Tales of an Orchestra Den Mother | Part 13, Coda

Sunday, April 24: A 26 Hour Journey in a Single Day

We awoke at 2:00 am at the Don Giovanni Hotel in Prague to begin the long trek home. Our itinerary for the day involved flying from Prague to Frankfurt, then on to Toronto where a bus would bring us home to Rochester. 

Unfortunately, a single musician tested positive for Covid and had to remain behind. On the bright side, it was only only one and everyone else was able to depart Prague. Our policy was not to test without cause; if no symptoms were evident, no testing occurred. Through sheer dumb luck, we managed to avoid incoming Covid testing requirements for every country we would enter that day. Germany and Canada had both dropped their testing requirements for air travelers. The US still had a testing requirement for those flying in, but had eliminated it for those arriving by land as we would near day's end. It was only later that we appreciated the good fortune granted by these circumstances.

Due to flight limitations out of Prague, we were split into two groups for the first leg of travel, an early group and a late group. The early group would "enjoy" boxed breakfasts on the bus whereas the late group would be treated to the full breakfast buffet at the Don Giovanni. The groups would be reunited in Frankfurt and return to North America on the same Lufthansa 747-400. It is not hard to imagine which group I would have rather been in and that, naturally, meant that Yana, Zhenya, Gabe, Luke, Izzy, The Bear, and I were stuck in the early group.

Up at 2:00 am and on the bus at 3:00 am, we ate our boxed breakfasts in the dark as the lights of Prague whizzed past the bus windows. The airport terminal was deserted when we arrived and we had to wait to check in. In line, we were close to one of the musicians still suffering with the GI bug. Her complexion akin to that of a reanimated corpse, she spent her time sitting on the floor and periodically vomiting into a plastic bag. As the line moved, she shuffled along, dragging the bag behind her. The poor kid was the very picture of misery and had the empathy of all of us waiting with her.

We made it through security without any issues, though I was concerned about the replacement cold pack for The Bear's medication that we were given in Leipzig because it exceeded the liquids and gels volume limit. Fortunately, there were no questions about it at all. I had disposed of the extra doses back at the hotel and we only carried one with us to be administered in Frankfurt as soon as we found a suitable yogurt to mix it with. 

Those tired eyes are no joke!

We arrived in Frankfurt around 7:10 am and found a good place for breakfast. Unlike some of the peanut smoothies we prepared at various hotels in Europe, The Bear actually liked this one! Victory! I kept the insulated case, but happily disposed of the cheap replacement cold pack from Leipzig with the knowledge that my time managing a refrigerated medication was finally over.

In Frankfurt. Tom Petty had it right; the waiting is the hardest part.

Then we waited. For hours. We were rejoined by the rest of the HYSO over four hours later and proceeded to wait for our 1:50 pm flight to Canada.

Despite the fact that we had been sitting at the gate for hours, the Lufthansa gate agents waited until 45 minutes prior to boarding to run the entire planeload of passengers through another passport check. Partway through, an agent asked one of the HYSO kids about his final destination.

"Rochester, NY," said the kid.

In that moment, it was absolutely the wrong answer. Our final destination by air was Toronto. On hearing a destination in the US, the agent said, "You need a Covid test before you can fly to the US." Lufthansa pulled our entire group out of line and threatened to test all 120 of us. Casey, the HYSO director, explained to (argued with) the agent that we were driving to the US from Canada and that there was no Covid test requirement for that mode of travel. The agent, mistakenly believing himself to be in a position to create policy, thought we should all test anyway. Ultimately, Lufthansa escalated to a higher level manager who actually understood the requirements and their implications. Just as it appeared that we were going to miss the flight, we were ushered through the line to verify our passports and then on to the waiting 747.

We landed in Toronto 6.5 hours later and arrived by bus at Hochstein in downtown Rochester around 10:00 pm. It is actually possible to fit 26 hours of travel into a 24 hour day.

Sunday, April 24: Isn't This Where We Came In?

Back home, The Bear and I decided that it would be wise to take Covid tests to see if we had picked-up anything before going back to school and work. Just as we had a little over a week before, we laid our rapid tests on the granite countertop of our kitchen island to await the results. One of them was an immediate, strong positive (what I called a "raging positive"). That was mine.

Bookending the trip with Covid positives lent a certain degree of symmetry to the whole adventure. Fortunately, I fared better than Kristy with my Covid case. Whereas she spent a week in misery while The Bear and I gallivanted around Europe, I was asymptomatic the entire time and would have otherwise never known I had it. I have joked that this was my European vaccination. The Bear never got it, but several of the other HYSO tour participants did and some of those cases were quite unpleasant.

Departing Frankfurt, we had no idea how close many of us came to being stranded there, which is exactly what would have happened had that rogue Lufthansa gate agent gotten his way.

Reflection

In Berlin. Photo by Luke.

I am so grateful for this experience. While I am disappointed that Kristy was forced to stay home, I am also glad to have had such a unique shared experience with my daughter. I am also pleased to have been present for Luke and Izzy when their parents couldn't be. They are terrific young adults! Yana may have been teasing me about being the [Hogwarts] School Den Mother, but I am (obviously) quite pleased with the honorary title.

In high school, I never had a history class that managed to get beyond World War II. While I obviously knew bits and pieces about the Eastern Bloc countries, this trip was a fantastic lesson in the post-war history of those places. It was made even more meaningful through the lens of the present war in Ukraine. For most Americans, the end of World War II brought about a return to normalcy. But for the Europeans in those Eastern Bloc nations, the end of the war was simply a segue into a new type of oppression that lasted decades. In effect, the events of World War II are significantly more recent for those Europeans than they are for us.

I am most pleased for The Bear. As a teenager, my world was incredibly small. I did not cross an ocean for the first time until I was nearly 40 years old. The Bear has a much greater sense of the world and her place in it than I ever did. Moreover, I am proud that her talent as a musician earned her a place in this wonderful orchestra that provided such a profound opportunity. While I like to grouse about the inconveniences of the travel, there is little doubt in my mind that this will remain a cherished experience for both of our lifetimes.