Above: Very welcome change of meal cooked by Elena plus cans from Cecilia.
Niggling health issues
After having two days of waking up at a respectable local time, I overslept and woke up after 0900. Flying from west to east is a bugger. I had woken up around 0300 and took half a pill to continue sleeping. When the alarm went at 0745, I turned it off and slept for another 1h15. Damn! I hope I’ll be able to sleep not-too-late tonight.
Yesterday, I got my on-arrival PCR test results on my tracing app, showing negative. My bloatedness which started in Istanbul had persisted with very limited instances of diarrhoea. The negative result was a relief as diarrhoea can be a symptom of Covid-19.
Symptoms were more like the giardiasis which I caught a number of years ago and the incubation period would align to the time when I started drinking tap water in France. While tap water I safe there, there may be concern about holding tanks in the intermediary steps. While symptoms have eased a little, I’m hopeful it is a lesser stomach bug than giardiasis.
Quarantine experience
While I was very pleased with the big room at the Pullman, the food isn’t as good as that the lower-grade hotel, Harbour View. The Pullman had come highly recommended by a friend who was here earlier this month.
Since then, they’ve halved the meat in each meal and taken away the fresh fruit. The meat portion is usually a small portion of hacked chicken with bone. The tiny dessert with each meal has been the same every day (cake one meal and agar for the other).
I don’t regret “choosing” this hotel. I can fix the food. For most meals, I add canned spicy tuna, canned sweet corn and sprinkle some peanuts (brought in by my brother since I didn’t come prepared this time due to prior travel in Europe). Voila! It instantly lifts the meal. I can fix bad food but I cannot fix a tiny room.
Foodwise, today was exciting! A friend Elena sent through a vegan curry, sourdough bread and a slaw, along with more cans of tuna from another friend Cecilia. I added tuna and corn to the curry and gave it a real boost too! Also, the food supplied by the hotel took a marked improvement. I had boneless chicken thigh for lunch and a good serving of squid for dinner. What a change of hacked bony chicken or fatty beef.
After all the running around in Europe, staying put was very welcome. I have lots to catch-up on with admin on the computer. The internet at the hotel was unusable most of the time and I had to resort to my phone hotspot.
There are no daily temperature checks on me by nursing staff. So, I don’t see anyone face-to-face at all.
Exciting news about returning to New Zealand
The other excitement of the day was that New Zealand is doing away with its Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) system for most people. People returning from Australia can do one week of home quarantine from 17 January 2022 while those returning from elsewhere, from 14 February.
This is later than what I had wished for but earlier than what I had planned for. It is still great news for me.