How NOT to visit Europe during Pandemic

As this posts, we are back in  the USA, but this was written in our AirBnB, Casa Dolce (Sweet house). Getting here was none too simple. Setting up the AirBnb took 3x loner than usual. Our host speaks no English. Fortunately, he does on a restaurant next door, so by asking around we found him.

But, we also had to reserve a hotel room at the airport for our departure. That was likewise challenging for such a simple task, but we got it done. Speaking of hotels, we had to fill out a "EU Personal Locator Form" listing every place we would be in Italy. Oh, and they don't write addresses as we do. The form took a while, but that's not the worst.

Our BIG challenge was getting a COVID negative test within 72 hours of ARRIVING in Italy. We arrived at 0940 local time on a TUESDAY. That meant we had to acquire a negative test on Saturday or Sunday. That wouldn't be hard in a big city, but was very hard in Tuscaloosa, where we live. We could get a test on early Saturday, but we wouldn't get results for 24-48 hours later. That meant we would NOT know the results until as late as Monday AM--the day of departure.

BUT, G^d provided. We met with a young CRU missionary who told us about a Med clinic in Birmingham that could give us 15-min results. Well, their closest clinic was about 50 miles, so we made an appointment on 15 Sept. On 26 Sept., we headed out.  We got there only a few minutes after the clinic opened Sunday afternoon. The desk lady gave us instructions which we followed, but she also advised us that their staff who take and process COVID tests was unexplainably NOT there yet.

Hmm, so what to do? We had an appointment at that location, so I was hesitant to go to the other clinic only about 15 minutes away.  Bad decision.

More on that next post.