Do you miss travelling?

Travelling in Covid (and post-Brexit) times is challenging

We all have our tales of travel mishaps: delays, cancellations, technical problems, strikes, lost luggage, adverse weather conditions... the list is endless. Since the start of the Covid pandemic, travelling has entered a whole new stressful dimension, raising all sorts of questions, such as: 

What are the travel entry requirements? Do I need to take a test before departure? Do I need a test on arrival? Is an antigen rapid test (i.e., lateral flow) sufficient or do I need a PCR test? What does fully vaccinated mean? Which vaccines are accepted? Do I need a booster jab? Will I need to isolate on arrival? What are the rules for children? Do I need to fill out a form? Do I need a digital passenger locator form or a different sort of form? What kind of mask do I need to wear? Is an FFP2 mask required?

Welcome to the world of travelling during Covid times. And even if you think you may have found the answers to those questions, please bear in mind that travel rules change all the time, often without warning. This could be due to several reasons, e.g., a sudden rise in Covid cases or the emergence of a new variant or simply the government changing its mind. And once you get to your destination, make sure you comply with the country’s Covid restrictions, which by the way change all the time as well.

Italy in June

My family didn’t do much travelling in 2020 for obvious reasons. However, with the arrival of vaccines and, as we hadn’t seen some family members for over two years, we decided to be more adventurous in 2021. We finally got to see the “new” BER airport for the first time in June 2021, when we travelled to Italy to visit my parents. I’m afraid to say it wasn’t love at first sight. There was an air traffic control strike in Italy that day, so Ryanair changed all its flight times. The problem was that the airport screens were still showing the original times, so we witnessed scenes of panic as passengers arrived at the airport thinking that they had missed their flights. The queues for check-in and security were so long that we almost did miss our flight. Luckily it was delayed.

Sweden in September

In September we visited our relatives in the south of Sweden. It all went well on the way there. The ferry from the port of Sassnitz in northern Germany left on time and, as we were vaccinated, we didn’t need to take any Covid tests, while our son had taken a self-test at school that morning. However, on the way back, one of the ferry engines broke down so the whole journey took much longer than expected and we ended up arriving in Berlin in the early hours of the morning after driving through the night in treacherous weather conditions. At least this particular problem wasn’t Covid related.

England in October

In October we flew to Gatwick airport to visit my grandmother for the first time in two years. We left Berlin on the first day of the school autumn break. Luckily, we were booked on the late afternoon flight, and we avoided the morning mayhem (queues so long that passengers missed their flights). Everything was going smoothly until we reached border control. I always use my UK passport when travelling to the UK, but this was my first time travelling to the UK under the new Brexit rules. The immigration officer took my passport and gave me a quizzical look and said something about needing to stamp it because the UK is no longer a member of the EU. After a few seconds of panic, I exclaimed: “But I’m Italian” and dutifully produced my Italian ID card. The man looked relieved. “That’s more like it” he said or something to that effect in German. I spent the rest of my time at the airport wondering whether they would let me back into the country. At that point I still didn’t have an Italian passport, but I do now. Once we arrived in England, we spent a fortune on our Day 2 PCR tests, as two out of three tests initially showed up as inconclusive, so we ended up taking and paying over £200 for two additional tests at a testing facility in a car park near Gatwick airport. When we flew back to Germany, our 9-year-old son had to isolate at home for five days as we were returning from a high-risk Covid area, and he wasn’t vaccinated. At that point vaccines for children under 12 hadn’t yet been approved in the EU. 

Italy in December

Having spent Christmas on our own in Berlin in 2020, we decided we would try to fly to Italy to spend Christmas with my parents in 2021. It took me over two hours to sort out the necessary paperwork and book the required Covid tests. On Christmas Eve we arrived at BER airport three hours before departure. We weren’t going to take any chances this time and we checked in with plenty of time to spare. Luckily, we all tested negative on the day before the flight and at the airport in Palermo. We had planned to stay in Italy for ten days, but on 30 December the Robert Koch Institute in Germany announced that Italy would become a high-risk area on 1 January 2022. What did that mean? We started reading through all the rules and regulations and discovered that our son would again need to self-isolate for five days in Germany because he wasn’t fully vaccinated, missing a whole week of school. We quickly changed our flight to the one leaving the following morning, New Year’s Eve. Suddenly we needed to pack and get our son tested that same afternoon. On the morning of 31 December, we boarded the plane to Berlin, only to be told that there was a technical problem and were bussed back to the terminal. We ended up waiting for seven hours at the airport in Palermo for a substitute plane to arrive. We eventually landed in Berlin at 8 pm on New Year’s Eve, four hours before the new rules came into effect. So our son avoided isolation, but we were exhausted by the time we got home and didn’t feel too much like celebrating the New Year. 

Travelling in Covid times is a nightmare, even if you’re tennis star Novak Djokovic. As you probably know, he recently spent four days in a detention centre in Australia because of doubts over his visa and he still faces the threat of deportation from the country.  Travel requirements are complicated and rules may even change while you are mid-flight. Needless to say, I won’t be planning any more trips abroad for a while.

A new chancellor for Germany (not until Christmas at the earliest) and a female mayor for Berlin

It’s the day after the general election and we still don’t know who will succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor, after 16 years in power. According to Olaf Scholz, the leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), it should be him, as his centre-left party won the biggest share of the vote (25.7%), albeit by less than two percentage points. However, according to Armin Laschet, the leader of the CDU, he should be the next chancellor, as his centre-right conservative party could still form a coalition government, for instance with the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens. 

Too close to call

As expected, the results were very close, and the new coalition government will most likely be formed by three parties and not by two, for the first time since the 1950s. The Greens and FDP will act as kingmakers. Although the CDU came second, it had its worst election result in history (24.1%). Meanwhile the Greens, led by Annalena Baerbock, had their best ever result in a national election (14.8%), although they didn’t perform as well as they (and I) had hoped for. Nevertheless, the Greens are now the third party in Germany, followed by the pro-business party FDP (11.5%) and the anti-immigrant party AfD (10.3%). The left-wing party Die Linke just about managed to get into parliament by securing three direct mandates, though at 4.9% it fell below the 5% threshold needed to get into the Bundestag. 

Let the talks begin

Over the next few weeks and months, the parties will be busy discussing possible coalitions. Last time round it took them until the spring to form a government. This time the hope is that they will find a solution by Christmas. In Germany, the coalitions have funny names depending on their colours. Scholz would prefer a “traffic light” coalition (red-green-yellow) between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP. However, other coalitions are still possible: “Kenya” (black-red-green), “Deutschland” (black-red-yellow), “Jamaica” (black-green-yellow) and grand coalition (black-red). Fortunately, none of the parties want to govern with the far-right AfD.

The election results by geography

If you break down the results by geography, the north of Germany and parts of the west are red (SPD), the south and the remaining parts of the west are black (CDU/CSU), while the east is blue (AFD). If you zoom in into the cities, most of them are green or mainly green. For instance, Leipzig is a red/green island in a blue sea, Munich is a mainly green island in a black sea, Frankfurt is a green island surrounded by red and black, while Cologne and Stuttgart are red/green. Berlin is green in the centre (Mitte, Pankow, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Schöneberg, Charlottenburg) and red in the surrounding neighbourhoods. I find it rather ironic that people who live in cities seem to worry more about the environment than people who live in the countryside, but clearly this election wasn’t just about the environment.

Queues and chaos in Berlin 

There were long queues at polling stations in Berlin yesterday. In some cases, people had to wait for up to two hours to vote. Officially polling stations were open from 8 am to 6 pm, but anyone who was in the queue by 6 pm was allowed to stay and vote. Anyone who showed up after 6 pm was sent away. The elections in Berlin were rather chaotic: in some places the ballot papers ran out! Things were made even more complicated by the fact that the Berlin marathon was also happening yesterday so many of the main streets were closed. 

The Berlin election

As well as the general election, Berliners were voting in local elections and a referendum. As a non-German EU citizen, I was only able to vote for my local district council (not even for the Berlin parliament), so I only had one ballot paper and one box to tick, but German nationals had several ballot papers and six votes in total. As far as I know, it is not possible to have British and German nationality now that the UK has left the EU, but do let me know if I am wrong. In any case, I already have two nationalities, but I would be interested in acquiring a third one if it meant I could vote.

The first female mayor for Berlin

In Berlin, the SPD is the first party, while the Greens are the second party (up by 3.7% from the previous elections), followed by the CDU and Die Linke. Meanwhile, Franziska Giffey (still not quite sure how to pronounce her name!) is set to become Berlin’s first female mayor. Apparently, she is open to coalition talks with all parties, except for the AfD, but it is likely that Berlin will continue to have a red-red-green government. As the Tagesspiegel put it, “Berlin will keinen Wechsel aber mehr Grün” i.e. Berlin doesn’t want a change, but it wants more Green. 

Biergartens in Berlin reopen but schools remain part-time

Berlin is slowly emerging from months of lockdown. With the incidence number now well below 100, the emergency brake is no longer in place. So, no more curfew and no more appointments to enter a shop, though you still need to show proof of a negative Covid test, or you need to be fully vaccinated. 

Beer gardens and outdoor restaurants reopen for Whitsun

The Berlin government has decided to relax other coronavirus restrictions. Museums, outdoor cinemas, beer gardens, cafés and restaurants with outdoor seating, as well as outdoor swimming pools, have all reopened this week, in time for Whitsun (Pfingsten in German), though with limitations and proof of a negative Covid test or vaccination certificate required. Even the football stadium reopened to 2,000  Union Berlin fans yesterday. Shame about the weather, not ideal for outdoor swimming!

No change to schools

You would have thought that reopening schools would have been one of the local government’s priorities, especially now that children wear surgical masks all the time and are tested for Covid twice a week. Well think again. The Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family has decided that schools will not return to normal before the start of the summer holidays, regardless of the incidence number. The reason indicated is to avoid burdening schools with organisational changes so close to the summer holidays, which begin on 24 June. Apparently, it’s not worth disrupting the status quo “only” for five weeks. This means that schools will continue to function on a part-time basis, with pupils attending only a few hours a week.

Children and families 

Children in Berlin have not had access to regular schooling since mid-December. At the moment, all pupils in Berlin are allowed to go to school, but classes are halved so this means they are taught only for a few hours a day or a couple of days per week, depending on the decision taken by each individual school. As well as being extremely damaging to children’s education, social development and mental well-being, this model called Wechselunterricht also puts an enormous strain on families, because children have to be home-schooled when they can’t physically attend. Just to give you an idea, my son used to have 28 hours of lessons at school per week. Since the end of February, when schools reopened, he has only attended for 12 or 13 hours per week. The rest of the time he has been studying at home with me. 

Children have a right to education

In my opinion, children in Berlin are being denied their right to an education. It seems that it’s more important to boost alcohol consumption in pubs than to teach children in a school environment in the company of other children. My eight-year-old hasn’t seen some of his school friends for five months or has only been able to wave at them from behind school gates. I’m not the only one to be concerned about children’s mental health. A group of 27 pediatricians, psychiatrists and social workers have signed a letter to the mayor Michael Müller and the education senator Sandra Scheeres demanding the immediate return to regular school. They have witnessed a worrying increase in the number of children and young people suffering from depression, media addiction and weight problems in recent months.  

Sign the petition

There is an online petition asking for schools to return to normal, in view of lower incidence numbers. So far it has reached 3,400 signatures, which doesn’t seem a lot considering Berlin has a population of 3.8 million. Some parents are clearly outraged, while others seem to agree with the decision or are not too bothered. They’re simply holding out until the holidays. Some say it’s because incidence numbers amongst children are higher, while others point out that not all teachers have been vaccinated. This may be true, but it’s not the reason given by the senate. To me it is a matter of principle. Why can 2,000 fans celebrate and drink beer outside the stadium without any social distancing, when children can’t go to school normally? It seems absurd. What do you think? Will you sign the petition?