Story, Photos and Videos by Trish Pickelhaupt
On March 6, 2020, my roommate Julia Hawley and I departed for Europe on the brink of a worldwide pandemic.
Early in the summer of 2019, we stumbled upon what seemed to be too good of a deal on plane tickets to Amsterdam. Both of us being visual artists, we were fascinated with Amsterdam’s culture and dreamed of traveling together to the Netherlands. The cheap plane tickets seemed to be a sign that we should pack up our things and embark on a spring break trip.
Fast forward to February 2020 and we have planned our museum visits, concert tickets, and sightseeing; we began packing for our adventure. At this time, the virus was making headlines on the other side of the world, in China and Italy, and as the number of cases increased, we began to notice what could be a threat to our long-awaited journey. As spring break crept closer and the virus, which we had become familiar with as the novel “coronavirus” spread further, the thought that the virus might be a threat lingered in the back of our minds. In our minds and deemed by most of the news, the Netherlands was safe and barely affected by the Coronavirus, and our trip was to move forward. Our parents wanted us to be as prepared and safe as possible, so we figured we might as well grab some face masks to wear in the airports, in case this so-called virus happened to linger nearby. It was this thought, however, that started it all.
After discovering that face masks were out of stock on a nation-wide level, the thought that COVID-19 might be a bigger deal than we think crossed our minds for the first time. In a moment of panic, I proceeded to call my cousin, a seasoned traveler who had just recently returned from Vietnam, a place much closer to the heart of the pandemic. She clarified that these face masks won’t necessarily prevent you from getting it and we are better off spending our money on Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and soap. The following day, I ventured out to Target where I discovered that hand sanitizers had entirely left the shelves, but was able to stock up on travel-size Clorox wipes, hand wipes, and soap. I also got extremely lucky and was able to receive the last flu shot they had in stock, my pharmacist even stating that I should be more worried about the flu than the coronavirus. My newly purchased cleaning materials and advice from a medical professional made me feel better about our trip, and Julia even stumbled upon what became our new best friend – plastic gloves.
Once Julia and I committed to going on our trip, we did our best to be as prepared as possible. With our gloves, cleaning supplies, and masks we got from the woodshop, we were ready to embark on our trip. Our first stop: New York City, the future center of the pandemic. At the time, New York continued with its energy, full of people on the streets and taking their normal commutes, and for us hypersensitive and paranoid travelers, we found that we were the odd ones out in the big city.
It was clear that people weren’t acting any differently, even though New York City had seen a spike in Coronavirus cases at this time. However, one thing that did abnormal was JFK airport. Regarded as one of the nation’s busiest travel hubs, JFK was unusually empty when we arrived on March 6. We proceeded to go through customs armed with gloves and masks, and wiped down seats with Clorox wipes before touching them; we realized in the process that we were the only ones acting this way in our terminal. We hesitated to wear the masks at times, as we would often be subject to harsh or fearful glances from those around us. After a somewhere empty flight to London, we arrived at Heathrow airport and were relieved to find the hallways full of more people. The business brought us relief, as it signaled that everything was okay, in our minds. Eventually, we made it to our destination, Amsterdam, and were feeling even better about the perceived normalcy we experienced in the airport and train station.
After a long 34 hours of travel, we made it to our home for the next week, Via Amsterdam, a hostel favored by study-abroad students and contemporary guests. Immediately we felt welcomed and excited by the modern vibe of the lobby and people there. However; we neglected to think about what staying in a hostel with eight other women really meant, especially in a time of such paranoia. We arrived at our room around 8 p.m., bunk beds lined the walls and the lights were dim. Scattered on top of the lockers were several containers of food, personal hygiene products and random pieces of clothing. It appeared that several women were laying in their beds, watching Netflix, reading or sleeping. It was eerily quiet and as we moved in I tried to break the silence by being polite and introducing myself to women who were now our roommates. None of them seemed overly eager to meet, which surprised me; based on my knowledge of hostels and how social the lobby seemed, this felt out of place. Trying our best to ignore our odd feelings, Julia and I got ready for bed and prepared for what we thought was going to be our first good night’s sleep – we couldn’t have been more wrong.
The following morning, Julia and I silently understood by the looks on our faces that we were not having a good time. We stood in the hallway trying to figure out our next steps and I insisted that we ask the front desk for a new room. Luckily, the front desk was accommodating and eventually we were upgraded to a two-person suite – with no one worry about but each other, this was one of the best decisions we made, and allowed us to actually enjoy the rest of our trip, and that we did.
The following week was nothing other than delightful. The Amsterdam streets were still bustling with people and we were able to experience open-air markets, shops, restaurants, and museums just like any normal week in Amsterdam. Besides the fact that we proceeded to wash our hands about 25 times per day.
At this time, social distancing was far beyond recognition, and we attended a concert for Boy Pablo, a band we had been looking forward to seeing for months. Standing in a crowd of nearly 200 people, I tried to keep my hands to myself and enjoy the concert without thoughts of coronavirus on my mind.
On Tuesday of that week, we received notice that the second concert we had planned to attend later that week had been canceled due to concerns about the band members’ health. During the week, we had been trying hard to stay away from reading too much news in an effort to enjoy our time. In reality, this announcement was the first time that the coronavirus directly impacted our plans, because up until now we had been fortunate enough to experience everything as planned.
On Wednesday, March 11, we rented bikes and rode into the middle of rural northern Amsterdam, and on our lovely scenic ride, I couldn’t help but think that we were as far away from Coronavirus as we would ever be, and a true moment of peace crossed my mind.
When I fell asleep that night, after a long day of cycling against the wind, I could hardly anticipate what the next morning would bring.
Upon arriving in Philadelphia, we were in full gear to get off the plane and out of the Philadelphia airport as quickly as possible. We walked swiftly towards the exit, only stopping at the final obstacle: the entry booth back into the United States. I had been wearing gloves in all the airports, and Philadelphia was my last trek. After being questioned by the border patrol guard about my choice to wear gloves and not a mask/helmet, I stated I was only trying to be as safe as possible and had heard that ‘it’ spreads through hand contact. Finally, we were allowed to pass, not screened and not sent into quarantine in a military-base (like we heard rumors about). My parents, for this I am so grateful, drove all the way to Philadelphia to pick us up so we could avoid traveling back through New York City. Having been in the U.S., they knew about all of the hoarding which had been occurring and to prepare us for the weeks ahead, they even stopped and stocked up on groceries for Julia and me.
Our friend’s mother works for the CDC and called to inform us that the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol we had flown through had risen to a risk level 3 by the time we arrived there; for the safety of ourselves and others, she advised us to quarantine.
After a long drive covered with face masks in the back of my parents’ car, we made it to our apartment in Rochester.
Currently, I am writing to you from day 17 in quarantine. Since arriving back in Rochester, Julia and I have spent many hours cleaning, reading, listening to music, doing yoga, and working on projects. While at times it has been difficult, we have done our best to establish routines and try to find the silver lining, especially looking back on the positive moments of our trip with gratitude. Within one week of spring break, our perspective on the Coronavirus and its effect on the world changed completely. We went from feeling prepared to travel to Europe with Clorox wipes in hand, to facing the possibility of not being let back into our home country. Had our spring break happened one week later, or the virus spread one week earlier, we would without a doubt have had to cancel the trip of a lifetime. My so-called mild breathing problems have persisted for the majority of our time in quarantine, but due to my lack of cough and fever, hospitals refuse to test either of us. While both of us feel otherwise healthy, there is still the underlying feeling of knowing that we were most definitely in a vulnerable place. We may have been exposed to COVID-19, but the truth is, we will never really know.
