Escaping coronvirus restrictions

I had been counting down the days.

For weeks, I had been waiting with excitement and now it was finally time.

I was leaving Hong Kong!

It was a permanent departure, but for a holiday.  It didn't matter though.  Having been trapped in the city for so long because of the never ending coronavirus restrictions, any escape was a positive.  For Veronica and myself, it was also important because we wanted to go on a trip together.  We had been lucky to have been in a city that didn't have any lockdowns, but things were dragging out in Hong Kong and it was starting to take a toll on us.  We decided that even with the quarantine requirements, we were going to go.

On the day of the trip, I felt an excitement I hadn't felt in a long time.  It was the feeling I used to have when I first started traveling.  It had been a long time.  Sitting on the Hong Kong airport express, I felt a grin on my face as we sped along.  Even at this point, there was a reminder about what things were like now.  The wait for the train was a truly insane 20 minutes (it used to come every 6 minutes) and the carriage was eerily quiet.

The airport itself was also a ghost town.  All the shops were closed and as we walked between the lounge (which was thankfully open) and the gate, we may as well have been the only people.

It didn't matter.

We were seated on the plan, we were headed off on our trip.

The trip itself was great.  Qatar Airways has always been a great airline and the pandemic has changed nothing. After a short stop in the lovely Hamad airport in Doha, we arrived at our destination.

Rome.

This would be an amazing trip away.