Visiting family during the pandemic
Nov. 16th, 2021 08:36 pmI am now back from visiting Scotland for a few weeks, helping ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mst3kmoxie and our children to move house. It had been just about a year since I had last seen them. I loved getting to be with them and help out. It is strange to adjust now to being without them again, not even in a welcoming house yet, given the work that still needs done here. I know this path is right for the longer term but it's not easy in the meantime. Coming back home, waiting for my connection in Atlanta, I changed my cash, payment cards, driver license, etc., in my wallet. It felt oddly like changing identity and, on reflection, that's hardly false. My life here is very different and separate to that in Scotland. On a different note, the lined ceiling at the gates in Schiphol made me feel slightly like Max Headroom when I looked at myself on a video call there.
Travel in the times of SARS-CoV-2 was interesting. With my connection at Schiphol, outbound I thought that I might need a health declaration form for the Netherlands. No, but I needed one on my return where I had also, just a couple of days ago, printed an
My first impression of Perthshire was that I had forgotten how pretty it is. First impression back in Knoxville were that I'd forgotten how the drivers at the speed limit are well into the lower quartile of speeds. Mask-wearing was imperfect in Dundee, even among staff in establishments requiring it, but then, when I shopped for groceries on return to Oak Ridge, I found that I was now just about the only person still wearing a mask. For the travel, I used FFP2's which felt as if they worked well.
mst3kmoxie and our children to move house. It had been just about a year since I had last seen them. I loved getting to be with them and help out. It is strange to adjust now to being without them again, not even in a welcoming house yet, given the work that still needs done here. I know this path is right for the longer term but it's not easy in the meantime. Coming back home, waiting for my connection in Atlanta, I changed my cash, payment cards, driver license, etc., in my wallet. It felt oddly like changing identity and, on reflection, that's hardly false. My life here is very different and separate to that in Scotland. On a different note, the lined ceiling at the gates in Schiphol made me feel slightly like Max Headroom when I looked at myself on a video call there.Travel in the times of SARS-CoV-2 was interesting. With my connection at Schiphol, outbound I thought that I might need a health declaration form for the Netherlands. No, but I needed one on my return where I had also, just a couple of days ago, printed an
old versionof the passenger attestation form for the US. Similarly inconsistently, the domestic Delta flights started with providing me a santizing wipe but the long-haul didn't. To my surprise, on returning to the US, no longer did I have to provide a customs declaration form (electronic or paper) to someone after passport control, instead the passport guy asked me a little about what I'd brought, then that was it, apart from those randomly pulled aside later. It's always annoying to have a international-to-domestic US-side connection as, at least in my limited experience, one has to fuss with one's checked baggage and pass through security again. The UK wanted me to be tested for COVID-19 after arrival, the US before departure, so I did both tests during my visit. I have another test coming up soon, my employer was happy to provide me one because of my travel.
My first impression of Perthshire was that I had forgotten how pretty it is. First impression back in Knoxville were that I'd forgotten how the drivers at the speed limit are well into the lower quartile of speeds. Mask-wearing was imperfect in Dundee, even among staff in establishments requiring it, but then, when I shopped for groceries on return to Oak Ridge, I found that I was now just about the only person still wearing a mask. For the travel, I used FFP2's which felt as if they worked well.
