This year is quite special for me – not only because I have never been so far from home for such a long period of time, but also because going home for Christmas has never been so difficult. But let’s start from the beginning…

When we (my fellow Austrians and I) booked our flight back home, we were still having some lectures and seminars on campus. The situation looked fairly good – in Sweden and in Austria. But then things took a turn for the worse. The numbers of SARS-CoV-2 positive patients sky-rocketed in Austria. So, the Austrian government decided on a complete lockdown.

As soon as we heard those news, we felt extremely unsure on whether we are even allowed to go home. We are Austrian citizens, but this time around they seemed to shut the country off completely from the outside. We were trying to find information about the regulations in December, but they change almost weekly and are therefore not reliable.

Our next plan was to book a SARS-CoV-2 test in Sweden and travel to Austria with a negative test result. However, prices are exorbitantly high and almost all centres have no test-spots left. Okay, let’s scratch that test and try something else.

The more we looked at the numbers (which started to slowly decrease) and the regulations, the more we thought, that just taking our chances, going home, and seeing what happens, is our best option. So, we booked our flights back to Sweden. As a plane ticket in the first week of January costs almost as much as the whole plane, we are leaving our family right after New Year, cutting our trip short.

However, I am still very grateful that I get to see my family, even though I have to spend a minimum of 5 days in quarantine. I hope you also get to spend Christmas this year with lovely people – whether online or in real life!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Iris

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