Welcome to the reality of travel, sometimes things go pear shape.
I am 57 and Sally is 42, a Baby Boomer and a GenXer slowly travelling around the world.
We decided to leave our full-time roles, travel and work remotely back in 2017.
Now I am sitting in a beautiful Airbnb in Vienna, Austria under quarantine due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
How did we end up in this situation?
Our friend was celebrating her 50th birthday in a fabulous restaurant, ice Q in Solden, Austria perched high up in the Alps.
We would generally turn up to a letter opening, so we jumped at the opportunity to detour our travels to enjoy some apres skiing.
We’ve been following the COVID-19 virus since early January as we travelled through Morocco.
Like most of the world, it was in China, and we kept it only a thought in the back of our mind as we explored Morocco and then Tunisia.
Even as COVID-19 spread, we flip-flopped on our travel to Austria, yes one day, no the next.
However, we decided about ten days ago to fly in and celebrate our friend's birthday.
Well, Houston we have a problem, within days the situation deteriorated and celebrations cancelled.
That’s ok. Fortunately, our friends made it on one of the last flights back to Australia.
Meanwhile, we just followed the advice of the government, and we stayed put.
Now we’re in quarantine.
Let me share some real-world facts.
Assume anything posted on a social media platform is false.
I always reverse search for any image posted on Google.
I always check anything via a fact-checker like Snopes.
Assume all newspapers reporting is incorrect, it will be exaggerated and often be factually inaccurate.
Your government is more worried about the political ramifications and will act too slowly.
So who do you trust right now?
For us, it’s the World Health Organisation.
Why?
It’s non-political, non-business, just realtime facts.
They'll never take our freedom!
Yes, the government can and will lock you in your house, no you cannot go for a walk in the park or a drink at the pub.
How can they do it, well they close the pubs down and most other businesses, and yes you can close a park down.
It’s like house arrest without the bracelet.
That helpful fancy travel insurance policy that you bought before travelling, well most likely it is now null and void.
So now some real-world facts.
You will end up at some stage having some form of physical distancing enforced in your region.
If you are panic shopping congratulations, you have broken already the rules around physical distancing.
Personally, if I had my freedom right now the last place on earth, I would be, is in any social environment.
Even if you do not care about getting sick, it is a fact you can spread this virus to another human that is the issue.
People have died, enough said.
So we sit here unsure when we can go out, the planes have stopped, and borders closed, so team Australia, it is a struggle to get home now if we tried, mind you I think the Austrian people are currently showing us up.
I applaud the Austrian people. For your absolute resolve to not panic, to treat everyone with respect and dignity and not focus on just yourself, you are going about your daily life and shopping as you usually would, we have an abundance of choices in our supermarkets.
I have this one simple request for everyone.
In 2021 will you be proud of your actions in 2020?
Above is the view from our Airbnb in Vienna of a closed playground.