Day 1
Happy New Year!
We had thought that today was day 2, but that was because we didn’t know that yesterday, the day we arrived, was actually Day 0. There are some counting differences between NZ and the US, not just around ballots and saying naught instead of zero. In NZ, the first floor is the floor of a building which is level with the ground is called the ground floor. … In American English, the floor which is level with the ground is called the first floor, the floor above it is the second floor, and so on. So, we missed that, and here we are at Day 1. At least it is convenient that our Day 1 is also January 1. Easier to keep track…
How have we spent this first day, you may ask? First off, we slept really well, so everything is looking up. Last night, with dinner that was delivered to the door there were two small bottles of sparkling rose for New Years Eve. They are still in the fridge as we didn’t make it past 8 pm.
We’re going to have to pace ourselves on the eating front. The food is tasty, and the servings are large. After breakfast we went walking in the exercise area. The latter is really a parking lot and a courtyard, double fenced with cameras. Not hard to imagine that we are in jail, albeit a very nice one. Whenever we leave our room, we are required to wear a mask. There is a well-being team member stationed at the door to the exercise area, which is our only chance to get outside. We give our name and room number, sanitize our hands then can go outside. There were a few other people, but it was fairly easy to keep distance. I’ve clocked 5 walking miles today, which is a million times round the circuit. But it is just so great to breathe fresh air, albeit through a mask and to hear the birds and see the flora. On coming back in we have to sanitize and then get checked in. There is little opportunity to talk with other returnees (that’s what we are called, not inmates) as we are asked to maintain 2 meters of distance and to keep moving. No loitering, smelling the roses, sunbathing or working on a laptop! Coming from winter the weather is really nice – sunny and about 68 today, but it felt warmer than that.
Today we also had a health check – some questions about how we are feeling and a temperature check. This will happen every 48 hours. At our next check, we will get a COVID test. Interestingly the test is only a single nostril swab, not both nostrils as we have experienced in the US. We also got a check in phone call from Tara from the well-being team. She confirmed that we would be booked on a flight back to Auckland on January 14. Tara was just lovely to talk with. I complimented her that we have found everyone we have interacted with to be extremely friendly. She allowed that she came to NZ from the UK 13 years ago and felt that NZers were some of the friendliest people she’d met. The quarantine procedures seem to be well thought out and manage the goals of quarantine while still demonstrating caring. Everyday there is a well-being newsletter with some tips and distractions. Todays included some puzzles. We did them over lunch!
The hotel welcome channel has been repurposed for the isolation program. Jacinda Ardern, the NZ Prime Minister, had a warm message of welcome and encouragement and wished us a happy new year, which of course made us feel really special.
We’ve got tons of shows queued up to watch and lots of books to read. We’ve been saving the latest season of the Crown. Unexpected competition though from our Ring camera movies, some might say real home videos! I’m most of the way through my John le Carré novel, “Agent Running in the Field”, which I decided to read in honor of his recent passing. I just love the way he writes. But my poor hero, Nat, is in quite a pickle and I’m not sure he’ll be able to get out of it in the next 70 pages. I’m rooting for him though.