Germany and our COVID-19 Evacuation

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Concerned about Italy being closed and not knowing how our plans for the rest of our European adventure would work out, we found ourselves in a small industrial village north of Heidelberg.  It looked like something out of the Post WW2 eastern block and the lady's name meeting us for check-in at our Airbnb was Svetlana...she spoke with a heavy Russian accent.  It was a decent apartment, lots of room and fully equipped.  For the next week, we stumbled through each day as the news of the COVID-19 virus spread brought up roadblock after roadblock.

The news indicated that Germany was considering shutting it's borders.  We still had hope that we would make it at least into Spain.  Fom Madrid we at least might be able to wait out developments and still make it on to Myanmar.  The days dragged by.  We drove to Heidelberg for a day visit.  The walking tour we had booked was canceled.  The castle was still open and we did get a chance to tour some of the interior rooms.  Tensions were high and everyone was on edge.  Even though the castle was grand, our spirits were pretty dashed.

On our fifth day, the French borders were closed and the writing was on the wall.  We quickly assessed our options and decided to attempt to return home from Frankfurt.  We have been trying all week to contact American Airlines, Qatar and Lufthansa with no luck,  In the end, we bought last mind tickets from Frankfurt to Charlottesville, VA where Andi lives.

We got up at 3AM and packed up, leaving all of our six weeks of kitchen supplies of canned goods, etc, along with the ice chest and much more, and drove the one hour to the Frankfurt airport.  There we returned the car and boarded the LAST plane bound for the USA.  Talk about luck.  If we had missed that flight we would be in Germany for the duration of the pandemic.

The flight was GREAT.  The service exceptional, and we shared the 320 passenger plane with about 80 other people and 30 crew members deadheading back home.  When we landed in Atlanta to switch planes, we were boarded by the CDC, temps checked and questions asked.  We were then told to self-quarantine at home for 14 days.  We had a three-hour layover before continuing on to Charlottesville and settling in for what was appearing to be a very long time.