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Thursday December 23, 2021
I've planned a trip to Europe over Christmas and New Years, but with the surge of omicron cases and the changing travel advisories issued by the Canadian government, it's thrown a lot of plans into disarray. I was originally supposed to go to Amsterdam, since the last time I was there, I got food poisoning, and I wanted to visit some of the things I missed, but the Netherlands went into a full lockdown and so I cancelled that leg of the trip and will instead spend it in Barcelona, where they have a few restrictions, but thankfully nothing too strict. It's been a pain trying to organise travel insurance and rebook flights; it took me four hours on hold with Manulife before I was able to talk to someone about my coverage and to ensure I'd still be covered if I decided to go ahead with this trip.
The last hurdle is the PCR test which I'll take tomorrow morning. I've been so anxious about everything lately and I miss the days where travel wasn't so complicated.
I did however manage to get my third COVID shot yesterday, but I really had to work for it. I biked 30 minutes to Jane and Lawrence and sat in line for over four hours in zero degree temperatures, and then waited an additional hour inside the community hub, but ultimately I think it's worth it, especially since I'm travelling. I was so cold I ordered a hot bubble tea to be delivered to me while I was in the queue, and that helped push me through to the end of the wait. Apparently two of the vaccinators were off sick, so they were understaffed and could only process 20 people per hour. But I knew with certainty that they had enough vaccines to give me one, so I toughed it out. Today I felt tired and lethargic, with a minor headache just setting in, but nothing else too severe in terms of side effects.
The last few months have been okay, and we're finally over the hump of winter solstice so things should start getting brighter, slowly. Before omicron hit, life felt pretty normal, and I've been able to catch up with friends and eat delicious things. A bunch of the gameplay programmers from my Watch Dogs team at Ubisoft Toronto got together at Elephant and Castle; I did an escape room with three ex-colleagues (and we nailed that!); I went to Dragon Legend in Markham for All You Can Eat Peking Duck; I caught the partial lunar eclipse on November 19th; we hiked the Niagara Whirlpool Trail and saw the beautiful fall colours; I caught the salmon run at the Humber River, and that's always an exciting time of year. We had so much hope that things would continue to be okay before this variant hit, and that's jeopardised a bunch of travel plans for next year.
I was hoping to go back to Malaysia to see family in June, but there's no telling what changes will happen between now and then. At least New Zealand will be opening up their border next year, and I'll very likely be back for Christmas. We're coming into our third year of this pandemic and it's just tiring. Hopefully there will be some improvements in 2022.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:42am on Thursday December 23, 2021 :: 0 comments :: 