When Spring Break Became a Coronavirus Outbreak

Timeline Overview

Mother/Daughter Trip to Spain

For years my mom and I talked about a mother/daughter trip to somewhere. We didn’t really care where just somewhere that we would go together. In June 2019, I spotted an unpassable deal on flights to Barcelona, Spain and the travel dates were perfect. Incredibly, I found these tickets available over my spring break and my now-retired-mom has a pretty flexible schedule. We jumped on the opportunity and started planning our upcoming journey. Shockingly, our plans didn’t include a world-wide outbreak of the coronavirus while we enjoyed spring break abroad.

It’s important to note that my mom had never been on a big international trip. She was excited to push past her comfort zone and go on an adventure. Push past her comfort zone she did! Not only did she prep to go to Spain, but she also agreed to stay in hostels and attempt to pack in only a carry-on. I’m happy to report, she did everything on the list!

However, this article isn’t about how my mom packed in a carry-on or stayed in a hostel; it’s about how our first mother/daughter trip had some pandemic driven detours. When spring break shifted to navigating a coronavirus outbreak.

Side-note: If my shoe/make-up/multiple outfit choices-loving mom can pack in a carry-on, I now believe that literally anyone can do it. 

Packing in a Carry-on

Beginning of Coronavirus

We first started hearing about the coronavirus back in January when the outbreak began in China, but like most Americans, we didn’t really think much of it. As it began to spread, the discussion of traveling abroad did come up before we left. At the time coronavirus was starting to move pretty rapidly through Italy and a handful of cases popped up in Spain and the United States.

Still, nothing really to worry about. We figured we had as much risk traveling throughout the United States as we would in Spain, so why blow off our long-awaited mother/daughter trip? Surely the coronavirus wouldn’t impact our spring break.

I’m a science teacher, so it should come as no surprise that I rely on analyzing data and referencing reliable sources when making a big decision. The World Health Organization is a great place to start looking for trustworthy and up-to-date information. My point is, I did my research before heading to Spain and didn’t feel like it was a careless choice. In fact, if I went back and had to choose again, I think I would make the same call. No way could we predict what was coming next.

A big factor in the decision-making process was the health of my 97-year-old great-grandmother (known as G3 – for great-g­reat-grandma of my nephew). She lives in an assisted living center and my mom is her most frequent visitor. Since the most at-risk population include geriatrics, we already anticipated a hiatus in visits with G3. Mind you, this was prior to strong restrictions not allowing visitors at residential facilities.

Counting down to spring break, we felt confident in our decision to stick with our plans in spite of coronavirus.

Exploring Barcelona

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We had a great time and fabulous weather! Our first couple of spring break days included site-seeing at Tibidabo, FC Barcelona stadium, and Sagrada Familia, drinking countless liters of sangria, stuffing our faces with paella, and such good cheese. Seriously, if you haven’t had manchego, you’re missing out. Can we get this in the states? This is my new mission, find and eat manchego in Illinois.

Coronavirus Outbreak in Madrid

Last year, I hosted an exchange student, Marta, from Madrid, Spain. We planned to take a train from Barcelona to Madrid to visit and meet her family. Our train tickets were purchased before we left. I was excited to see her again and switch roles on guiding each other around our home countries.

On Tuesday, March 10 I texted Marta to make dinner plans. Her response: all of the schools in Madrid were closed and she was unsure if she would be permitted (by her parents) to travel downtown.

Overnight, the scene in Madrid changed drastically. The number of positive coronavirus cases nearly doubled, the town began to shut down, and people started to get seriously concerned. In Barcelona however, it was business as usual. Sadly, we decided to cancel our train to Madrid.

We were traveling smart, right? Our spring break may be altered, but would not be thwarted by coronavirus. Not wanting to restrict our travel to only one city, we bought a new set of train tickets to Girona, just north of Barcelona. 

Midnight Messages

I have stayed in a lot of hostels, met incredible people from around the world, and enjoyed most of my stays. In Barcelona, I added a new first to my list: attempting to sleep through the world’s worst (best?) snorer. I’m not kidding. This was not just a person who snores. I’m talking gasping for breath, talking during the snore release, probably ought to seek medical attention bad.

As you can imagine, I wasn’t sleeping much. When I checked my phone in the middle of the night for the 43rd time, I discovered a screen full of messages.

“Call me when you get this.”

“Have you seen? Are you going to be able to get home?”

“Trump banned travel from Europe! You okay? What are you going to do?”

And so on. Shout out to all my friends, family, and Teacher on a Trip folk who reached out!

Needless to say, I wasn’t getting back to sleep. Taking into account the time change, my friends and family were awake and ready to help figure out what was going on. I, on the other hand, was exhausted and a bit confused.

The announcement came only a couple of hours prior and there wasn’t much information online. Eventually, I found that U.S. citizens would be permitted back in with a 14-day self-isolation restriction. Thank goodness. That was enough to sleep.

United States Travel Regulations

Once again, we canceled our early morning train tickets. Here’s an “anti-affordable travel tip,” purchase several train tickets and then don’t get on the trains. It’s a great way to spend a bunch of money and stay in one place. We needed time to process and figure out what would happen next, though. Did we need to go home early? Could we even get home at all? 

After a few hours of research, a bottle of wine, and Spanish pastries we came to the conclusion to stick with our original Saturday morning flight. Flying out any earlier with long layovers in Lisbon, Portugal wouldn’t help us beat the Friday at midnight travel restriction.

One thing I did know, the 14-day self-isolation meant two weeks of missing school. There’s no pandemic protocol at our school or any district that I know of prior to this experience. Do I use sick days? I assume so, but who knew for sure?

At the time, there wasn’t talk of our district closing and Governor Pritzker said he wasn’t going to mandate closures at the state level. Part of my afternoon was spent brainstorming how I could adapt my lessons and still have my students engage in meaningful learning for two weeks in my absence. Luckily, we’re a 1:1 school, so I had some ideas. 

With no way to predict or improve or travels home, we went on enjoying Barcelona. Thursday night we attended a paella cooking class and had an absolute blast. Even at this point, people in Barcelona remained calm and reasonable. Basically, there was plenty of toilet paper.

Walking around Barcelona, we saw maybe one or two people wearing masks. At one store they had people leaving larger than normal spaces between the next-in-line and the cashier. That same store also had a sign requesting people to use cards instead of cash to reduce passing Coronavirus on the money. Nothing much out of the ordinary, though.

School Closures

Meanwhile, in the United States Facebook was blowing up with stories of schools transitioning to e-learning, large stores being completely cleaned out of toilet paper, and an overall feeling of unrest sweeping across the country.

Ohio announced a three-week extended break and other states followed. Illinois held out for another day or so before I learned that our district would be closed for two weeks following spring break due to coronavirus. That worked out well for me since I wasn’t permitted around people anyways.

I cannot say enough about how online teaching communities have really stepped up and worked together to support teachers adapting to e-learning. The amount of free sharing and offering resources for discounts is inspiring while people are figuring out how to balance the academic, personal, and social needs of their students and communities.

The next day, Friday afternoon, Mom and I explored and ate delicious seafood and more manchego at La Boqueria Market. That night we learned that Barcelona was preparing to shut down the following day. Museums had already closed their doors and restaurants, businesses, and schools would soon do the same. It was a good time to be leaving Spain.

Barcelona Airport

Saturday morning, we took the train to the airport. That ended up being a lucky choice as we learned on our way that the airport buses were no longer running. Not knowing what to expect at the airport, we arrived several hours before our flight. Turns out we weren’t the only ones with that idea.

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Walking in, we saw many people wearing masks and/or gloves, a handful wearing safety goggles, and even a couple wearing full protective suits. I never knew there were so many styles of masks until walking through the airport during a pandemic. Despite the protective measures people had in place, the overall mood was relatively calm. We waited in a fairly long line to check-in as digital boarding passes were no longer available with TAP Air Portugal.

Other hints of the Coronavirus pandemic could be spotted throughout the airport. In the food court, signs placed on every other table prevented people from sitting next to each other. Periodic announcements reminded people to wash their hands frequently. And contributing to our flight delay, additional cleaning of the planes between flights. For once, people weren’t complaining about a flight delay.

Once on the plane, I’ve never seen so many people wipe down the seats, the tray tables, and the seat buckles. A lady coughed one time, several heads whipped around, and she quickly said, “I had a tickle in my throat, I’m not sick!” Everyone around her chuckled a bit, but that series of reactions doesn’t normally happen. I slept for the rest of the flight, so who knows if anything of interest happened in the following two hours.

Unexpected Spring Break in Portugal

We landed in Lisbon, Portugal about two minutes after our connecting flight headed to Chicago. As fellow passengers connected to their cell phones, the buzz about not leaving until the next day spread through the plane. 

Under the circumstances, TAP Air Portugal did a commendable job of setting us up with a nice hotel, plenty of food, and transportation between the airport and hotel. Thanks to coronavirus, spring break now included a day in Lisbon too!

At least for a few minutes. Then I remembered that we were going to miss our train from Chicago to Carbondale, that my dog was going to spend another night at Doggie Stylez, that I wouldn’t even be allowed to pick her up, that I didn’t have groceries at my house, and the list kept going. My head was spinning with all of the variables I couldn’t control. Logically I acknowledged that there was nothing I could do and to take everything one step at a time. The reality though, I hate not having control and the stress was rising. I wanted to have a good cry but felt compelled to keep it together for my mom. Remember, this was her first major international trip and now this.

We made it to the hotel. Here’s where we finally hit our breaking points. Mom was homesick. She missed my dad and her grandbabies. Oh, did I forget to mention it was her birthday? Yeah, happy birthday. I couldn’t pretend I was doing alright anymore. I’m an experienced traveler and can lead the way navigating the subway, hostels, etc., but I’ve never traveled during a pandemic and needed a break. 

After a few shared tears and a hug, my mom told me to get some fresh air. I asked, “Does that mean that I haven’t been very nice?” Her long pause and response of, “You seem a little stressed,” said it all. Of course, moms are always right and after a two-hour walk and exploration of Lisbon, I felt like a new, calmer person. 

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Flying to Chicago

There were relatively few cases of Coronavirus in Portugal at the time. Overnight, there were some changes at the airport. Or at the very least, I didn’t notice them the previous day. Only a handful of bathrooms were open. I’m not entirely sure how reducing the number of bathrooms helps prevent the spread of Coronavirus, but there must be some science there.

Not knowing what to expect, we arrived at the airport three hours before our flight. We weren’t allowed to access our gate early; there were police redirecting people away from the gates. So, we chilled at a café for a couple of hours.

Each gate was partitioned off with temporary walls. In order to get to the gate, you had to present your passport and boarding pass. Leave to go to the bathroom? You do that process over again.

Arriving in ORD

Did you see the pictures from Friday night? Lines of people so long you couldn’t see the end! I was 100% prepared to walk into that scene when we landed in Chicago on Sunday evening. Secretly, I was hoping that things had calmed but didn’t hold my breath.

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Folks, there were no lines! Seriously. We walked right off the plane, through customs, and onto the health screening. Easy-breezy. Missing our flight turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.

They passed out snacks and water on the way to health screening. The line was so short I didn’t even have time to eat my snack!

Each person/family got led to a person who asked about your travels, how you were feeling, and if you were in contact with anyone who was sick. They all wore masks, a plastic face shield, and gloves. I didn’t notice, but my mom said they health-checking folk (not their official title) were Chicago firefighters.

Our temperatures were measured with this magical thermometer that didn’t even have to touch your forehead. My temperature was 98.4 degrees in case anyone is wondering. Regardless of the fact that I felt perfectly healthy, I have never been so nervous to get my temperature taken. To put that in perspective though, I have literally never been nervous to have my temperature measured.

And that was it. We were on our way.

Getting Home

We missed our train from Chicago to Carbondale as a result of missing our flight the day before. We left the airport around 7:20 pm and the next train departed at 8:15 am the following morning. Mom and I opted to get a hotel for the night.

I’m wrapping this up on the train to Carbondale. Home. Although the last few days have been full of unknowns, the entire process has moved along rather smoothly. My mom has an unforgettable first international travel story. We still enjoyed the sites, food, and sangria of Barcelona. All-in-all, our spring break was not ruined by coronavirus.

Now, on to figuring out how to be a teacher without seeing my students for the unknown future.

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