So I could type a post all about isolation but I figure nobody really cares and it’s not sometime I particularly want to memorialise. I think it’s pretty much the same as at home anyway except it’s more expensive and without the creature comforts. It was plenty of Uber Eats and TV along with some reading. I do find it ironic though, that my housemate ended up with COVID the same time as me despite the fact we’re on different sides of the world.
With my original plans thrown into disarray I needed to figure out how I was going to finish off my trip. I had already booked two nights in Venice Beach, LA as that was going to be then of my trip. I thought oh well. I guess I’ll just book another night, I can send a day or two on the beach and maybe actually get those OC photos I was chasing. But the more I thought about it, the more this didn’t seem like a great option. I’ve been to Venice Beach before, and OC photos are cool but highly unlikely to be the highlight of my trip.
I’ve always wanted to see San Francisco. Although I don’t have a lot of time I figured if I fly out on Thursday (early) I can get half of Thursday plus Friday and Saturday in SF. I’ve then got all day Sunday to get to LAX before I fly out at 11pm. This option made my much happier so I went with it. All my time isn’t locked down, but I’m flying across tomorrow, accomodation is booked, same place as I was staying at. All said and done flying from SFO to LAX seemed the quickest and not far off the cheapest option so I’m flying Delta down to LA late afternoon which will get me to LAX at a fairly decent time for flying back home. This gives me 2 full days and 2 more than half days in San Francisco. I’m still doing the Wine Tour on Saturday. I’ll probably do the Alcatraz Tour and check out Fisherman’s Wharf Thursday arvo. I’m still deciding if I want to do the Tech Tour of Friday or not. But I’ll figure it out and if not before hopefully do some blog posts and photos on the flight home.
Having actually done some touristy things now, look out for those in the next couple of blog posts. I’ll finish with a couple of photos of my Boston AirBnB bedroom like I said I would in a previous post. (sorry the focus is slightly out).
Before you get confused there’s no Stan involved, it’s just a word that goes with plans! So with my positive RAT test I couldn’t ignore it, sadly I had COVID, I had to make plans accordingly. Step 1, start cancelling. Wednesday afternoon was spend cancelling almost everything upcoming. Thankfully, most stuff I could cancel for free, or given the circumstances place were willing to waive the cancellation fee. I lost my airfare from JFK to SFO but I knew it was unrefundable. I also lost a small amount on the rental car which I new about – it wasn’t much but the airfare was $500 so it’s time to say thank you travel insurance!
I called AVIS and went through at least 3 people before they sent a tow truck to pick up the rental car that was supposed to be returned to JFK on Thursday, I’m still not sure what if any costs are associated with that. I emailed my AirBnB hosts, they were sympathetic but booked so I had to find somewhere else to day. I looked up the Massachusetts rules – it’s 5 days isolation, by myself not contact. Then it’s another 5 days of masks in public before I’m allowed to travel. 10 days is a big chunk of my trip. Symptoms started Sunday, so that’s isolation until Saturday and no travel until Thursday (23rd). I fly home on the 26th. So tentative plan; find hotel to isolate, find AirBnB to stay in til I can travel. Fly to LA have a couple of days at Venice Beach and fly home. Well the hotel was an expensive exercise – you really don’t want to try and find on the day before. US$1200 for 3 nights to get me through to Sunday and end of my isolation – ouch. I had two nights booked in Venice Beach so I only needed to extend that by one but I left that for now. I also needed to book a new flight, it probably make sense to leave out of Boston now. Partially pack & sleep.
Thursday, finish packing & leave. I found a hotel that I could walk too, but check in was 3 o’clock, so I walked slowly with lots of breaks – 500m was really taking it out of me. I wore a mask and kept my distance from everybody else. I checked into my hotel at 3 – a couple of days isolation to go.
The cat’s already out of the bag – if you missed in see my earlier post ‘The Dreaded lurgy…‘ But we’re not quite there yet. Monday I woke up late. I was still tired, had a headache and was dehydrated. I thought, I probably just need to drink more (more water to be clear!). Even though I had been drinking a lot. When April sent at email advising that several people in North can tested positive for COVID I was a little concerned, but I was sure that I’d be fine and I felt OK.
Monday afternoon was an excursion to the Laundromat – the first time in probably 20 years or so, since our washing machine broke and I went with Mum. It was relatively painless and all seemed to work OK – I skipped washing the FPS shirts, but apart from that I had a fresh complement of clean clothes. The stains that I hadn’t noticed my jeans when I packed them even came out. I walked home, started to think that I should probably do some revision for my exam on Tuesday night. It was leftover pizza for dinner and sleep.
I woke up on Tuesday and I was much less sure that I definitely didn’t have COVID – see the post above for more details. The one thing I forgot to mention is my iPhone also sent an exposure notification saying that I had probably been exposed which added to my worry. However, RAT test was negative and I had an exam that night, so I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
I moved the TV over to my desk as a second monitor and started to so some review for the exam. I also order UberEats McDonalds to munch on while I was studying. The exam when surprisingly well, even though I wasn’t feeling great I didn’t find it too hard and I’m hopeful that I should do pretty well. By this time I was definitely feeling poor so it was into bed even though sleep wouldn’t come I had the fever, hot’n’colds and body aches to keep me company.
Wednesday I felt slightly better or I tried to convince myself I did, but though I tried to rationalise avoiding it with how I was feeling I knew I had to take another RAT test before I could travel tomorrow. It came back as I knew it would, even though hoping it wouldn’t – I was positive. I wasn’t happy.
