Vacation in times of corona

“Shall we just not go then?” I’m sitting in the car with sweaty armpits. And that’s not from the workout I just finished. By the way, it was constantly interrupted by calls from our nanny Stella, who had photographed my daughters' IDs so I had their numbers that I needed to book a time slot for a corona test.

It’s now test attempt 4. You can’t book per family, so every time I manage to register myself and my beloved for a test, I’m told that all time slots are now taken. At Schiphol, in The Hague, and at all other locations. I find a test location in Badhoevedorp through a friend. They just have space. 150 euros per person, but that will have to do. I fill out the form for everyone (correct date of birth? Good passport number?) and immediately pay 150 euros pp via iDEAL. My poor bank account is in shock today, but it’s all for a week in Italy. When I receive the confirmation email, my sunny mood darkens. What do I read? Normally, you receive the test result the next day at 23:30, but if you get tested on Saturday after 12:00, you won’t get the result until Monday night. And we fly Monday morning. Now you might say: why don’t you get tested on Saturday before 12:00? BECAUSE THERE IS NO SPACE THEN.

I’m an optimist and always see a possibility, but right now I’m at a loss. I haven’t even thought about how I can get our Flo (with a mental disability) tested at all, but I’ll kick that ball down the road for now. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, seems like a nice motto.

I message Manon, our executive producer and someone who can arrange everything. It’s not that I necessarily have the ambition to have tea with Donald Trump tomorrow, but if it had to happen, she would make it happen. Besides being an executive producer, she has also been a purser at KLM for years, so who knows, she might have a connection somewhere. Long story short: an hour later she calls. There’s still a possibility in Almere. In Ali B’s office, no less. My girls will surely like that.

So off we go, to Almere. I hope for the cheek swab test and if it has to be through the nose… We’ll cross that bridge… And so on.

Flo is excited about Italy, so I’ve prepped her well. ‘The doctor will take a look in your mouth. If that’s good, you can go to Italy. To your cuddly toys.’ ‘Bye doctor, I’m going to growl like a lion now…’ With a light skip, we walk out of the building. Now just waiting for the result. Tonight at 23:30 we’ll get the result. It feels like getting results for an exam you didn’t take. Or for which you didn’t study. Opening the emails is a TV format in itself. You receive the email, then a code to decrypt the encrypted email. But which code belongs to which email? It takes a while (where are my glasses?!) before we’ve unraveled it all, but here we go. The first document unfolds. Our Flo is corona-free. Breathe out. It continues like this. As if the test service is deliberately building up the tension, we are the last ones to be called. Just our luck. I think of our acquaintance from the beach. A strong man, in his mid-forties. Suddenly in the ICU. Corona is, in that respect, affecting us all.

But we are okay. We exhale, fill our glass, and finally start to cautiously look forward to a week in Italy.