I would like to note that Chris’ preferred title for this post — just so you know — is HIGHWAY TO THE RED ZOOOOOOOONE. I told him it only works if you can hear him singing it to the tune of “Danger Zone,” so it ended up on the chopping block. 

Greetings from our apartment in Sicily, which I have left just once since last Wednesday. Let me start off by saying how much we appreciate the many messages that we’ve received from family and friends alike. To answer the questions we are getting most frequently: We are fine. We have plenty of supplies — Chris stocked up on essentials weeks ago, and things are still available at grocery stores and the base commissary. While Italy has the biggest outbreak of the virus outside of China, we are living in the area of the country that seems to have the fewest cases thus far. (Knock on wood). We are healthy. We are not panicking.

That said, we are taking the lockdown seriously over here.

It’s been a strange week. Up until last Sunday, the COVID-19 issue had been somewhat in the background here. While we’d hear concerning things about what was going on in the hardest-hit areas of northern Italy, for a while the most that seemed to change down here was base cashiers and gate guards beginning to wear gloves when they handled documents. At that point, our biggest concern was whether our flights to Amsterdam — where we were scheduled to meet friends for a long weekend trip — would get cancelled.

And then things changed quickly. After declaring first a lockdown specifically of the affected northern counties, last Sunday night I started getting bunches of messages from friends letting me know that the Red Zone had been extended to all of Italy. For a day or two, it was a sort of “milder” lockdown, where restaurants and bars were allowed to be open between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., as long as patrons kept a distance of 1 meter between them. That quickly changed, and now essentially the entire populace is under strict lockdown until April 3. Here’s some of what’s going on:

–We are not to leave our homes unless it is to go to work, to the doctor or to get groceries. If you do need to go get groceries, only one person per family can go. Anyone leaving the house needs to carry a sort of travel declaration form that includes your name, address and where you are going. There is a 6 p.m. curfew. The Italian police can fine you or even arrest you for being out when you aren’t supposed to. So far, I only know one person personally whose been stopped for leaving her house; a friend was stopped twice on her way to the bakery for bread.

–Everything is closed except hospitals, pharmacies, grocery stores and (apparently) pet stores. This means that almost everything on base — library, gym, food court, movie theater, bowling alley, etc. — is likewise closed, with the exception of the commissary and the Navy Exchange. In town, grocery stores are open but the number of people allowed in is strictly controlled, in an effort to maintain social distancing. I have not made an attempt to go out in town, but I heard from friends that there were extremely long lines outside stores on Monday as facilities implemented a “one in, one out” policy for shopping.

–Chris is still going to work. For now. However, he’s been encouraged to telework as much as is possible and has been able to do so for one day so far. A lot of what he does requires him to be onsite, however. Those who are remaining at his workplace are being hyper vigilant about keeping their distance from one another.

-The kids are out of school until at least April 13. All Italian schools, universities, day cares and other such facilities are closed. We believe the base school was actually the last in all of Italy to close, but as of Wednesday it is shut down. Lockdown ends April 3, but spring break starts immediately after so they won’t return until after Easter at best. Luckily, the teachers here are working hard to get e-learning up and running and our first day of that (Friday) went pretty well.

-We aren’t leaving the island until at least May. Obviously, flights to and from Italy are almost entirely cancelled until April 3 (exceptions for essential movements, of course). On top of that DOD has banned both military and civilian employees from leaving for 60 days, so we won’t be able to go anywhere until at least May 12. All PCS moves, either to or from here, are cancelled, so many people are in a bit of limbo. All work travel is obviously also cancelled, so Chris does not expect to go to a training in the U.S. in May as planned.

You may ask, “Isn’t this an over-reaction?”

No. We don’t think so by any means. Is it inconvenient? Hell yeah! I honestly can’t remember the last time we spent this much time inside. Even after Lochlan was born, we still went out as a family, and people could come to visit us. As anyone who knows me can tell you, being stuck in the house for much more than a day and I start getting a little stir-crazy.

But we believe that staying in the house for the next few weeks isn’t just our legal responsibility, it is our moral one. 

It would be easy to write COVID-19 off as “no big deal” because honestly, even if we get it, in all likelihood we’ll be fine. None of us are in the demographic that seems to be most affected by it so far, though I do worry about Lochlan since our little dude has already battled a few respiratory infections in his life. However, we could unknowingly pass the virus on to untold numbers of people, many of whom are bound to be in a heightened risk group. Italy has one of the oldest populations of any country in the world, and culturally it is extremely common for older people to live with their children and grandkids. In northern Italy, hospitals are already struggling to keep up with the numbers of people coming in with the virus and in some cases, hard choices are being made. There are so only so many ventilators in any given facility, so how does one decide which patient in need gets one? If this thing spreads as widely in southern Italy — which is much poorer than the north — it will be ugly.

You can read more about that on your own; if your Facebook is anything like mine, I’m sure it is full of articles about this issue. But before I step off my soap box, I will just encourage you all, wherever you are, to take this seriously.

But on to more about us! How have we been spending our time?

Mostly by making messes, ha! Just kidding. The kids are really doing better than I expected thus far — honestly, I think I’m the one having the hardest time with not being able to leave! Friday was our first day of online school, and it went pretty well (with a few small hiccups). Owen and Fiona have been having fun inventing new games together, which is sweet to see. Lochlan loves having his big brother and sister around all day to entertain him, and is also helping out by taking good morning naps.

We are also playing with a lot of old toys and science kits and games we haven’t touched in a while. In our non-lockdown world, we usually spend most weekday days rushing around dealing with school, sports, homework, dinner, etc., then weekends tend to involve birthday parties or events with friends or more sports. On vacations, we are almost always rushing around seeing things. Perhaps we’ll eventually consider this enforced idleness a nice break? Time will tell.

For my part, I’m taking breaks by walking around our balcony. It encircles our entire apartment, so I just walk an endless loop like a hamster on a wheel. I’m listening to David Sedaris’s new book, Calypso, which is laugh-out-loud funny, so I generally look like a crazy lady walking in circles, cackling like a witch. I’m sure it is a good look.

On the travel front

Obviously, our vacation plans are the least important thing right now. But, as this is a travel blog, I’ll give you the update all the same. Both our spring break trip to Bordeaux and Lisbon, and our planned long weekend in Amsterdam with my friend April and her family have been cancelled. I’m bumming pretty hard about these because both have been in the works since at least 2018, at least in principle, and hours of research went into planning it all out. I’m hoping we can reschedule some of this, but at this point it feels like we need to wait and see what happens.

On the refund front, it’s been a bit rocky. We were able to get almost everything back on our rental house in the Netherlands (whew!) after a phone call to AirBnB, and allegedly I’m getting a refund from RyanAir for our cancelled flights (but it hasn’t shown up in my account yet …). However, we used points to pay for several parts of both trips and trying to get that figured out is a bit of a mess since the Chase travel lines are overwhelmed. I will keep at it them.

We have a trip planned for this summer with my parents and my brothers and sister, and I’m SO SO SO hoping we are able to go ahead with that. It feels like it took a near miracle to get everyone agreed on a time and location (the south of France and Provence) — not to mention SO MANY HOURS OF RESEARCHING — so if that has to be cancelled, there will be quite a few tears. But again, I do appreciate that this is definitely a very minor concern compared to everything else going on right now.

So, that’s the update! I apologize for how long it took me to get this up, but I do appreciate everyone’s concern. Everyone, please stay healthy (and stay home!).