Before getting back to writing about our experience in Australia (a narrative derailed, as everything has been, by the coronavirus pandemic), it seems appropriate to finish the story of our departure/escape from Oz in Lockdown:

Somehow, our scheduled flight turned out to be either the only or one of the few flights still going from Sydney to the US (in this case, San Francisco). Dumb luck. This meant that the flight was packed, as every American or other person whose flight had been cancelled had gotten on the flight. From a coronavirus point of view, it was probably the most dangerous part of our trip. If you have never done it, the trip is not merely endless, the timing is always surprising. We left at 1:00 PM on Tuesday and arrived in San Francisco at 8:00 AM on Tuesday, five hours before we left.

The Sydney Airport was predictably empty. The only part that was crowded was the line that lets tourist get a refund of the sales taxes they paid for things that they are bringing out of the country. (This is a real selling point, along with the weak Aussie dollar, if you are a tourist shopping in Sydney.) There is a special place in the airPort that you go to right after Duty Free (of course), where you present forms and show the items that you are removing. Since I spent entirely too much money on indigenous art and was due a refund of A$600, I was in the line with mostly Asian tourists with their watches and bags and opals and who knows what. It was actually fairly efficient, thanks to a phone app that you have to use before you even get in line.

Before leaving, we had tried to find disinfectant wipes, which were, naturally, all sold out. So Judie bought makeup removal wipes, with no disinfectant property. I went to the chemist (pharmacy) in Manly and was looking for the disinfectant version and the woman there told me to get eucalyptus oil and add it the the wipes we had and that would do the trick. So I spent A$24 on a tiny bottle of oil and we had great smelling disinfectant wipes for our trip (and we still have a lot of oil to figure out how to use).

The biggest surprise of the whole trip was that no one seemed to care about the virus at all. The only thing that happened was when we were checking in and the agent asked us if we had traveled to China/Italy/Iran/Probably Another Country in the past two weeks or had been on a cruise ship. We made it past that hurdle with ease. We had heard that we might get our temperatures taken at the US border, so we took Panadol, a fever suppressor, about an hour outside of San Francisco (the idea of one of our Uber drivers), just to avoid unpleasant questions and potential delays. I know that was probably cheating and arguably ethically wrong, but when we arrived in San Fran, other than the fact that customs was practically empty and we got through in minutes, it was like any other day. No questions. No temperature taking. No forms to fill out. Just nothing at all. It was not just weird. It was disquieting.

There is nothing about airplane travel that is worth writing about. As I wrote earlier, our original non-stop to Newark had been cancelled and we were forced to fly via Las Vegas (with at least five or six other folks on the Sydney flight). The flights and the airports got progressively more deserted as we went along. We were upgraded to first class seats in the USA, with those fancy seats that turn into beds on the Vegas to Newark leg. But we were too exhausted to enjoy the amenities of first class travel (which was too bad since we never get to do it), and we just put the seats down and slept for most of the trip.

Finally got to Newark and met Judie’s regular car service driver, Nancy, who had not had any business in days. We got home and James and Kayli immediately sprayed and wiped down our luggage and sent us upstairs to take showers immediately. It’s a strange new world…..

It had been over 28 hours door-to-door. Of course, although I had slept little and drink entirely too much free wine on the planes and in airport lounges, I didn’t sleep well and ended up getting up at 5:30 AM and then falling asleep in mid afternoon. In my experience, the worst jet lag is the jet lag flying from Australia to NYC. I’ll recover, but it will take a few days (and sleeping pills).