Hotel quarantine experience when returning to Australia

[maia200]

Yes, someone has 2 weeks to clean our house and make room for us It is the Novotel in Darling Harbour / Chinatown. Great to hear that you are all fully vaccinated

Thought it sounded like a Novotel having stayed there a month ago but not in quarantine. Thankfully you're nearly home . Thank you for the rundown of your trip

 

[Myrna]

The Perth rules are short of a full lockdown so it is more masks on than you cannot do this and that.
Meanwhile granny and the birds did well earlier this evening.
Our Sydney guest has a quarantine flight back to Perth on Wednesday and I think she will have to do 14 days of some form of quarantine. We had thought she might be trapped in Sydney.
That Sydney to Perth flight will only be partially full from what we have been told.
Our youngest son has abandoned his trip east and our eldest son’s trip to Cairns is still a few days away.

Another day in "paradise" prison hotel quarantine Half way to serving the mandatory detention. Another 20 meals to consume till release day.
This morning hubby on chat to QF health insurance promo, and they wanted to talk to him, so he gave them the hotel and our cell number. When the phone rang, he answered "city morgue" then they asked him if he would accept a call from QF health insurance etc.
It seems lockdowns and masks are mostly here now. So, let's keep well and safe - except we don't have the last bit "fresh air".

 

[Myrna]

For lunch today, they only delivered one meal portion (instead 2 normally): ricotta cheese and spinach pastizzi with Greek salad, a water bottle and a bag of popcorn. The pastizzi and salad were nice. We had enough to eat and didn't want to complain about one portion because we don't want them to compensate by delivering 3 meal portions of beef & veg in black bean sauce with steamed jasmine rice tonight We will be stuffed ... Sister-in-law said we should ask for a discount on our prison hotel quarantine bill

 

[kookaburra75]

Thanks for your report, we've been reading along and certainly feel for you both. One suggestion, if you feel the need to 'spice' up your reports, watch an episode of the Bold & The Beautiful at 4.30pm, and then theme your day's adventures around that for your report. It's the sort of thing MrsK would do.

 

[Myrna]

Another 5 days to release - hooray! And 15 more meals to go ...

Found a way to fund our prison quarantine cost - plenty of toilet paper from hotel supplies


And this is how people using toilet paper to protect themselves!

 

[cove]

Ok so you are almost ready for the 2021 toilet paper wars that may run for a year or two. When you break free of your cell block it will all be a little different from when you left a few years ago. You can do a Bunnings sausage sizzle. You can go to Costco for their Kirkland chocolate macadamias. Sorry no Waitrose.....

 

[PineappleSkip]

This TP thing amazes me. This was our local SEQ supermarket after yesterday's announcement you had to wear masks for three days. Like, why?

Of course if you waited for the lockdown announcement (an hour after this pic, again only 3 days) you would have been stuffed.

 

[cove]

I still remember a fellow with a ute load of toilet paper for sale one block from a big Woolworths store. That was about a year ago. The war continues.....

 

[Daver6]

This TP thing amazes me. This was our local SEQ supermarket after yesterday's announcement you had to wear masks for three days. Like, why?

Of course if you waited for the lockdown announcement (an hour after this pic, again only 3 days) you would have been stuffed.
View attachment 251726

Someone needs to explain to the locals what a mask is...

 

[jakeseven7]

This TP thing amazes me. This was our local SEQ supermarket after yesterday's announcement you had to wear masks for three days. Like, why?

Of course if you waited for the lockdown announcement (an hour after this pic, again only 3 days) you would have been stuffed.
View attachment 251726

Northern Beaches in Sydney were wiped out as well. It spreads faster than covid

 

[cove]

Release clock seems to tick faster as the release date looms. By the time you get released all the TP will be in home warehouses and none on the shop shelves.
Reminds me of when we arrived at our Sydney apartment and there was zero toilet paper anywhere.....

 

[Myrna]

Ok so you are almost ready for the 2021 toilet paper wars that may run for a year or two. When you break free of your cell block it will all be a little different from when you left a few years ago. You can do a Bunnings sausage sizzle. You can go to Costco for their Kirkland chocolate macadamias. Sorry no Waitrose.....

Can't wait to get out of "jail". Hubby said at midnight - another 2 hours away - we have served 2/3 of our detention. It will be like establishing a whole new life after almost 10 years on the wanderlust run. Thankfully we were able to return home now, as both Qld and Vic said they wanted to reduce the international arrivals. We do feel for many who are still stranded overseas.
Time to renew our acquaintance with Bunnings (suspect we are going to spend a considerable time there) and Costco (yes! chocolate macadamias). Missing Waitrose ...

 

[Myrna]

Release clock seems to tick faster as the release date looms. By the time you get released all the TP will be in home warehouses and none on the shop shelves.
Reminds me of when we arrived at our Sydney apartment and there was zero toilet paper anywhere.....

We were grateful for the TP stash mrscove had in your London flat And, I had enough time to restock them before we left. At the beginning of the London lockdown, my young girlfriend drove to our rental flat and dropped off 100 disposable face masks (three months before WHO decided masks should be worn) and 48 rolls of TP (she bought them in bulk from Amazon months before the lockdown). She must have known somehow? i thought I had won the lottery.

 

[Bundy Bear]

Thanks for the continued updates.
I had considered heading to Perth in early August, lucky I only got as far as looking st schedules and not booking anything.
With the latest lock down looks like another local trip is cancelled.

Another 5 days to release - hooray! And 15 more meals to go ...

 

[Seat0B]

Hang in there @Myrna, nearly over.

It’s a very strange thing re-integrating into a country where you have been absent for a while. We were only overseas for 2.5 years on a military posting, but it was still a culture shock to relocate home. And that was without a pandemic!

 

[cove]

Yes @Seat0B we experienced that in 1984 and i remember how backward Perth was when we returned from a year in the US. We had supermarkets that never closed and a whole range of services.
It is safer in our part of Australia than in the gun toting USA.
i still like California And Mrscove likes London but we cannot go to either at the moment.

 

[Seat0B]

@cove , I found it really odd, returning home. We were posted to the US, which we loved, and were given a lot of support and help to settle in and deal with the culture shock of moving there, which actually was a bit more than initially expected. When we first arrived, there was the obvious "honeymoon period", and we thought oh well, they speak English here and we are very familiar with American culture from the movies, TV show etc, how easy it will be! However, after about 6 months it really hit me just how different Aussies are from Americans in some ways, and how similar in others and I definitely felt culture shock and a bit homesick at that point. This soon wore off though and the time we spent there is a golden period of my life.

I certainly did not expect ito have culture shock though on return to Aus. However, we were not supported by the military at all with return - I suppose they thought we were just pleased to be home. It took a long time to settle back in. We were home, but had no real idea what had happened here whilst we were away (1990-1992 - so the pre-internet era which meant very limited news from home whuilst we were gone) and so we kept missing the "in jokes" and references to social occurrences and politics, suffered a bit of relevance deprivation syndrome after a couple of years of the high life and being regarded as something special/unusual in the USA, and of course we were not prepared for the total disinterest or even aggressive dismissal of our time away by many in our social circle. I honestly found the adjustment to being home harder than it was to the adjustment when we arrived in the USA. Mind you, it was awesome to be back near the family (well near in military terms anyway), and to be able to get back on with my "real life". I've since heard that this experience is very common for those of us lucky enough to be away and then return.

 

[cove]

Yes @Seat0B there are heaps of differences between Los Angeles, London and Australian life. Just not obvious if you are just a tourist for a couple of weeks.

 

[cove]

In our Perth lockup we have no Rubys, no Johnny Rockets, no Ruths Chris , no Flemings and no J Nichols. Yes i am missing Los Angeles even if I was just going to those places once or twice a year before the pandemic.
On the other hand we have family, Australian lamb , AFL and greater safety in Perth than in Los Angeles.
I don’t miss the gun society that America has which cannot be fixed easily.

 

[Seat0B]

Good morning @Myrna! How was your prison breakfast this morning? I had tea and a sachet of porridge nuked up in the microwave, so probably not too different to yours!