Here is the story of how I moved countries in first total lockdown in 2020 due to COVID 19.
By: Ioana R
Tags: Corona, Moving Country

Schiphol

Here is the story of how I moved countries in first total lockdown in 2020 due to COVID 19. I was leaving The Nederland after 9 years to move in Switzerland. My husband was already there one month before we could go.

As you already know we didn’t have the best of our times. Last 2 weeks of March 2020 were so complicated for me. Not just that I had to pack 60 boxes and items, to bring heavy things from upstairs (I was full of blue spots on my legs) I had to think on so many other aspects too. I had to make documents and send hundreds of emails. I was not sure if I should have started with the online school for my kids just for a week (at the time I already had the school leaving papers). I did not but then I thought I should have done it. I was frightened of the thought that I might get ill before I could leave. I had to change plans from one day to the other and I had to accept that I haven’t a plan B.

However I managed everything in a way or another and I left Amstelveen in a way that might seem “a last train”.

I had to close the door of the apartment and leave the keys on the table as I was instructed by the owner. And I am telling you that I had a strange feeling to do so. It was the house where I spent my last 9 years, where I become a parent and closing that door for the last time was scary. Besides, I was going to the airport not being sure I could actually leave.

I had huge back pain and the taxi driver didn’t help with taking my heavy luggage for he was not aloud (Corona measures). We went to the airport to find something out of this world. If you can imagine that huge place of Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport)with no cars. No cars at all in the parking, and no people at all outside except two police officers next to the entry that looked more in shock at us. They didn’t say anything though but it was like we were the only humans left on earth. We had to cross the whole airport (and I still don’t understand why). We had to go to departures 3. There was nobody. It was like in horror movies. Me alone with my kids in a completely empty airport. It was just a bird on the ground searching for food and probably in shock by itself to be able to be there. We found two women lost in the huge loneliness and emptiness that looked at us in the same shock as we look in the airport. I had to answer a lot of questions and I had to make use of all the papers that I had (printed and in my phone — remember I was moving in a country I never was before and I had just our passports with a renting contract that was starting 3 days later). She made some phone calls and in the (very) end I have got “papers ok” on our boarding passes. In my way from Check In to gate B15 I had to cross literally the whole airport. On my way I met three more people and few security guards. At the middle of our “walk” I had to stop to take a luggage trolley to put my kids (of 5 and 7 years old) on it because it was so long to walk and we were for two weeks stuck in house. We found this journey difficult. When we finally got to the gate we found about 20 people more. I was relived. I wasn’t alone anymore. I forgot to say that all shops were closed with big metal gates that I never sow before.

We have got in the airplane and we had to wait for one full hour before we left because of “lack of personnel” that had to fuel and load the bags. On arriving we stayed for 25 min more in the plane because there were still other people in the luggage hall from a previous flight and we were not supposed to met (Corona measures). Than we had to get out of the plane with distance on 1,5 meters between and not more than 15 at a time. I think we were 45 in total or maybe more. I was in the second group. At the passport control I had to go through the same process of answering questions but this time more difficult than in Schiphol. Like “why you don’t have the wright papers”? It was a “repatriation” flight the one I came with and believe me, I was not supposed to be there. I had to wait for other phones and in the end they aloud us to go. Honestly I believe the officer aloud us to go either because my kids were so young or because he simply had pity (you don’t find that often to swiss citizens in maters of respecting rules). By the time I was the last in the airport. All the gates/doors were closing after me by security people. I went to pick up my bags. I was there alone. Just two people from security in the hall. The belt was no more running and my bags were staying there waiting to be picked up. I took them and let the last door to be closed after us. I sow my husband waiting and then I knew that I arrived and that I have made it! It was 29 of March and it was snowing.