Arriving at O'Hare during a pandemic

But we finally board our plane, late.  And then we sit on the tarmac

for two hours while you can hear them putting luggage on and off, and people are still getting on and off.  They say that they’re waiting for some people, then waiting for luggage, but Oscar has watched one whole Disney movie by the time we take off.  All I can think is, “now we have 9 more 

hours to kill once we finally get in the air”.  And I don’t want to think of the customs nightmare that awaits us in Chicago.  We make it through the flight with Oscar sleeping a couple of hours, John watching 4 movies and me finding music that I haven’t heard in a while and listening to it on their system.  The music makes me feel better about the whole situation and I’m reminded about the power of music, which is something I forget

about a lot.  I make a promise to myself to get some music going at home when we quarantine.  We finally get off this flight and start walking toward customs, and walking and walking.  We’re walking down the stairs that we saw pictures posted of people 

 standing in horrible lines in.  We’re walking through strung up barriers that put us in line and there are still no lines.  We get to the customs cubes and there is someone telling us to fill out our precheck forms out or get them out from Dublin.  This sheet is not your normal 

customs list asking you to declare what you’re bringing in, only about your health and where you’ve been for the last 14 days.  They don’t care what we’re bringing in and John kicks himself for not bringing more whiskey in.  They don’t even ask if we have fruits or

 vegetables, it would be the perfect time to import some exotic animals or bring in seeds they don’t want because they only care if you have COVID 19.  We get through Customs in 10 minutes and the customs officer welcomes us back, gives Oscar a sticker and a badge for coming through.  And then we’re in a line to see the health professionals.  We get water and

snacks passed out to us while we wait, then the nurse looks at our form, asks us the same questions about 14 days in the UK, being around anyone that we know has COVID 19 and if we have cough, difficulty breathing or fever.  That’s it.  That’s the entire response to this.  I’m pouring sweat from lugging stuff around and figure they won’t believe me about not having a fever or that my temp will be elevated, but they didn’t even take it.  They let us get our bags and walk out with our phone numbers, our emails and told us to call our health department if we got the 3

 symptoms listed on the paper.  That’s it.  That’s the entire “enhanced screening”.  And because of that, I could have brought 14 kilos of narcotics into the country with no one caring….we head

out into the terminal to try and call our hotel to get the shuttle to get us.  This is tricky because we are dependent entirely on O’Hare’s wifi because we have no services.  We’re able to get them on skype and get to the hotel where we have difficulty getting to sleep, butfinally do. We're finally home in the US of A and with just a few things like shuttles, the elevated train in Chicago, and a SouthShore train to Michigan City to meet our ride home, it's done.  Our "big sabbatical trip" is over.