A lot has happened in the… let’s see… four months!?—since I’ve last done a blog. A lot has changed from within me and externally, but one thing remains a constant:
I’m still fucking traveling, right in the middle of the COVID-era. Yes, it’s still within the realm of possibility, although it’s gotten a hell of a lot more challenging. But countries are opening back up, you say. Well, you’re partially right–some are. But take a look at who they are opening up to. They aren’t opening up to my kind. The worst kind:
Americans.
Never in all of my travels had I ever been denied from boarding an airplane. I’ve missed one flight (thanks Amsterdam), and I’ve experienced certain wonky visa issues, fees, all that jazz– but this week was the first time when they said, “American passport? Sorry. Kick rocks.”
Three weeks ago I came to Croatia from Serbia. When I made it to the airport in Split, Croatian border officials made me promise a two week self-quarantine. At the same hostel, in the same city. “Police will check on you. Often.” The usage of the word “often” made me suspect that it was all bullshit, and when I arrived at my hostel in town, the owner confirmed this. “Police don’t come here,” he said. A good thing, because there was zero chance I was remaining stagnant for that long. And so I spent just a few days there, then ferried over to the gorgeous island of Hvar, before taking a bus across the Bosnian border and then back into Croatia to my final destination: Dubrovnik. Also known as King’s Landing, from that one popular TV show. What was it called again? Oh yeah:
Seinfeld.
The next destination was Lithuania, which, based on my American-Vietnamese travelmate’s research, would allow people traveling from “green countries,” or places where the COVID cases were low. Croatia was green.
When we got to the Dubrovnik airport we were met with the typical resistance and questioning while the employees from Airbaltic Airlines called various sources to confirm that two Americans could enter Lithuania. Our flight’s departure time loomed closer and closer, but lo and behold, after more than an hour of scrutiny, the airport police gave us clearance to leave and our boarding passes were in hand.
Just as we were crossing through security, Airbaltic employees chased us down, took our tickets back, and essentially reneged on the clearance given to us to fly. After a blatant display of incompetence on their end, vocal frustration on ours, and the police getting called in response, we were made to miss our flight, and refunds were not given. They claimed that it didn’t matter that we had spent 2 weeks in a green country; the only thing that mattered were our passports.
After a lifetime of privilege granted to me by this pocket-sized blue book of stamps, I am now experiencing firsthand how it feels to be undesirable. A taste of my own medicine, I suppose.
After the mishap in Dubrovnik, I began looking at the limited list of flights that day. How about Vienna? I’ve got a friend there. No wait, they aren’t allowing Americans either. Paris? Whoops, can’t go there either. Although I was ready to escape of Croatia and wash that bad taste out of my mouth, the only viable flight that day was northward, to the Croatian capital of Zagreb.
Zagreb was an excellent city, one that surpassed my expectations. Although the rain was ripe in abundance, and the city is about half-full as many locals go to the coast to spend summers, I was still able to experience local culture and cuisine, much harder to do in the tourist-centrist cities I had just spent two weeks in.
From Zagreb, I looked at my options: I could head to Slovenia or Hungary by land. Because lord knows I wasn’t taking another goddamn airplane. But at my hostel in Zagreb, I received some alarming news: Slovenia cracked down hard, and their mandatory 14-day quarantine was way stricter than Croatia’s. Which left me with Hungary. I was excited to return to Budapest, my favorite European city I’d seen last year.
And then a day before I was set to leave, another American came back to Zagreb and said, “I got denied from leaving. By the bus company.”
Options were shrinking, as were my hopes that I could cruise-control my way through the rest of the year.
That very night I heard from the rumor mill that a dude from Seattle had managed to enter Poland, and the security and questioning was very lax. Brash, impatient, and verifying none of the details of the story, I booked a flight to Warsaw. I merely prayed that LOT Airlines wouldn’t attempt to play gatekeeper like these other fucking transportation companies and let ME deal with the consequences if I didn’t get allowed in. To my delight, after minimal questioning, they let me board their airplane.
I couldn’t tell you the first thing about Warsaw, or Poland for that matter. I can tell you that Chicago has the second-biggest Pollock population outside of Warsaw, but even that was a rumor I’ve just learned wasn’t true. I’ve eaten a few Polish sausages in my life, and my parents have had their fair share of Polish cleaning ladies, but that’s the extent of my knowing.
Corona has shown me parts of the world I’d never considered going—Belarus, for example—and although I would’ve done Poland someday, that someday has become a today. I’d been backed into a corner, and it looked as if my unlikely six months of travels would’ve came crashing to a halt, but I managed to scrape by, and I will continue scraping by as long as I’ve got a pulse.
