trying to get to Taiwan

 

What a saga it's been trying to get to Taiwan! It took us six months to get a visa for my husband, and after zero cases from April to December 2020, the island had its first outbreak about a month before we were scheduled to move there. We booked our flight for July 5th so we could celebrate our daughter's birthday and the 4th of July with friends and family before leaving, and everything seemed great.

Then, three China Airlines pilots brought COVID to Taipei without quarantining properly, so Taiwan shut schools and businesses down for the first time. The travel ban was scheduled to end June 28th, so we figured we'd be okay for July 5th. Nope! 

The travel ban was extended to July 12th, so we changed our flight and notified our very kind landlord who has a furnished apartment waiting for us. We got a new flight for July 15th and were relieved to see cases drop quickly. Our plan was to quarantine for two weeks in our flat because it had two bathrooms (one per adult) (Taiwan's rules, not mine), BUT then the "Peruvian grandma" (a Taiwanese woman's nickname because she returned from Peru with a grandchild and brought the Delta variant to Taiwan while breaking her home quarantine) caused the Taiwanese government to cancel home quarantines/require hotel or facility quarantines and ruined it for all future travelers.

So, we were prepared to fly on Wednesday night around 1am, go to two separate hotel rooms because we're two adults (each with one child), and then do our 14-day quarantine where we would be delivered three meals a day-- and not be allowed to leave our rooms. But THEN, they extended the travel ban again, so now we've rented our house out, have a flat waiting for us halfway around the world, and can't go live there. 

So, we spent hours calling the airlines and hotels again today, changing everything to fly July 28th, and now, to top it all off, we'll be celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary separately in two hotel rooms while quarantining. 

I know these are all first-world problems, and maybe when we finally get to celebrate in person, it'll be sweeter because we'll miss each other more. :-)

So! Here's to looking on the bright side of things...