Footnote 25: Int'l Travel Edition (personal)--Covid-19 is a Neuropathological Disorder

I’m travelling internationally this week (work-relatedly), here are impressions and thoughts from my trip via Amsterdam—spoiler alert: ‘kafkaesque’ is the word I’d use

As mentioned above, I’m travelling for work-related reasons. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be attending a ‘major’ conference (well, for the stuff I study professionally, at least), which brings me to lovely Ireland.

Here' are a few thoughts and moments I’d like to share with you, my dear readers, about travelling in times of Covid-19, or whatever, I guess.

Leaving Norway

Leaving Scandinavia was supremely easy: there are no Covid-related mandates left, so, the main ‘attraction’ of the past couple of weeks was the return of the huge cruise ship lines to the area I live in. They typically arrive around 7 a.m. when our children have breakfast and marvel at these monstrosities arriving. Upon arrival, these vessels vomit up thousands of mainly elderly tourists who literally all wear face-diapers outside (yes, outside, in the crisp Norwegian seaside air at little above freezing tempereature), which I get to observe every day during my bike commute.

The biggest ‘wtf’ moment came when I observed some elderly tourists with face-diapers in an (of course, we’re good at virtue-signalling) electric tourist bus that shuttles them to the cablecar station. Surely, it makes these people ‘feel better’ travelling by bus across an eminently walkable distance of about 1.4km, which, according to EvilMaps, may be walked in approx. 19 minutes, by bus while wearing masks that are nowhere mandated anywhere in Norway, because…

At the Airport

The scene changed only marginally at the nearby airport I relied on flying out. No mandates, perhaps one or the other ‘keep a distance’ sticker on the floor, but other than that, no-one who bothered anyone.

Evens so, it was supremely easy to figure out who lived there and who was here for whatever reason. Yep, you guessed it: the latter all wore masks. Whatever, at that point, I suppose.

Boarding and Flying Out

The strangest moment before arriving in Amsterdam was that ground staff announced that ‘it is recommended to wear a face mask’. Since I’m very well versed in, you know, language, I understood this to mean: if you’d like to don a face-diaper, you’re free to do so, but you don’t have to.

I didn’t, so, the flight was, as expected, supremely uneventful, with perhaps my neighbour, a woman a bit older than me, donning a face-diaper for boarding and the first 15 minutes. Then the trolley with the complimentary food and drink came, hence she took it off. It wasn’t before landing that she put the face-diaper on again.

In all, approx. 80% or more wore these face-diapers voluntarily. Talk about normalisation, I suppose, but then again, if that’s a choice, I don’t care.

Before disembarking, we were all kindly reminded that ‘face-masks are mandatory indoors’.

Amsterdam Airport

Well, I have long resolved only to perfunctorily place such a face-diaper on my face if prompted. Granted, this was easy in Norway, for there were hardly any such mandates.

Still, I admit feeling a wee bit uneasy entering the terminal building—but since about a third of all people, including, above all, virtually half the currently working staff, ‘wears’ these face-diapers in the most ‘perfunctory’ way, I elected to try my luck.

Little did I know, but no-where—not while I walked through this abomination of an airport (if you’ve ever been to Schiphol, you *know* what I mean), not at immigration control, not behind that point. So, I guess I’m enjoying a Belgian triple ale while typing these lines for a bit longer. Or whatever, I suppose.

There were some awesome sights, though, and here’s the best place to share them with you, in particular if you made it through the above ramblings.

Covid-19 is (also) a Neuropatholigical Disorder

Mind you, I’m not a medical doctor, researcher, or the like. But I have eyes to see, and a smartphone to document it.

Behold (I’m officially out of words):