Thread by @iWozik

Instead of "Warm regards" or "Have a beautiful day" I sign my emails with "Enjoy your quarantine" or "Have a productive quarantine".
#staythefuckhome I guess

#workfromhome #homeoffice

I ended up flying today. Will breath out and tell the story what it means to fly in #Europe while the #COVID19 collapse is in full swing.

And how comes I am not #StayHome
Nothing to be proud of, but yeah... put a <3 to motivate me take more pictures

last week unrolled pretty fast. On Wednesday we found ourselves in #Marseille while "the bad flu" got an upgrade to #pandemia .

We checked numbers for #France and cote d'azur region. They were lower than our home city of #Stockholm. /2

So we like "haha, let's just get more vitamin d" and "less infected here than in Stockholm anyway". And then countries started to close borders, airlines were grounding their fleet and shit got real.

Remember last week, it was random and fast /3

Being multilingual helps to see multiple perspectives when things develop by the hour. #Lithuania and #Poland were going full quarantine with stuff closed. #Russia and #Belarus were more or less "uhh... what's pandemia". /4

Officials in #Sweden had a meeting to decide on a meeting when to decide what to do. #UK went full "herd immunity" mode on. And we were in #France then, where people (including us) enjoyed the sun and a croissant 🥐🥐🥐/5

By Friday evening it was already super scary that all the borders get closed for weeks. #Lithuania with ~6 cases at that time was a role model of how to close up instant with nobody going in or out. /6

On the other hand in #Sweden even the schools were not to be closed (in many ways even today) since it may cause disruption for kids.

Then PM announced it was too late to close up, so let's just try to do something, i.e. stay at home if possible /7

Fast forward to now, 16:06 Tue, Mar 17
We were able to leave France and are in Belgium now. @flightradar24 is keeping us sane by showing how beautifully SK1589 is progressing.

But let's see how we got here 🥂/8

On Friday-Saturday the number of death and infected across Europe went hockey stick, all governments [remember, I speak EN, SE, LT and RU so was able to watch things unroll natively across countries] proposed more isolation measures and our flights back were for today, Mar /9

It all looked pretty frightening. And we were not alone with this observation. @FlyingBrussels support service collapsed, so we could not change our tickets to an earlier date. Then somebody got back to us via DM on twi with "you bought it via an agent, so GTFO" /10

So we tried to change our flights and could not. Getting new flights from MRS to STO wasn't easy also. France announced new measures with reduced transport everywhere and closed public eateries. Also obviously people around don't speak much English to help =] So we stayed... /11

SE PM promised to not close borders because "it was too late anyway". So out hope was that FR and BE would hold on and SN would keep flying until we land in Stockholm.

Then SN2309 got cancelled on monday evening... /12

This is @BrusselsAirport at 16:51 on Tuesday, March 17 - I am taking a breath now, will followup the story soon /13

so TL;DR:
- we went to Marseille before all pandemy saga got real
- we could not change our flights or buy new really
- then our flight got cancelled and the airline or the agency were in full WFH chill
Meaning this morning we had a puzzle: how to move ourselves from MRS to STO

Airlines change their flights as they want, since in pandemy EU261 or any insurance, frankly, doesn't work. New tickets within EU are 300-500EUR and you're lucky to pay it since nobody knows which borders close next and which flights gonna happen. /15

In Marseille today the bus drivers were isolated from the salon with a STOP line. People enter through the exit doors. Metro is functional. All eateries are take-away only. Supermarkets has lines outside so there's not too much people in.

We managed to get to MRS airport /16

Most cafes are closed. No tables to seat for those open. Some staff wear masks. People run around shouting and trying to get tickets. A lady in front of us got a BA ticket to LHR for 500EUR right after she had got FR ticket for a flight that got cancelled. /17

At this point the motivation to land in Stockholm today is strong. As most other countries around are more or less closed and sealed.

We approached a gate agent ready for a fight but she tells us to step one meter back for safety reasons and just rebooks us to SK1590 /18

SN3598 and our upcoming SK1590 are ~60-70% filled with people. MRS and BRU are mostly empty with virus signs and most eating and shopping places closed. /19

Few open places have safe distance lines and are take away only. /20

Boarding now. Stay healthy. Was this journey worth it in retrospect? Probably not. Mmm....totally not. But again, we got to Marseille before shit got too real.

Gonna #StayHome now /end

Ah no. Not end. We've landed in ARN and were about to get checked, disinfected and put to whatever quarantine possible. Instead we just went out, hopped on a bus and are going home now.

Guess Vikings know the secret of immortality.

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