Traveling in Covid Time

Today started with sort of a down morning. A little less than 13 years ago I bought a Wii and, after using it for awhile, set up a program of exercises and yoga poses to do in the mornings. After using it on and off for many years, I started doing them every morning after I was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year and a half ago. That and daily walking has been shown to help our bodies keep cancers (and other ailments) under control, so while I was waiting to get vaccinated, I helped by doing the exercises, yoga, healthful diet, and walking. 

As a passing note, I don't know why it's so hard for me to follow through on doing what I know is best for my own health. Well, because exercise takes more effort than couch sitting, that might be part of it. And things that taste good are probably not so good at helping my body be at top fighting form in its battle against the bad guys. As my brother said his heart doctor once told him, "If it tastes good, spit it out."

Night before last, I stubbed a toe during a nocturnal trip to the bathroom, so had a good excuse yesterday to skip the exercises because of a sore toe. Had to remind myself that the exercises were more important than a little pain and went ahead with the exercises.

Today, the toe is feeling better so that excuse wouldn't work, but I still tried to come up with an excuse not to exercise. Again had to remind myself that I was rewarding my body for its efforts to defeat cancer, so hopped onto the Wii balance board and worked out for 45 minutes. Once started, the routine kicked in and I could think of other things while exercising and posing. Felt much better for the effort!  

Part of the time was spent mentally reviewing the checklist of things to do before we leave Thursday for a Mediterranean cruise. We've been on several cruises before, but this one has been complicated by the virus and now the Delta variant.

We start and end in Greece, so we need to meet their travel requirements and complete their Passenger Locator Form. That form consists of two pages of personal information, transportation info, permanent address, temporary address, emergency contact info, travel companions and, most importantly, your digital vaccination record.

Holland America Cruise Lines has their forms and travel restrictions. Everyone on the cruise (pax and crew) must be vaccinated and have a negative test just before boarding. They emailed boarding passes about two weeks ago and have updated them four times as the itinerary changed because of shifting restrictions. We were originally scheduled to start the trip today (8/30), but that was changed early on and now we leave Thursday. The latest change dropped Albania from the itinerary and informed us of the new restrictions on cruise ships in Venice.

Our air travel is via British Airways with stopovers in London Heathrow both ways. Britain requires a negative test taken within three days of travel and a Passenger Locator Form completed no more than 48 hours prior to arrival. We finally found an opening and got tested today. Test results came back a little while ago with negative tests for both of us, so now we can get on the plane.

8/31/21

Ran out of time yesterday, so will finish this morning.

Yesterday, I saw that the EU recommended its member states impose more restrictions on Americans traveling to European countries. So far we haven't been notified of a cancellation, but there are still 50 hours before we actually board the plane. 

Cancellation, like many things, has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on who does what. It's clear that if I cancel at this time, I don't get any refunds from the travel agency, cruise line or airline. We have travel insurance, but it would only cover some of the costs. If the travel agency or Holland America cancel, I'm not sure what happens. As a minimum, I'd expect some refunds or future travel credits, even as close as it is to travel date. Since the air travel was booked by Holland America, I expect their policy would be to give future travel credit. No matter what, it would be a big headache, so I'm rooting for no cancellation. We'll see as the next day or two progress.

Meanwhile, we relax, pack our bags, and go with the flow. In a way, it adds to the travel excitement to have the possibility of changes at points along the way. We'll just need to be flexible.

This probably has limited interest to most people, but I'll keep you posted if you're interested. Otherwise, you can rejoin the blog when we board the ship on Sunday. (How's that for optimism?)

KC in Passing

 When I'm traveling it's sometimes not so easy to get my daily walks. Where we're staying in Kansas City I've been able to get out with ease. The first day was hot and humid but since then the weather has cooperated and I've had the time, so I managed to see a lot around this part of town. Today's (8/4/21) walk is on hold until after I check in at the airport. There's always an hour or more of idle time after check in so I'll get a twofer by walking and waiting at the same time. As side benefit of walking in the airport is the assortment of interesting people on display.

Yesterday afternoon I set off at 1530. Walking down 11th Street, I came to Main where the streetcar runs so decided to walk to the end of the track down by the river. It was an interesting walk. In one spot I came across a naked girl frolicking in a fountain.

Farther into today's walk, I got some shots of whatever caught my eye. Sprinkled in are photos from preceding days' adventures.

Several streets are lined with Gingko trees. They are city friendly and tolerate heavy pruning. These trees haven't been pruned much, maybe because they are still young. In Japanese cities they are often maintained at a height of 8-10 feet. Gingkoes are known for being pollution resistant, but they are also resistant to most of the other urban pollutants, making them trees of choice as street trees for cityscapes.

Took a break from blogging after returning from KC and am just now (8/15) getting back to it. A nice walk around Edmonds reminded me of the differences I noticed while walking the two cities. More about that later.

I liked the reflection of the construction cranes. Workers were swarming all around this new building.

A park near the convention center. There is a long fountain on the side facing the Marriott but it was shut down so I didn't bother taking a photo.

Kansas City has a huge convention center. This shows one side of one of the buildings. You can just see a piece of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts beyond the pedestrian bridge, center left. 

I'm glad I wasn't staying in a building that had an exterior fire escape like this one. I walked down the stairway/fire escape from the eighth floor, where my room was in the Ambassador, but wouldn't have tried this one.

I've forgotten the name of this church. The steeple caught my eye. I don't know if it is covered with gold leaf, but it certainly glistened in the sun.

A sign near the front door was self-explanatory. As I mentioned in the last blog entry, I stayed in the new part of the hotel. The old part has many interesting quirks including antique wood trim and beautiful marble. 

The sign on this window was here today but gone tomorrow. As we were checking out, I noticed a man scraping off this sign and replacing it with a decal for the restaurant in the hotel.

I was told this is the old King City Star (newspaper) building. It's an interesting use of  shape and glass. 

This is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It is a remarkable building. If you are interested, here's a link to its history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauffman_Center_for_the_Performing_Arts