Before the pandemic eviscerated 2020, I set off to find love with a man in England that I had been talking to online for several months. Unfortunately, his wife died nine years ago and he never completed the grieving process. This left the possibility of any new relationships impossible. My visit was supposed to last two weeks, but a week in the world began to lockdown and I became stuck in quarantine with him for nearly six months. A very long six months.
I had a friend, Anne, who lived in Glasgow, Scotland. When I decided I’d had enough of torturing myself by staying in such a negative situation, I took a deep breath and bought a train ticket to Scotland to go visit Anne. I packed as much as I could into the suitcases I came with, but not everything fit. I had to be okay with leaving a few things behind, and the possibility that they may never be returned to me. With heavy bags, I set out on a new adventure during an out-of-control pandemic.
I wondered if there would be many people on the train from Huddersfield to Manchester. Masked, I took a taxi to the train station. The train arrived as scheduled. I hopped on to find I was the only person in the car. I breathed a sigh of relief. Looks like I’ll dodge Covid-19 today. I placed my huge suitcases in a holding compartment and waited a few minutes, only to be told by a kind employee that the train I was on was just heading to Liverpool, and no one had a ticket to be on it, but the train to Manchester would be along in mere minutes. I chuckled to myself, slightly embarrassed. I suppose I hadn’t been paying attention to the sign on the station indicating which train was arriving. The correct train arrived, and there was only one other customer on it. I’m going to be ok. I had about three minutes to hoof it up some stairs and onto a platform all the way on the other side of the station in order to make the next train. I made it, out of breath, with seconds to spare. Though this station was busier, there were still very few people on the train, and everyone wore masks. Many seats were blocked off in order to keep us all 2 meters (six feet) apart.
This was the first time I had ever traveled on a train by myself. In the four hour trip aboard the very comfortable Transpennine Express, I took in the gorgeous English countryside and snapped tons of photos of fields, sheep, and a calming sunset out the window. After six months, I was finally free; or as free as I could be during a pandemic! At that point, in the middle of summer, Glasgow was not under a lockdown.
I will never forget the feeling of home I felt when I stepped off the train in Glasgow. Anne met me there, and the sun was still setting. The centuries old buildings drew me in. I kept looking up, taking photos, and almost tripping over the sidewalk! Anne showed me the slightly spooky ruins of the North Woodside Flint Mill next to the River Kelvin, and the majestic Glasgow Botanic Gardens. The buildings at the gardens were closed, but I was able to peek in the windows, and there were plenty of beautiful plants and flowers to see on the grounds. Though I did not go in any, the bars were open at the time. It was a far cry from my last six months in England! We queued up to go thrift shopping at non-profits thrift stores, which are called charity shops in the UK. I found some sunscreen from Japan and a snuggly fuzzy robe that was new with tags. We walked by the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, and I wish it had been open to visit. The building alone was spectacular. There was incredible street art everywhere and I was just happy to take photos of everything I could outside.
The Old Glasgow Walk Bridge in Glasgow, Scotland. In the background, you can see University of Glasgow.
📸Dawn G.
As an American Citizen in the UK, you can stay as a tourist for six months, then you must leave and go to another country. Surprisingly, this rule holds true even during a pandemic. You can come back after leaving for a brief period of time, but this law is not meant for Americans to continue long-term stays in the UK. Both Anne and I had been in the UK for almost 6 months, so we were deciding where to go next, and were luckily able to go together. Though she has an apartment in Glasgow and had been attending university there, she hadn’t been for some time, and thus had to travel elsewhere as well. Due to the pandemic, the Netherlands wasn’t letting anyone in the country who had been in the United States recently, but since Anne and I hadn’t been to the US in almost six months, they let us in.
I had been talking to a new guy named Alfonso online. He was from Portugal, but was living in the Netherlands, so we looked to see how much it would cost to go to the Netherlands. We found it was incredibly inexpensive, so off we went. We found an Airbnb and decided to split the cost. We would just visit for a week. Anne had wanted to see the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam forever, so it was perfect. Our week went off without a hitch. I was having a great time with Alfonso, so I decided to stay longer. He invited me to stay at his house, and Anne flew back to Glasgow.
Our visit to the Netherlands turned out to be during their few weeks of super hot, humid summertime hell. Giant mosquitoes filled the air and bit me everywhere. I am highly allergic to mosquito bites and was not expecting this at all. I ended up swiftly figuring out that staying for too long in Alfonso’s tiny row house in Nieuw-Vennep that he shared with his brother and his brother’s Romanian girlfriend, was simply not going to work. There was only one bathroom, which was on the first floor, and at the bottom of absolutely treacherous spiral staircase, which had no handrail. It would have been all too easy to fall down them while half -awake in the middle of the night. Not to mention that four people trying to use one bathroom in a house never works. The windows of the house didn’t have screens, and in the insane heat, it was impossible to sleep with the windows closed, as the house did not have any air conditioning. The thunderstorms, however, were quite spectacular to watch and listen to. I made friends with several butterflies who visited in the backyard every day. They even landed on me several times.
I learned the hard way that Albert Heijn, the local grocery store, does not take credit cards. I had a hard time finding many places that took my VISA card. I also learned that folks there had no problem shoving me out of the way with their carts or cutting in front of me and others in line to check out. I was trying so hard to figure out what food packages had printed on them because I don’t speak Dutch. I tried to stand out of the way in corners of the store to figure things out, but constantly had someone raising their voice to me saying, “Verplaatsen!” It means, “Move!” When I got to the register and the cashier curtly said in English that I needed to visit the ATM at the front of the store, I left my groceries at the end of the register in order to get some cash out. While I was halfway back to the register with the money, she was nearly screaming at me that I still needed to pay. I was taken aback, as obviously I didn’t somehow think that just visiting the ATM somehow paid for my groceries, nor had I been gone for more than a couple of minutes, but I calmly said, “I’m aware of that!” I attempted to let the person who was already in line when I returned to the resister go first. The cashier seemed highly annoyed with me, and I’ll be honest, I was annoyed with her, and didn’t appreciate her negative tone at all. I also learned the hard way that you must leave your hand shopping basket at the register rather than returning it to the front where you got it, otherwise you risk being accused of attempting to steal the basket! I had not done any research before this trip and had been told that English is spoken in the Netherlands, but in this particular town, it was frowned upon. If I had just looked at some forums and articles before I went, I would have been better prepared. In addition, I was the ONLY person in the store wearing a mask! The pandemic was being completely ignored. I left the store in tears. This was definitely a lesson in doing my research before I go to a country for the first time.
It’s now early September and I had been in the Netherlands about three weeks. I was over it. I packed my bags and bought a ticket back to the U.S. I’d had enough of the Netherlands, and though I probably could have returned to Scotland, Anne didn’t really have extra room for me to stay in her apartment for any period of time. Frankly, I was tired of traveling. I booked my ticket home to Oregon where Covid -19 infection numbers were still low with only 15 deaths since March 2020. As grand of an adventure I had in England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, I couldn’t wait to get back home, even if it meant being quarantined for another two weeks.
Life is a journey & it throws us curveballs. Covid-19 is a curveball. We can’t control the novel Coronavirus, but we can control our reaction to it. We can allow ourselves to adapt. We can be safe. We can make good choices for ourselves & our families. We can continue to live life. Keep masking up. Wash your hands often. Don’t touch your face. Keep a safe distance from others. Whether strangers, friends, or family, if you’re close enough to take in their respiratory droplets, you are way too close.
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If you would like to read the original post “Stuck Abroad During Lockdown: I Went To The U.K. For Two Weeks & I Was Stuck For Six Months” click here: https://www.livingthatshelteredlife.com/blog/stuck-abroad