OH! “Do you love to travel?” Part 3. Although today is already 8 December, and snow is falling, and it is cold and slippery, it is all the more pleasant to lie on the sofa, having already eaten (I know, I know there is no such word 😻) as many as two croissants, and at once having cheered up 🤓, I start writing about the tedious boarding of the cruise liner with the much-promising name “WONDERS of the Seas.” I write in “petty” and unpleasant details for me.
A positive moment: a wonderful Italian taxi driver in a super-duper BMW took us in an hour to the boarding point for the liner. At the entrance they met us and escorted us to the baggage drop and quickly took our little suitcases, issuing boarding cards and showing the direction “where further…” But this is not yet the ship! This tourist reception point is like an airport with checkpoints and document checks. 😳
So, before us the first checkpoint — People in masks. “Hello, hello, put on masks!” And our masks… are in the suitcases (possibly already being loaded onto the ship 🙀). What to do? Ivan ran back to the place where they took our suitcases; I decided to totter after him too (already all the suitcases were in a not-small heap of suitcases, to which they would not let us, and we had to, at a distance of about 30 metres, point to our suitcase. My little suitcase is small and yellow, easier to see, but I packed things at the hotel in an unconscious state and did not remember where that pack of disposable masks lay. And Ivan cannot remember such trifles at all, because the so-called “mask regime” in Norway “passed us by,” because crowding of people practically never happens here and we put on masks only for vaccinations. And we did all 3 vaccinations and on schedule!
We went up to the staff, show them the tickets with the suitcase numbers, and they temperamentally in Italian try to find our suitcases. I look, they roll a large suitcase, but not ours. I understand that my husband does not react, and I, of course, am more vigilant, I utter: “that is not our suitcase.” On the second approach to the suitcase heap the Italians rolled out our suitcases. From that moment we were “saved and protected by disposable masks.” I remind readers that this was happening at the end of May 2022, when in the world an “all-clear” had been declared to quarantine madness. But “a mask is not always bad,” I thought, hiding my “sour expression.” Well then, we go again to the checkpoint.
Here a small interrogation takes place — a dialogue in English directing us further to the next point for paid express covid testing. On the way I grumble through the mask to my husband: “we have 3 vaccinations! You were sure and you assured me that we would have a ‘green street’ everywhere in all countries and continents and what do I get now?…..” (further it already carried me away with untranslatable words 😂). And again a checkpoint. They propose going to take this test “from the nose.” We took it. We wait — result in 20 minutes. My husband tries to set up internet on the phone. Somehow everything is slow… We wait. I look at the board with results. At last! We are negative! It remains only to register and show the vaccinations.
And the internet “doesn’t pull,” and our vaccination passports are there, on the internet, on personal pages! That is when I remembered the old saying: “Without a paper you are a bug, and with a paper you are a person!” Well then I try to hold on, not to cry, not to get angry, not to be indignant. The staff girl also waits patiently until we can open our pages with vaccinations. She needs the exact dates of our vaccinations. We wait. I look around, look at people, they are also registering: some at the registration desk, some simply by the staff, like us. Well, my husband has a Nordic character, he is completely calm (my computer genius), and about myself I have nothing left to write. I simply stand in a mask, “a drooping donkey Eeyore.” Well at last, after 40 minutes our vaccinations opened! The girl notes the dates and went to the registration desk to photocopy onto paper. Everything passed! By the escalator stairs we went up onto the ship! Passengers were allowed to take off masks, but all the staff on the ship were in masks.