short trip. We wanted to keep our options open.

Our tenant was also not keen on packing up and moving back to Calgary. She had just returned from Mexico and had symptoms. She had gone for a test and was waiting for the results. She was in no position to pack up and transport herself back to Calgary without help. We were all slightly stressed out. We asked her to contact her work and explain the situation. They were the ones paying the rent so it would ultimately be up to them, but it was worth discussing to see if we could come to some arrangement. Go team!

Her company agreed to have her stay in Edmonton for another month. They would pay the rent for April and reassess their situation in a few weeks. We would have a month to see where things stood for her. In the meantime her result came back negative, which was a big relief.

Things That Feel Odd Now

After 265 days of travel there are so many comforts of home that feel strange now, so many things that are just a given part of our daily lives that we hadn’t had in a long time.

Water

Drinking it from the tap. Having access to ice cubes and being able to use them without concern. Brushing my teeth with tap water rather than bottled water. Having a shower and not having to keep my mouth closed. I have this thing I do. I like to open my mouth in the shower and have the water hit my teeth. Andre makes fun of this and thinks it’s unusual. Whatever. I’m sure lots of people do this and he’s the weird one. I’ve always done it and it was something I had to be very mindful of while traveling.

Showers

Showers with great water pressure and consistent temperature. Showers where I am not rushing because I am anticipating the hot water running out, or the water running out entirely. Taking a shower with a shower head attached to the wall where water isn’t spraying everywhere. Enough space to move around and places to put your shampoo and body wash. Oh, and a glass door shower. I do not miss the feeling of a shower curtain clinging to my body. I actual preferred the many times that there was no damp curtain to dodge. 

Toilet Paper

Just having toilet paper. Especially after reading all the news reports about people panic buying and the shelves of stores being bare. Charmin toilet paper. Flushing toilet paper rather than tossing it into a waste bin. It’s a real treat to have TP at my fingertips. I’m treating it like gold.

Temperature Control

It’s awesome to be in a home with heating and cooling and be able to control the temperature of your environment. No old air conditioning systems spewing out who knows what. No sleepless nights due to unrelenting heat.

Food

Being able to cook for ourselves. Having control over what we are putting into our bodies. Eating out gets old fast and it’s not the most healthy. It’s been so nice making our own simple dishes. Having a fridge and being able to have a little snack here and there. Not thinking about food safety and what choices are less likely to make me sick due to food storage and handling.

A Wardrobe

Having access to all my clothes and footwear. It’s exciting to have choices even if my new look is basically some version of this photo with greasier hair.

Being able to hang up and organize my things without rifling through packing cubes.

 

Laundry

Being able to do laundry any time. Not having to pack up dirty clothes and take them to a laundry service. Being able to put clothes in the dryer rather than drying them in the sun, causing them to bleach out unevenly.

Connectivity

Having good and reliable electricity, TV, and internet. No blackouts or brownouts. Being able to use my phone and internet without issue. Watching movies on a big screen television rather than a tiny iPad.

Living Space

Multiple rooms! Being able to exist in more than one space. Not having to share a bathroom!

Sleeping

Having a great sleep on a magical mattress. Access to as many blankets as I want. Pillows. So many pillows. Dreamy perfectly plump pillows. No waking up to roosters at the crack of dawn, or before the crack of down.

Driving

Being in control of a motor vehicle. Not having to put my life in the hands of crazy cabbies or tuktuk drivers. Freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want… hypothetically. I’m sure eventually I’ll be able to go somewhere.

Confinement

Being housebound. Not being able to see friends and family that we had been eagerly anticipating spending time with. This was the hardest. For over eight months we had been away, out of touch, and without our normal routines and now we had to live in that same reality but at home. It was depressing. I know everyone finds isolation difficult and we were lucky to be with my mom and dad. It’s nice to have the company of other people. I can’t imagine being totally on my own at this time. Well, I guess I can. I lived overseas long enough, and when you move somewhere new and don’t know anyone you spend a lot of time alone until you develop friendships. I am no stranger to solitary living, but when I first moved to Australia I could leave my home and keep myself busy, and the world around me was so incredibly beautiful.

Keeping Busy

Andre and I had both taken a year off. Andre’s back to work start date wasn’t until July 6th and if I decided to go back into teaching (something I did not want to do) then I wouldn’t be working until September. Correction, I should say I wouldn’t be getting paid until September. If I took a class I’d be in and out of the school all summer preparing. I contacted the school board shortly after returning home to see if they needed anyone to hep assist teachers with developing and delivering their online content. I had always used a lot of tech in my teaching and knew many teachers could use help, but they said there was nothing for me currently and to apply out for the new year. So we both had plenty of time on our hands considering we were unemployed and not in our own place with our own home projects to work on.

The first thing we got into was sorting through all the things we had boxed up from home and stored at my parent’s house. We needed warmer clothes which were all packed up so we started with those boxes and then basically just went through the others for fun to see if there was anything in them we had missed. It was quite fun. A bit like Christmas. You forget about the things you have when you’ve been gone for any length of time. We stretched that make work task out over a few days. What next?

The weather in Edmonton was fairly crap, as expected. I wasn’t overly tempted to venture outdoors. Andre was determined to get the back deck cleared off so that as soon as a warm day arrived we could make the most of it. The snow was piled a good three feet high and he set to work breaking it up and slinging it onto the paved area below. I decided to help. And by help I mean build a fort. I would collect the big chunks of snow and use them to build my walls. Over the course of a few days the deck got cleared and my fort was as big as it was going to get. Andre turned it into his isolation pub.

Anyone who knows me well knows I love to organize stuff. I love to live in an organized space. Everything has a place in our home. I used to get teased by friends because I liked everything just so. The way a frame was angled, how all my canned goods were stacked like a grocery store shelf. I would notice any changes and there were many times over the years where friends would enjoy moving things just to watch me manically going around fixing them. My mom does not suffer from this affliction. She doesn’t like to part with things and there doesn’t need to be any kind of logic behind where things live. She has many many wonderful traits and is an amazing lady, but the clutter drives me insane. So… first I attacked the kitchen. I went through every cupboard and drawer rearranging things and tossing things out. Many things got put into donation piles. We had a fun little game with one pile of items. I called the game “What the Hell is This?” and we played it as a family. Even my father got involved and he only knows how to use a few buttons on a microwave. For a good 30 minutes we would guess at what certain items were designed for and if that item had in fact ever been used. My mom can’t say no to any kind of “party” and had various things that were still in their packages. The best part of the game is that my mother actually didn’t know what some of the items were for. It was great.

Over the next few weeks I went through every inch of the house, excluding my father’s office and their bedroom, and culled and rearranged. I threw out so many things (more than one telephone book) and sorted through many others. How many Christmas cards does a person need? The answer is “Things You Shouldn’t Ask My Mother, for 500 Alex”. Not just Christmas cards, cards for any occasion, she had them. So if an event goes by and you don’t get a card from my mother then she really doesn’t like you. I’m kidding, I’m only writing this because I can actually visualize her reaction as she reads this and it fills me with joy. Sorry mom. I love you.

A good portion of space downstairs now houses bags and boxes for Goodwill and the Recycle Station. It was very satisfying. She was a good sport even though I was causing her anxiety. Every time I went to ask her about something her knee jerk response became a gasping, “Don’t throw that out!” which made me break into laughter.

I felt a little bit like Allison Janney.

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After I was finished torturing my mother I got a hot tip from my friend Justine that many universities were offering free courses online. I signed up for the Science of Well-Being by Yale. It was excellent. Highly recommend.

I also did a little online shopping for some retail therapy. That was highly unsuccessful and now I’m stuck with a bunch of crap I have to return when the stores reopen.

I tried to continue blogging. I still had several stops in India to write about. I managed to get Hyderabad and Hampi finished but it was a struggle. I was terribly unmotivated and lacked concentration.

Netflix and Crave became my go to activity. Sometimes I’d walk on the treadmill while watching programs but mostly I ate and drank. By 4pm we were usually all enjoying a Caesar. We watched a lot of stand-up. Lots of Dave Chappelle’s old stuff. He’s one of our favorites. If you like comedy you should check out some of the following:

Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby

Nate Bergatze: The Tennessee Kid

Ryan Hamilton : Happy Face

Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia

Ali Wong: Baby Cobra

John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City

Can’t Complain

It was a definite downer ending our adventure 100 days early and returning to Edmonton to be under what felt like house arrest, minus the snazzy ankle bracelet, but we couldn’t feel too sad because we knew full well how lucky we were to have made it home safely. At times our race to get home felt a bit like outrunning huge falling domino pieces. We flew out of Amman Jordan and the following day the airport closed. We flew out of London right as the US began banning flights from the UK. Luckily our flight home went directly to Canada. My brother kept texting me flight updates he was reading about and case numbers. Flying into Toronto he sent a message that Edmonton’s airport was now closed and they were rerouting flights to Calgary. I have learned that even my brother, with the best intentions, doesn’t always get the facts quite right so I looked this up before stressing out. No. Domestic flights were still arriving in Edmonton. I gave him a bit of shit for freaking me out. We had no major delays and no cancelled flights. We were very lucky.

I had been thinking of all of our traveling friends from around the world and messaging them to check in. The couch surfing grandmother and granddaughter we had met in Cambodia were stuck in Guatemala. They had tried to get home to Norway through Belize but that was a no go. So they then attempted to get home via Cancun, Mexico and then from Cuba to Grimstad, which eventually worked out. An Australian friend from Sydney had been in the Philippines with another friend. They had flights cancelled and eventually found a way home, but making the flight meant leaving their belongings behind, including their surf boards. It wasn’t even a question. They were making the flight. Ruthi and Hamer had been trekking in Nepal when things got wild. They had made it to Everest Base Camp from Lukla in 7 days only to hear about all the boarder closures and rush back down in a swift 72 hours. They immediately booked a flight for the 21st but a few days later they learned the airport in Nepal would be closing on the 20th. I watched their struggle to get back to the United States through Instagram stories and eventually they made it, but it wasn’t easy.

I wondered what had become of the ladies we had just met in Jordan who were on a package tour and had no plans to return home early. I was certain they would have been stranded. Five days after we left Jordan the government declared a state of emergency and the Prime Minister imposed a mandatory curfew.

Jordanian Armed Forces guarding a hotel used as a quarantine site in Amman, Jordan. 18 March 2020.

© 2020 Roya News

The army was deployed in cities. Everything was shut down. There was a driving ban and limited movement by foot from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for people to shop before the stay at home night curfew started. Basically we would have been confined to our hotel room had we not been able to fly out in time. We also would have been dependent on others for all of our meals. Our room didn’t even have a mini fridge.

On the day we landed in Edmonton the Taj Mahal closed in order to combat the spread of COVID-19 as did many historical sites around India and around the world. We had been expecting that and it reinforced that we had made the right decision to bail out while we could. By our second week of isolation the world was a very different place and we were grateful to be back in Canada.

The Numbers

With all this free time I’ve had the opportunity to look back on our travels and tally up some numbers. In 265 days We traveled through 16 countries: France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, and Jordan. Within these countries we toured 58 places. That averages out to moving locations roughly every four and a half days.

For transportation we took 22 flights, around 25 buses, a dozen trains, a dozen ferries, around 15 taxis, and countless tuktuks.

After editing and deleting tons of pictures along the way, I am left with 6,248 photos and hundreds of snippets of video. I am so thankful that I blogged and was able to keep fairly on top of these things. There is no way I’d mentally be prepared to sort through all this media now. It would be completely overwhelming.

The numbers have now switched from the days into our travel to the days we’ve been at home. So let’s start the new count.

 

18 days home and housebound…

Quarantine complete. Let’s go to the grocery store!