I flew back to Canada on Saturday.
I tried my best to be safe. Through the airport I wore a standard surgical mask. Just before getting on the plane, I put on an N95 mask. That stayed on my face the entire time I was on the plane. Unfortunately, that was for a bit longer than intended. My first flight was delayed. Initially it was a minor mechanical problem, then the captain started talking about filling out paperwork. Eventually, it escalated to “We need 22 people to get off this plane.” It’s United, so that is a scary statement. But they were offering $400 if you took a later flight that would get one into San Francisco at 7:00.
I was initially confused; I was wondering if I had misheard and that we would be changing planes. But no, it was just that a lot of people got up to take them on that offer. Once they had their 22 sacrifices, and all the stand-bys were booted, we got to take off.
We landed in San Francisco at around 6:20, so the $400 was a good deal. Unfortunately, I had a flight that was boarding at 6:30. That only gave me ten minutes. It took five minutes to walk to the new gate; thankfully I didn’t need to clear customs.
My mother-in-law had given me a wonderful packed dinner of Beijing duck that I had been looking forward to. By that time I was ravenous. I didn’t want to eat on the plane, and I couldn’t take the meat into Canada. So I wolfed it down at the side of the boarding area, away from other people. It probably tasted great, but I couldn’t enjoy it. In the end, I just got heartburn. Don’t eat so fast.
The next leg took me back to Vancouver. Customs was fairly easy. They asked if I had a quarantine plan and if I had any questions. I only asked if I was allowed to take public transportation to my self-isolation location: They discourage it, but I am allowed to. Oddly, they never once asked about declaring anything. It is almost a shame that I didn’t load myself up with alcohol, but then again, I did not have time to visit duty-free in my ten minutes in San Francisco.
I took the Skytrain home; on a Saturday evening it would be safer for others than if I was in a the close quarters of a taxi.
However, three stops in, a gang of teenagers boarded. They were extremely loud, and not all of them were wearing masks. That part actually felt unsafe. And they did look like a gang. People changed seats to get away from them. Apparently they also phoned to complain: the gang got off at the same stop I did, and I saw a worker going through the train afterwords; I overheard her on the radio say that “they” had already gotten off.
A quick walk home and my self-isolation begins.
I’m pleasantly surprised to see all my plants are still alive. I had purchased an automatic watering system, and it worked well enough that nothing died. It did damage my desk a bit; a pot that I thought was waterproof wasn’t and there is now water damage in the back corner. I can live with that.