The trip that was

First the lede: I have returned from holiday as planned, have not been detained or refused boarding anywhere, have been tested and had negative results 5 times. If we subtract the constant buzz of the covid-related stress, this has been a life-enhancing and meaningful trip.

Now the whinge.

I dropped a total of $400 on tests, in Canada, UK, Croatia and Montenegro, and for most of those I managed to find the cheapest option – if you don’t have the time to research and plan meticulously, this amount will be much higher. The most expensive item I bought on this trip was the PCR test to return to Canada, which I had to do at Dubrovnik Airport for a cool 100 euro ($160 – when did the exchange rate get this brutal between Cad and Euro?). It was looked at only once, by a LHR employee before my LHR-YYZ flight, a very junior employee at that, who was slightly confused that the document wasn’t in English in its entirety. Have I downloaded and filled in the ArriveCan app and do I have the receipt? I had, and did, and will never get those 40 min of my life back. During actual check-in and bag drop at LHR, the check-in person did not ask for either. (We did manage to have a 5 min chat about current labour shortages in UK and the unreasonableness of dumping the tasks of PH regs on airport staff.) Over in Canada, not once through three passport and customs checks was I asked about it – though I expect the leniency was due to my citizenship; I’ve seen people pull out printed proof of vaccination etc. to officials. I really wanted my $160 PCR to be looked at with attention, so that the amount paid would be somewhat justified.

The UK meanwhile, as was expected, announced the scrapping of the insane red-amber-green & double-testing system but only from October, so on my way back I had to follow the existing system. The new system will get rid of the pre-flight test and the after-landing test will be a much less fussy and cheap antigen. Countries will be either a no-go or go category. On my way back from the Balkans via London, once again I had to fill out the Passenger Locator Form which demands the registration number for a PCR, which I couldn’t even benefit from because I was leaving the country within a day. No matter; you still have to book and pay for an after-landing test even if you can’t use it. Shameless racket.

A few things that I realized about the current system. Many countries have some kind of Passenger Locator Form for visitors, and I believe they’ve all been introduced at the time when the authorities were in the grip of a fantasy about a perfect test-and-trace app, which was supposedly just around the corner. After the initial push, the tracing apps petered out everywhere, for various reasons: people were not downloading them in great numbers, and when an app was actually put to use, it caused what became known as the ‘pingdemic’, mandatory quarantines destroying people’s plans with one dreaded ping from the app telling them they have to recluse because they have shared the same public space with a confirmed covid case somewhere some time ago. So the enthusiasm for the apps paled, but they stuck in international travel, perhaps because they give the impression that the authorities are doing something in the way of control.

In effect, both the test and the PLF policing fell down to the airport and airline staff in countries where the visitors are coming from and carriers they are flying in on. I’ve come to the conclusion that the border crossing officers in UK and Canada are distinctly not interested (or have time or enough training) to add diligent covid documentation control to their job description. I spent some time on Quora one day, for reasons that will soon become clear, reading the forums on “What exactly does a border officer see when they scan your passport” and what they’re after, and it’s still the usual law, terrorism, history of visas and ID business. Not covid.

At LHR, border officers have been replaced by e-gates anyway for the EEA-US-Canada-NZ-AUS-Japan-South Korea passports, and when the UK first introduced Passenger Locator Forms, it led to bottlenecks and chaotic queues at LHR, and soon enough a memo was leaked to the Guardian that apparently instructs staff not to bother checking documents from Green and Amber countries too diligently. I’ve read recently that LHR and other UK airports with e-gates are reprogramming e-gates to read QR codes from PL Forms, and maybe that’ll be some kind of solution. Why these forms still exist, if nobody really is tracing and notifying thousands of travellers a day, I don’t know – except to put you off international travel and intimidate you into buying tests. NB the thing that I got least asked about was proof of vaccination. Many countries have two different sets of rules for vacc vs unvacc travellers, and UK will only be catching up on this with the new system in October, which will be rewarding the vaccinated visitors with fewer tests and hassles. “Are you sure you need a PCR?” I was asked by a staffer at Dubrovnik Airport. Yes, sadly. “I can’t remember if I’ve seen another country requiring it. I know! I think Ireland requires it for unvaccinated travellers. You’re probably unvaccinated?” No, it’s that my country is just extraordinarily anal.

If Canada decided to keep the mandatory PCR requirement for entry, it will remain rare and special in this desire to have its own citizens and visitors ripped off by private labs around the world. We will continue to be special indeed. The ArriveCan asks you to upload proof of vaccination, but only asks you to swear that you had a test. Worth repeating, the PLForms, the tests and proof of vaccination are all down to the airport and airline staff. While border officers in CRO asked for test and vacc, they did not ask to see the Croatian PLF, which is allegedly mandatory and essential.

Who’s been banging about the Croatian PLF? The British Airways staff, on my flight to Dubrovnik. Have you filled it out? Make sure to fill it out! So here’s the score. Who’s checking the UK PLF and tests? Air Canada staff in Toronto. Croatian PLF and testing? British Airways staff in LHR. UK stuff on my way back to LHR? Dubrovnik Airport staff. Canadian requirements? LHR airport staff. I don’t envy these people. I was trying to imagine what their day is like. Come to work, check out which flights you’re doing, then speed-learn all the covid regulations. Who has PLFs? Who requires antigen, who wants PCR? That’s hundreds of documents, digital and printed, in various languages, most of which you can’t speak. Have you been well trained, did you get a raise for these extra tasks which are not at all simple? I’d bet on the answers no and no.

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Old facade used in an art installation in Cetinje, Montenegro

One additional complication that I had to deal with this time was that a few days before my trip via UK where one of my sisters lives, the UK put Montenegro on the Red List and anybody as much as passing through a Red List country is barred entry to the UK. (UK citizens will be let in, but will have to lock themselves in mandatory 10-day hotel quarantine, even if they test negative. How is any of this constitutional, I have no idea.) To insure myself against just such event, I had booked my flight from London to Croatia instead of Montenegro, followed by a taxi ride across the Croatian-Montenegrin border. I feared that I’d be found out and forced to give up the flight but it transpired that the overworked airline and airport staff everywhere are barely capable of managing the basic required checks, let alone go into deep investigations and fact check every page of every locator form, and study every stamp in every passport.

The UK’s Red List itself is an intriguing beast – a little bit political, a little bit arbitrary. UK put France on it earlier in the year because some remote island off the coast of France had covid indicators that some UK number crunchers decided were alarming. It’s removed Turkey off the list in time for the October school break, which is when, it just so happens, a lot of Britons like to travel to Turkey for the last summer hurrah. Montenegro’s numbers while high weren’t exponential – about 500 new cases a day, for a population of 600,000 – but the country’s been rife with political unrest, mass protests and celebrations followed by counter-protests and counter-celebrations. One week before I was due to fly, Montenegro came dangerously close to armed conflict — between the police and the organized groups within a larger popular protest, in my home town of all places. I really wanted them to calm the fuck down at least until I’m done with the holiday, as I haven’t been in the country or seen my family in two years. When covid appeared on the global scene I was two years younger! I began to doubt if my first 20 years in Montenegro weren’t something I dreamt up. Did that really happen? Did I invent all of it? I simply had to go.

I won’t dwell on the political situation in MNE too much in this edition of LP; I write about it a bit in my new book of essays coming out. A lot of new has happened, but the dissonant coalition which won the election after 30 years of the one-party monopoly on power is still shakily holding on one year later. The annoying thing about electoral democracy is that when you finally get the shits out after however many decades, they aren’t going to be replaced by angels. However there’s an MP that I admire in this new querulous coalition who I talked to for the book last year – not about politics, but about how she connected the work of Northrop Frye with the Montenegrin novelist Mihailo Lalić. When we met this time we did talk about politics, but also about the decision to have or not to have children, the mid-life crises (me), the empty nest (her), and whether freedom is endlessly freakin’ tiresome (ultimately - no; we’re both liberals; but it certainly feels like that).

During this 8-day stay I’ve also given away my family library. The books have been sitting in our parents’ empty apartment for years now and I thought, why shouldn’t these books get another life. I’ve met some great people and had some excellent conversations as they came to pick up their selections. My shelf on feminist thought in English (many books supplied by the Network of East-West Women pre online shopping) went to the Women’s Rights Centre in Podgorica; a lot of political philosophy stuff to the 19-y-o philosophy student and a 22-y-o polisci grad & guitar player in search of a good Masters program that combines political philosophy and history of arts. (WHO ARE THESE KIDS??) A librarian from a polytechnic took a chunk. A single mom who works at the local theatre with my barista sister took most of the kids lit and theatre stuff. A guy who’s opening a library-cafe by the river in Podgorica took the rest. (He recently returned to MNE from Dubai with his Moroccan wife and son… and will call his new establishment Ithaca.)

I’d wake up in the morning to the sounds of children playing outside. I’ve been given 8 mornings of that. 

The first day back I opened the balcony door wide – the apartment is on the elevated ground floor – sat in an arm chair with a cup of tea and five minutes in a random passer-by talking loudly on the phone recognized me and waved.

I’ve given a pair of old neighbours a scare because they though I was my mom, standing on the balcony. I’m approaching that age, aren’t I?

Met up with a local journalist to exchange media gossip. (Ah so he was a chaotic editor? Almost as messy as his columns today?)

The weather was glorious. French, German and Russian speaking tourists about. And the odd police car, a ripple from a week ago.

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My book haul this time ended up being all in English. The Sebastian Payne is on how Labour lost the Red Wall in Northern England – an unexpected, perhaps tectonic shift in English politics. If anybody can make old age downsizing (what the Swedes more drearily call death cleaning) glamourous, it’s Joan Bakewell. This is her memoir of downsizing.

Sandi Toksvig’s personal history of London told as a meandering bus ride. And two very interesting works of fiction without Canadian distribution that I’ve had on my list for some time.

Talk again soon

LP