Going home during a global pandemic
The time had come, after two years of living in France, to go to home to Canada. We wanted our departure to be as low stress as possible and so planned it out months in advance. While the girls wrapped up their school year, H and I would pack and deal with all the logistics of moving: packing, giving up the apartment, closing bank accounts, cancelling cell phones, boiler contracts and utilities. Once the heavy lifting was done, we thought we would put our luggage in storage and head out on one last carefree adventure, perhaps a week in Greece. Then we would come back to Paris, spend one or two nights in a hotel to say good-bye to friends and to the city we had come to love. We would gather our luggage, go the airport, and fly home. Our flights were booked well in advance. All was good.
As was the case for so many others on the planet, the global Covid-19 pandemic threw our plans into disarray and made every step along the way home more complicated than we had ever imagined.
H started worrying about the logistics of our homecoming about three months in advance of when we’d planned to leave. Every morning he would check the status of our flights to see if they had yet been cancelled. He knew which airports were open to international travel, which borders were open or closed and he obsessively read the news to understand the daily, global changes that would ultimately affect our ability to depart France and arrive in Canada.
There were so many open questions that it made our heads spin. For example, would our tickets be cancelled and if they were, would the airlines rebook us or force us to buy new ones? Flight prices were going through the roof and at one point H estimated it would cost us $35,000 to replace our tickets. We needed to give one month’s notice to vacate our apartment but with things changing daily we were afraid of finding that we could not fly home and ending up homeless in Paris, with the hotels closed. The health crisis was frightening and it seemed like everyone was telling us to come home as soon as possible but in Paris it looked as though the girls might get to go back to in-person school. If we left immediately, not only would we give up the chance to go back to school but the difference in time zones would mean the girls could not even participate in the online school they had. Would things like travel, restaurants and museums open up before the summer and would we have the opportunity to create some last positive memories before leaving France? H was less concerned about this as his mind was on getting us home but for me, I desperately hoped that we could have one or two more adventures before saying goodbye so that our last memories of France would not be of confinement and fear.
Canada had imposed a two-week quarantine for all international travellers arriving into the country. We had originally planned to arrive home one week before H started work but realized now that we needed to be home two weeks in advance. The airlines would not allow us to change our flights without paying massive fees. They told us to be patient, wait to see if our flights would be cancelled (all evidence pointed to the likelihood that they would be) and then they would rebook us without charging additional fees. H continued to check the daily cancellations and we waited.
For logistical reasons related to H’s need to travel back and forth for work over the past year, the girls and I were travelling home separately from him. This meant that the checking, worrying, scheduling and rebooking tasks were doubled. Eventually we got word that mine and the girls’ flight was cancelled. We decided to gamble that the same would eventually happen for H and rebooked ourselves with new dates and a new routing that would take us from Paris to London to Seattle and on to Calgary. It was going to be a long day but, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers. Eventually H’s flight was cancelled too and he was able to rebook his flight to leave within a few hours of us going from Paris to Amsterdam and then to Calgary. We felt better with this certainty under our belt. Little did we know that there were more changes coming our way.
With travel dates booked, we turned our attention to winding up our apartment lease. Michelle, the agent who had helped us find our apartment and was assisting with the complicated process of giving it up, explained to us that it would be our responsibility to leave the place in perfect condition and anything less than that would result in the landlord withholding massive amounts of our significant damage deposit. What did perfect condition mean? A pristine cleaning including dusting the baseboards, and the all the moldings on the walls and very high ceilings; windows cleaned inside and out; all the sheets and towels washed and ironed; every item of cutlery, dish, decorative item and cushion inventoried and replaced if necessary; oven and all other appliances spotless; the grout in the kitchen and bathrooms clean, fresh silicone, and zero marks on the walls, floors or furniture. Of course, if damage existed before we took possession AND we had documentation to prove it, it was not our responsibility. Unfortunately, the person who took possession of the apartment on our behalf did not record any of the deficiencies and so we had to return the apartment as though it was brand new and in perfect condition. We shopped around to replace the odd broken cups and bowls. H became an expert in home improvement and the French vocabulary for cleaning supplies, tools and parts. If you need to know how to whiten grout, apply silicone, super clean toilets with years of hard water stains, repair gouges out of French plaster, clean an oven with years of buildup, or patch painted surfaces with your daughters acrylic paints, H is the man to ask.
In the meantime, I took the lead on packing. We had managed to accumulate a few things over our two years in France but shipping items home had become complicated because of Covid. We did not have enough things to justify a shipping container but there was a service called Send My Bag that would allow us to ship a box or suitcase home. The problem was that we would have to personally pick up the bag at the airport within two days of its arrival. We could not do that because of quarantine so it was possible that they would send the bag back to France. We decided it was not worth the risk and the shipping cost was about the same as paying for extra luggage on our flights. We decided to travel with everything we owned. In the end we had 14 pieces of luggage: suitcases, hockey bags and duffels, plus our carryon suitcases and a backpack for each of us. We had a luggage scale at home and made sure that every bag was within 100 grams of their limit. This involved much packing and repacking. The heaviest things like books, the Staub pot and some French flour went into our carry-ons. In the end, there was not an inch or a gram left to spare.
About a month before departure we received a message saying that the girls flight and mine had been cancelled again. After a long discussion with the airline, we got new reservations on flights that would take us from Paris to Dallas to Calgary. All of the stories in the news were about how Covid-19 was running rampant in the USA and the hotspot was Texas. To this point, my concerns had centered on the logistics of wrapping up life in Paris. Now I started to worry about the actual voyage home and how I would keep the girls and myself safe on the flights and during the layover in a toxic airport.
Our time in France was coming to an end. Our flights were departing at 11AM the next day. Including carry-ons, we had 14 pieces of luggage between 50lbs and 70lbs all of which needed to be carried down a flight of stairs to the street level and then loaded into a taxi. Due to Covid restrictions, the taxi drivers would not be allowed to touch our luggage. We worried about starting an epically stressful day of travel with 700lbs luggage in and out of taxis and decided that we should spend the night before our flight in an airport hotel. This is when we learned that nothing about travelling during a global pandemic was simple: the only hotel in the airport was closed so we booked a room in a hotel 5 minutes from the airport; the bellmen would not be allowed to touch our luggage and the normally available option of the hotel storing the bags was not available; the hotel would allow us to put the bags on luggage carts and keep them in our room overnight but the room was not large enough for us and the bags so we would have to book an additional room; the hotel shuttle was not running so we would have to book private transport for us and our bags on the morning of the flight. In the end, it was still less stressful than staying in our apartment and having to deal with everything on the last morning so we booked it.
Our last day in Paris finally arrived. Our bags were packed and stacked around the apartment like a fortification wall. The apartment itself was in tip-top condition and professional cleaners were booked to give it a final polish before the inspection. Michelle, our agent, would be there to meet the bailiff and landlord’s agent and hopefully secure our damage deposit. Our two taxi vans were booked to arrive at 5PM and a dear friend promised to arrive in time to help us bring all of our luggage downstairs.
We had worked hard to get everything done so we could spend a pleasant last day in the city. We had a lunch reservation at Monsieur Bleu – a restaurant with a magical terrace looking out to the Eiffel Tower. H and I had dined there on our original reconnaissance trip and I had taken the girls there for Sophia’s 12th birthday dinner. We had a glorious lunch and were feeling celebratory and nostalgic at the same time: the stress of preparing to leave Paris was behind us and all we had to do was get through the travel and we would be home, ready to begin life again in Canada. After lunch we walked along the Seine to take the girls’ photo at the Place du Canada: a spot we had discovered two years previous and we thought it would be fun to take the same photo again to mark the changes in the girls in the time we had been in France. As we arrived at the spot my cell phone rang: it was the airline asking if the girls and I had American citizenship or some kind of documentation that would allow us to travel to the USA. H explained that as Canadians we were not required to have visas for the US and that we were not staying in the country but simply passing through on our way home to Canada. They suggested we call the American Embassy because according to the information they had, we would not be allowed to board tomorrow’s flight. The taxis were scheduled to arrive in 4 hours. We turned around to power walk home, our sense of celebration gone as the worst case travel scenario played out. H called the American Embassy but they offered zero information, concern or assistance in our predicament.
Back in the apartment we called the Canadian Embassy and left a message on their emergency line. I started looking at flight options online and H called the American Express travel service available through our credit card. While H was on with the travel agent, the Canadian Embassy called me back. They confirmed that, as Canadians, we should be allowed to transit through the USA but said they would call their contacts and confirm. While waiting for the return phone call we considered our options: we could take our chances at the airport the next day; we could buy new tickets to go home; we could let H fly home as planned and the girls and I could relocate to a friends vacant apartment that they had offered us and book more reasonably priced flights for a few weeks from now. H had reached his limit. He had been stressing about this possibility for months and had bourn the brunt of worrying about how to get us home. He could not imagine flying back without us and living with the uncertainty of how we would get back. He told the Amex travel agent to book us tickets to go home the next day. We got flights from Paris to Montreal to Calgary. Interestingly, premium economy was cheaper than economy so we got ourselves three tickets leaving about the same time as our original plans. The American Express agent was kind, calming and reassuring. She told H about a promotion they had available and encouraged him to check it out once back home and his blood pressure had returned to normal. It allowed us to use our points at a special rate to pay for the tickets. In the end, we managed to cover the price of one of our tickets home with all of our points. The next day, two hours before our original flights were scheduled to depart, the Canadian Embassy called us back. We would not have been allowed to board our original flight: days earlier, in response to Europe banning US travelers, the Trump administration had declared that European travellers would not be allowed to transit through the USA. Ironic, given that the pandemic in the USA was markedly worse than in Europe. Thank goodness H had booked us new flights home.
We brought our last bottle of French wine to the hotel that night. After the stress of the day, and surrounded by our luggage, H and I had a glass. I felt better about going home through Montreal and not having to deal with US customs and spending hours in an airport that was considered a global Covid-19 hotspot. H said he would not relax until he knew all of us were on our flights. They would be taking our temperatures before flying, we had a ridiculous amount of luggage, our carry-ons were severely overweight and there were still things that could go wrong.
The day of departure we were able to take our time in the morning to shower and get ready for our day. There was no space left in our luggage. We tucked anything important into our carry-ons and threw old pajamas, toothbrushes and mostly empty toiletries into the garbage at the hotel. We managed to get all of our bags onto three luggage carts and Mavis was in charge of rolling two carry-ons. We got H checked in and ready to go but he had to leave us in the line-up for our flight with our huge stack of luggage. We kissed him good-bye and said we’d meet him on the other side. Boarding our flight, they took our temperatures and I remembered that I had forgotten to take the Tylenol that H had suggested. When they took Mavis’s temperature the flight attendant said, “Whew, she’s right at the limit”. Thankfully, she wasn’t over the limit and we got on board. The three of us had the premium economy section all to ourselves, save for one other person. Air Canada gave us a bagged lunch and came through every hour or so to offer us another bottle of water. By the end of the flight, I had an embarrassing stack of mini-water bottles beside me.
We had to go through customs in Montreal and normally would not have to retrieve our bags but I was travelling with our collection of French wines that we were bringing home and when you have something to declare the airlines are obligated to see the bags. The airport was almost empty and there were more customs agents than passengers. The kindest customs agent I’ve ever met overheard me talking about the wine and about the number of bags that I was travelling with. He pulled me from the line over to his own station. He chatted Harry Potter trivia with the girls while asking me pointed questions that would allow him to not pull our bags out and force me to re-check them. He took my word for how much booze I had and what it was worth and he charged me the duty and sent us on our way. I did not have to retrieve, stack, carry and re-check all of my bags. I was so happy to be among Canadians again.
Worried about the temperature checks, and without the planned Tylonel in my bag, before boarding our next flight, I bought Mavis a very cold bottle of water, which she held close to her chest. I don’t know if it was helpful but we boarded our next flight without incident and jetted our way back to Calgary.
We arrived in Calgary about 1.5 hours before H. My dad met us at the airport and we loaded a ton of luggage into the back of his car. We could not hug him or ride home with him but it was still good to see him there. The girls and I went home in a taxi and with incredible relief, as soon as we arrived, we took off our masks. We had been wearing a mask for almost 21 hours straight.
My parents had been to our house earlier that day to drop off groceries for us and there was a basket of freshly baked scones too. The girls were too tired to eat and just wanted to go to bed but first they had to shed their travel clothes and have a quick shower to get rid of any virus that might have clung to us from our travels. I waited for H to get home and then did the same. We all slept well that night.
It was surreal to wake up in our home the next morning. We were quarantined there for the next 14 days: actually an ideal way to return home after two years away. My dad dropped our luggage off in the garage and I took my time bringing it in, one piece at a time, and putting away our things. We had set up a local grocery delivery service to bring us fresh produce and supplies. My parents had done a curbside pick-up from the Italian Market before our arrival. H had pre-ordered BBQ supplies so we could cook again on an outdoor grill. We received calls from the Canadian government to make sure we were complying with quarantine rules. Yes, we were and we were happy to do so.
We took those two weeks to make our favorite meals, be outside in our yard, and rediscover our home. We were able socialize outdoors as long as our friends sat off of our property and on our neighbour’s lawn. We had outdoor fires. I did online exercise classes in our backyard. H cooked for us. A couple of time, we ordered meals in from local restaurants. The girls spent hours rediscovering their favourite books and toys. We were able to FaceTime Desmond with a two-hour time difference instead of six.
It had been a long journey home. Since March, when schools, then businesses and then borders closed we had been living with uncertainty. Wondering when and how we would come back to our friends and family. Now we were here, the chapter on France closed for us, for the time being, and a new chapter opening on our life in Canada. It was a blessing to be home, to be safe, and to, for the first time in months, feel completely at ease.
