March, 2020

The year was only about ten weeks old, but it had already been marked by two incomprehensible events. First off, there were the massive fires in Australia which were so big they were affecting the air quality in South America and were turning the snow on the glaciers of New Zealand yellow.

Even more disturbing were reports that a virus which was said to be flu-like resulted in the lockdown of Wuhan, China. The situation was perplexing. Reports said that although the virus was quite dangerous for the elderly and immuno-suppressed, most people who contracted it seemed to recover without any problems and the death rate was lower than the flu. We struggled to understand why such extreme measures were being taken if that was true. There had also been several instances of the disease raging through cruise ships. Passengers had not been permitted to disembark and had been confined to their cabins for weeks while fellow passengers got sick and even died. I remember remarking that I was glad we weren't going on a cruise.

At the time of our departure, the U.S. State Department was only advising against travel to China and South Korea because of the disease. We had lived through flu and SARS and H1N1 outbreaks and life had gone on pretty much as usual. There didn't seem to be any reason to cancel our trip. It was inconceivable to us that other cities would shut down as Wuhan had done, but within days European countries would begin closing their borders.

We understood so little about COVID-19 at the time, but the world was about to change faster than we ever imagined it would.

At Christmas, our daughter Jeanette had given us luggage tags inscribed with the words I always said to her and her sister when they went out with their friends. The advice seemed particularly relevant as we embarked on this journey.