Traveling in the Time of COVID: Europe 2021

Galveston: preparing to leave

Traveling to Europe has always been fun and exciting for me, with occasional language barriers, but there have always been friendly locals helping me along. 

When we booked our tickets to Europe in the early summer, Europe had opened to all Americans, with some countries requiring either proof of vaccination OR a negative COVID test to enter. Then on August 26, with the US consistently posting over 100,000 cases of COVID/day, the EU met to discuss American tourists. On Monday, August 30^th, they stated vaccinated Americans were welcome if fully vaccinated and with a negative COVID test, but was dependent on each country to determine for themselves their risk tolerance. Many decided to shut their borders to us, which has adjusted our itinerary. COVID has created an agility course of hoops and hurdles to the normal preparation, and the Delta variant added some additional headaches. This trip will require a lot of patience and flexibility.

We will be starting in Germany, which requires proof of vaccination – check– and a negative PCR COVID test within 72 hours of arrival. The problem with this – it takes about 48 hours – give or take – to get results of a COVID PCR test, and its Labor Day Weekend. CVS reassured us that testing would be ongoing through the weekend, so we did our swabs on Saturday at 2:15PM, flight is 3:50 PM on Monday, with arrival in Germany at 7:30 AM on the 7^th. We cannot complete our “Digitale Einreiseanmeldung” (the passenger locator form so we can be traced throughout our stay in the country – almost all EU countries require their own upon entry) without uploading the test result. At the 44- hour point – still waiting on results. There does appear to be an option of a rapid antigen test upon arrival – but that could run about 100 euros each.

Packing is a more familiar challenge, we will be arriving in late summer, so afternoons are warm (Frankfurt is expecting a high of 81F (22C) on the 7^th) and evenings are cool (55F/13C). By late September, highs are expected in the 60’s in northern Europe and 70’s further south. Layers, and doing laundry every 5-7 days, is the plan. Since we plan to mainly travel by train, it also means carrying our luggage, sometimes several blocks. My packing list: Toiletries and meds, 3 regular t-shirts, 1 long sleeve t-shirt, 3 nicer short sleeve blouses, 2 medium weight sweaters, a zip up fleece, a turtleneck, a light weight sweater, my frumpy black cardigan sweater, a medium weight jacket, a scarf, gloves, 10 pair underwear, 2 bras, 10pair of socks, one skirt, one pair of shorts, one pair of blue jeans, a pair of khaki colored jeans, one pair of dress sandals, running shoes, beach sandals, bathing suit, and running clothes which consists of running shorts, running leggings, running bra, one tank style shirt, one short sleeved t-shirt, one long sleeved t-shirt, and a zip-up. The running clothes are packed around my guitar. The one plus of having a parlor sized guitar in a standard guitar case – additional space to tuck stuff. For luggage we have one large rolling duffel (32” long), one guitar with hard case (and back-pack attachment), one wheeled pilot’s bag, John’s little back-pack, and a tote bag which carries my book, purse, frumpy sweater and laptop. My travel music is in one 3-ring binder and downloaded on my laptop from GuitarTabs. 

Our bags are packed and we’re ready to go! First stop – Germany!

(In future posts I should have photos – Bluehost changed the format so only JPEG is accepted, and to convert my photos is doable, but more complicated than I want to deal with today. I have changed my iPhone settings so that all photos will save as JPEG and should not be an issue in the future – yes, go ahead and cue the laugh track)