Well, the world has gone to shit, hasn’t it... But hey, look on the bright side, you can read more of my ramblings on my blog. So last time you’ve heard from me, I was minding my own business, living in London with Aisling. Now we are 2000 km away, going from the biggest city in Europe to the middle of nowhere, Hungary to enjoy 2 weeks of self-isolation. Here is what we’ve been up to and how we got here.
Prequel… Or day 0?
So, this coronavirus thingy has been a bit worrying, you know, but London hasn’t been the most stressful place to be, say a week ago. Things have gone quiet, but work continued as usual and we just spent more time at home. However, during the weekend we realized that Hungary may be shutting the borders indefinitely, plus probably my workplace will shut and Aisling’s uni closed. So, we’d just be stuck in London, in a tiny little apartment where the shower doesn’t work properly. Doesn’t sound very appealing, does it?
We started talking to our families about coming home to Hungary and crafted a plan to arrive in about a week or two. However, from there, things escalated really damn fast. On Monday, I handed in my notice and said I’d stay for another week. Just as I walked out of that meeting, I saw the news that the Hungarian government decided to shut the border with immediate effect on Monday midnight and shut down Budapest’s airport. While at that point it was clearly too late to try to pack up all our stuff, we later got news that Hungarian citizens would be allowed to enter and the airport will accept some more flights, as long as the airline companies don’t cancel. Slight panic, quick calls with the family and a painfully expensive set of tickets later we were set to fly back Tuesday night.
On Tuesday I went to work as usual, discussed the situation and everyone was very understanding. So, I finished my last shift at Blacks, where I’ve worked for the last 6 months, Aisling and I finished packing, hopped in an Uber and dragged 4 full suitcases, plus our hand luggage to Luton. Fun times! Honestly, it was all so surreal, everything happened very fast… But we did get back to Hungary!
My family waved from a distance at the airport, while we took the car and drove down to Aisling’s parents’ property in the countryside on the north side of Lake Balaton. By 5 am on Wednesday, we passed out in bed, listening only to the quiet crackling of the fire in the stove…
We decided it would be best if we isolated ourselves for 2 weeks before going back to Budapest, mainly to keep our families safe. Aisling and I are not that scared of getting the coronavirus, but passing it on to others is a worry.
Day 1
I have to admit, most of our day 1 in Balaton was spent sleeping. In 72 hours, we had to go from “oh, maybe we should start looking into getting home,” to quitting jobs, leaving the flat, saying goodbye to friends and coworkers, packing all our stuff and actually arriving in Hungary. It was exhausting, both physically and emotionally. But the fun part starts here! Because we are in a beautiful secluded location in the rolling hills on the north side of Lake Balaton in a nice old house with an incredible amount of food stocked up. We’ll spend the next two weeks here, Aisling working on her dissertation and essays and I’ll do some blogging, trail running and living out my redneck dreams doing DIY projects around the house and garden.
Honestly, we didn’t do anything too exciting. But we did go through our 4 suitcases, organized our stuff, put away gear that we won’t need (I’m sure I won’t need a tux here) and sorted through the immense amount of food that our families decided to leave in the house for us for the next 2 weeks. In fact, we have so much stuff that I think we could easily survive for 3-4 weeks, so if we decide that the country life is more appealing, we’ll just get a dog, some goats, turn this place into a farm and live here forever.
You can walk for miles and miles without meeting anyone, through cute rolling hills, empty forests and wide open fields. If we do accidentally have the coronavirus, we surely won’t be passing it on to anyone by accident…