Spontaneous Planning

Years 2020 and 2021 have been quite insane in every sense of the word. The Covid19 outbreak has literally paralyzed the world. This enigmatic virus has shaken up the healthcare systems of even the most developed countries, it has taken a significant number of lives and has caused a variety of weird symptoms to whoever had it. Furthermore, the virus caused a halt to life as we knew it. It has changed the way we live, work, exercise, love,…Spain was one of the first countries that got severely hit by the pandemic, which forced the government to put the country under complete lockdown in March 2020. Over one and a half year has passed since then and the madness and restrictions continue, although in much milder form due to ongoing massive vaccination. Like many other lives, my life has changed by 180 degrees during the past year.

Q1 2020: The old normal

The beginning of 2020 started very dynamically. I currently work for Microsoft in a global sales role and my job includes working with customers all around Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which as a result had included a lot of traveling before the pandemic. When I say a lot I mean on average one trip a week. From January until the first week of March I had the following itinerary: London, Frankfurt-Heidelberg, Tel Aviv, Milano, Zurich, Zagreb, Johannesburg-Cape Town. Living in Madrid as an ex-pat, I had my share of fun there as well. This was my old normal, and I absolutely loved it.

Zooming in on two trips: The first one was to Tel Aviv, which was a short one but quite memorable, mainly due to the process of getting there. I had heard from people about the bizarre and over-the-top security measures for entering and leaving Israel and the reasons behind it. I had also met quite a few Israeli people by then and was aware of the unique situation there. However, I did not know how this looked like for someone coming to Israel for the first time. Before going to Tel Aviv I had to stop over Frankfurt for a customer meeting. I figured, what’s the difference, I’ll just merge the trips and continue straight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. I had all the necessary documents ready and went to the airport very casually the following morning. Upon arrival at the Frankfurt airport, I was told that there is a special check-in area for the flights with El Al Israel Airlines, no food or beverages were allowed. After finishing my cappuccino and croissant, I started heading to the check-in counters, only to learn that you have to go through a security clearance before you can even do the check-in for the flight. The security officers all looked kind of young (later on I learned that most of them were doing their obligatory military service) and very serious. I was still calm and casual when I came to the security officer and then she started bombarding me with questions. “Why are you going to Israel? Where do you live? Aha, but why are you than flying from Germany? Why do you live in Spain? Wait, you lived in Canada as well, we were not aware of that…Why did you travel to Egypt so many times? Do you keep in touch with anyone from Egypt?”…It just went on for I’d say almost half an hour. It did not help that I elaborated a bit too much on my answers which just brought up more questions. In the end, there was a superior officer brought in to question me further, and then finally I was approved to check in. As I reached the check-in counter, pretty stressed by that point (I was gonna miss my flight!) the local guy at the counter just smiled at me and said: “Enjoy the show”. After the check-in, I had to go through a special additional security clearance before boarding the airplane, where I was brought aside and my cabin luggage was thoroughly checked. I learned later that this procedure is for all non-Israeli nationals. So, after the “exciting” security adventure I finally boarded the plane! I was seated next to a very interesting young Israeli guy who had just started a business in India and had traveled to a lot of weird places. It was a fun flight talking to this guy. He also warned me not to travel with El Al next time since it seems this airline is (in)famous for doing these endless security checks.

It took a lot of security checks and patience to get to Tel Aviv, but it was worth it. The city is quite amazing, a business and entertainment hub right on the Mediterranean coast. It is a big start-up hub, especially in cyber security. The food is great as well, from street food kiosks to fancy restaurants. Tel Aviv is famous for its gastronomy scene, and it is totally worthy of fame. It felt really safe in the city (I sure hoped it would be after all those security checks). And, last but not least, my favorite thing about Tel Aviv was the long sandy beach right in the city.

I held a training session there, got to know the team, and ended up going for dinner and drinks with some of them. I stayed at the hotel right by the beach, with an amazing view over the Mediterranean Sea. Waking up with that view from the balcony, taking one morning to just walk along the beach all the way to the ancient port of Jaffa, just that was worth the visit. I wanted to also visit Jerusalem but I decided to skip this for now since I was planning to take my Mom for a vacation to Israel and Jordan a few months after that. Of course, that train never left the station…

South Africa was my last big trip before Covid hit Europe. I was doing a similar training session in Johannesburg and I decided to stay some extra days for vacation. Traveling alone to South Africa was a bit stressful since it is far from a safe country. However, I had wanted to visit the country for some time and this was a great opportunity to do it. I had a colleague there who reassured me (and everyone else) a bit. Johannesburg is a huge city and you really need to know your way around so that you don’t get into trouble. I skipped going to the city center since my colleague got sick and I chickened out. Instead, I decided to stick to the top tourist spots.

The first day I arrived, I went to the Apartheid Museum. This is probably the most important site to visit in Johannesburg, maybe even all of South Africa. Growing up in Europe, I had limited knowledge about the history of South Africa. First of all, I was not aware that the country was so diverse when it comes to culture and ethnicities. It seems like throughout history there were very few nations that did not step foot on South Africa and left a mark, not to mention the cultural richness from different local tribes. As an example, there are more than ten official languages spoken in South Africa. Then there is the apartheid…It seemed incredible that the country that was the most developed in Africa lived in such institutionalized racial segregation for 40 years, until 1990. Also, the life of Nelson Mandela and his long fight for democracy was truly inspiring. The museum and the story it told were impactful.

After my training session, I stayed in Johannesburg one more day and took a private tour to the Cradle of Humankind, a big archeological site, and a small safari. After Johannesburg, I went to Cape Town for a few more days. Cape Town is known to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, right on the southern tip of Africa, between the stunning Table Mountain and even more stunning coast, where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean. When it comes to sights, Cape Town was all that it’s advertised to be, it really was amazing. I did the basic tour: taking the famous cable car to Table Mountain and enjoying the amazing views from the top, driving the scenic route to the Cape of Good Hope, admiring the endless views of the ocean from the top of the cape, watching the penguins on the beach (yes, penguins on a sandy beach!), and wine tasting in beautiful vineyards. I also saw another piece of sad history: Robben Island. This island near Cape Town was the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for almost 30 years. On the island we had an ex-convict walk us through the locked-up life of a political prisoner. We visited Nelson Mandela’s cell, where he stayed for such a long time, after which he still had the strength to rebuild the country in democracy.

I knew how respected Nelson Mandela was outside of South Africa, but I did not know how much he was truly loved in South Africa. The whole country breathes Mandela, his quotes are written everywhere, it is inspiring to see a leader have such a long-term impact on a nation. Even though apartheid is 30 years in the past, there is still a lot of inequality everywhere; from one extreme (luxurious houses and vineyards) to the other extreme (slums). But I think people there do want to change for the better. During the Cradle of Humankind tour, I met an Afrikaans man (white) who owns a small factory and he took his entire staff on a team-building. The entire staff was black and he was telling me how he wants to give the opportunity to the ones that did not have it.

Q2 2020: Quarantine

I returned to Madrid from Cape Town on March 9th and was welcomed back by my boyfriend. Two days after I welcomed a good friend from Zagreb who decided to visit over a long weekend. I also had two other close friends from Montreal visiting Madrid. The week was looking good. The only thing that was slightly starting to worry me was this strange Coronavirus that occupied all the news. We had started hearing about this virus around Christmas time, somewhere “far away” in China. Then around mid-February individual cases started to pop up in Europe, a few of them in Spain. This was the state in which I had left Spain when I went to South Africa. By the time I got back, the number of infected in Spain was at 2000 per day and exponentially rising. My friend from Croatia was debating until the last day whether to come or not. But then she decided to be bold and come. She’d been looking forward to it for such a long time and there was no way it could get that bad that soon. Well,…we were all very wrong. Things started plummeting down faster than anyone could have imagined. By March 13th, we had changed the return ticket of my friend to leave the next day. My Canadian friends also had their return tickets ready. That evening we went for dinner to our favorite restaurant: my Croatian friend, Canadian friends, my boyfriend, and me. This was a farewell dinner not only for us but also for the restaurant, since the next day they were obliged to close down until further notice. It was a very fun dinner, with a lot of laughter and good wine. As farewell dinners should be.

The next day my friends were safely “evacuated”, that is boarded on the plane, and I felt a slight relief (my Croatian friend had three kids back home, her getting stuck in Madrid would have been a nightmare). Jesus and I were having dinner and watching the news in my apartment that same evening when the Prime Minister of Spain appeared live on the air and stated that Spain was in a state of emergency and starting immediately there would be total lockdown imposed in all of Spain for minimum two weeks. This meant nobody was allowed to leave their home unless it was for essential activities. Jesus and I looked at one another, then he just said: I’ll go to my apartment to get my stuff right now, and we’ll start living together. Talk about taking it to the next step…The next six weeks were something out of a bizarre dystopian movie; both our private and professional lives were lived within a studio apartment: we had video conferences in the kitchen, held classes on the dining table (Jesus is a university professor), exercised on the staircase of the building, took turns in buying food and drinks rationally so that we could go out and get at least a bit of fresh air, watched apocalyptic news on TV, mastered Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch, finally finished micro puzzles bought years back in Japan, celebrated birthdays and holidays over WhatsApp/Skype/Zoom/Teams/Messenger, cheered for healthcare workers every evening at 8 PM, started to cheer overall a bit too much with glasses of wine and spirits. They said that at the beginning of the lockdown the biggest demand was for toilet paper followed by alcohol. Not sure what happened with all the toilet paper, I am guessing that some people still have a huge stash of it in their storage rooms. I have to say professional life was quite interesting: working for a huge Cloud services provider there was a lot of work, probably more than ever. And since there was no preparation and commute, one could work 12 hours straight without even getting out of pajamas. In fact, I even went through job interviews during that time, dressed in a nice shirt and pajama pants (I got the job).

Being locked up for six weeks with your partner could go both ways: either really badly (break up) or really well (strengthening and fast-forwarding relationship). In our case it was the ladder, we got to know each other much better and realized we are actually a really good team. However, we did witness friends breaking up with their partners. Also, being single during that time was quite stressful so we witnessed episodes of depression from some friends. People with kids also had a really tough time since nobody could go out. There was only one exception: people with dogs. So, whenever you would look out the window, you’d see dogs happily strolling with owners behind them. This would always remind me of a Seinfeld quote: “If aliens were looking down at us from the sky they would think dogs are the leaders”. There was a whole business developed out of this in Italy and Spain, where people rented out their dogs for walking. To this day I cannot believe that walking dogs took social priority over letting young kids get some fresh air.

After six weeks a slow opening started, first with allowing people to do sports activities outside in designated time slots, like walking, running, or biking. The younger population had time slots in the early morning and late evening. I will never forget the first Saturday morning when we were all released out of our cages: it felt like overnight the whole world had converted into passionate runners. There were thousands of people on the streets running and walking, you could not pass through the street because of people traffic jams. There was so much positive energy everywhere, it felt like we were all finally out of our caves and united with the civilized world.
The opening of Spain continued in phases, slowly getting the businesses up and running, all with many restrictions still, but at least life was returning to somewhat of a normal. I remember our first piece of tortilla and coffee we had in a not-the-finest bar close to our home, it tasted like crap and yet it was so delicious: the taste of freedom.

Q3 2020: Surprise

At the beginning of the lockdown, I predicted (at least) one out of three things would happen: we would break up, become alcoholics or get pregnant. Some weeks after the grand reopening of Spain I started feeling kind of strange, every day with different symptoms seemingly unrelated. It felt like my body was trying to address a problem it could not find. It took a few weeks to finally ask Mr. Google what the hell is wrong with me. And then slowly it dawned on me to look through the list of symptoms on the internet and then look at the calendar. I told Jesus what I was suspecting, tomorrow morning we got a pregnancy test at the pharmacy and bingo. A few days after we went to the doctor’s to get confirmation, bingo again. After the initial surprise/shock we were both very excited at this wonderful turn of events, as well as both of our families. Both of our parents had already given up on us when it came to having a family so this news was twice as joyful for everyone. There were many things to do in the next nine months, but for now, we decided to just relax and enjoy the moment.

Coronavirus was taking summer holidays so we could do it as well. As soon as the borders were open and travel restrictions were lifted (like literally, a few days after that) we went to Tenerife for vacation. Seven days driving around this exotic island, visiting volcanoes and banana plantations, whale watching, and enjoying black sand beaches, with almost no tourists around, was very relaxing. It was also weird and at moments sad to see this huge tourist destination so empty. This was the first reality check of the broader impact the pandemic was having on society and the economy. Areas that depend mainly on tourism and services would be recovering from all this mess for a very long time.

After Tenerife, I went to Croatia to spend the summer with my family. Jesus came for some days and then he traveled to Vienna to do some project at the university there. Our plan was to see each other each weekend and travel around places around. Right around that time Corona started kicking in again, I guess the vacation was over. The number of infected started rising again everywhere in Europe so countries started imposing their own rules of entering without any logic, which turned into a logistic mess. How great it is when you mix politics with viruses. In the end, it was not practically possible to travel from Vienna to Zagreb so Jesus and I had to stay apart for the summer. This kind of sucked, especially since this was supposed to be our special summer, but there was not much one could do. I did use my time in Croatia to the max: I took my Mom for a vacation to the beautiful island of Brac, I managed to spend a lot of quality time with my brothers and nieces, visit a castle, and we even went to a small family wedding in Istria. All things considered, it was a good last summer as a single woman.

Q4 2020: Preparation for new normal

Beginning of September both Jesus and I returned to Madrid and then it was party time: we had to find a bigger place to live in. Living in a studio apartment with a small baby in the center of noisy Madrid was something we wanted to avoid in any way possible. I really loved my apartment and would miss it for many years to come, but it was time to switch mindset into future Mom.
Due to the whole corona madness, we initially decided to just rent out a bigger place close to the area where we lived, to be able to move as soon as possible. As a plan B, we also started looking into apartments to buy in our area. Visiting apartments in summer in Madrid, at 40 degrees temperature under the burning sun, and all that with an obligatory mask over your nose and mouth everywhere (outdoors as well) was an absolute nightmare. The apartments we saw were beyond disappointing. Madrid being Madrid, housing in the city center was insanely expensive, even with coronavirus and all the uncertainty in the air. The apartments we saw were either within our budget but dumps that were best to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt, or quite nice but miles above our budget. We also ran into problems with our current landlords who did not appreciate us leaving the apartment during the pandemic. All this made us completely dismiss the idea of ever renting again and we focused our efforts on buying only. It took us a month of very intense apartment search to find “the one”. We signed the contract in October and then kicked off the mortgage process. It did get a bit complicated due to some logistics with the previous owners and some small renovations but in the end, we were all set to move at beginning of December. Now, organizing the move from Madrid City center, with all its narrow one-way streets, cars, taxis, buses, bikes, motorbikes, delivery trucks, so many people everywhere, and parking spots that are rarer to find than gold,…yup, good luck. Since I could not lift anything at that stage, I was the designated driver and Jesus was the muscle power. The car was a big one, which was great for transporting things, not that great for maneuvering the chaotic city center, and definitely not great for trying to park. In the end, we found a good strategy: I would be illegally parked in the dead-end street next to our building and Jesus would bring an endless pile of boxes, suitcases, paintings/posters, bags (how on Earth did all this stuff fit in my old apartment???) and would then play Tetris trying to optimize the space in the car. Then we would drive all this stuff to our new place, leave it wherever, then go back and start over. Of course, we also had to unpack all of that once we were done with moving… Needless to say, Jesus hates my stuff.

Apartment hunt in my second trimester and moving in my third trimester was complicated. However, this was nothing compared to the stress of going to hospitals and clinics for pregnancy examinations and tests, with the endless safety protocols and nobody ever having time to really devote their attention to my state. As long as I was low-risk pregnancy and was corona-free, the doctors just wanted to get you out of their office in 5 min or less. The reality was that the pandemic had overloaded the healthcare system and there was simply no way to attend to any medical state in a normal way. Looking back, I am happy and grateful things turned out ok for me and the baby, it could have gone either way.
However, we did get a chance to squeeze in some socializing and fun in between the moving and pregnancy checks. Since Spain stayed open for business (or at least Madrid) we were able to enjoy museums, restaurants, etc., with our new BFF, the Mask.

Before the end of the year, I did get a chance to see my Croatian family on two more occasions. First, we went to Zagreb beginning of November because I was closing in on the third trimester and soon would not be able to travel anymore, and I wanted to see them before the holidays. This would be my first Christmas in my own home and with my new family (Jesus and baby in the belly) but without my original family. I had already started adjusting to that reality when my family surprised me and announced that my Mom and younger brother would come to stay with us for Christmas and help us with settling in our new home. Despite all the corona craziness, we still managed to stay together. There could not have been a better way to close this incredible year.

Q1 2021 onwards: New normal

The craziness continued into the new year, with a major snow blizzard (the infamous Filomena) paralyzing Madrid for a week in early January. Having grown up in Zagreb and having lived in Canada for 6 years, I was used to snowstorms. What I was not used to is being stranded for days without access to anything (even bread) due to some centimeters of snow. This type of chaos is something hard to explain with words; highways became massive parking lots, people did cross country skiing on big city avenues, nothing was open for several days, cleanup of snow and ice happened in slow to no motion, with massive piles of snow and ice just staying where they were until they finally melted. Gotta love Spain.

Eventually, the snow melted and things started getting back to normal, just in time for the big event. At the end of January, I gave birth to my baby boy. 10 months have passed since then, with every day being a new adventure at our new home. Looking back, I still cannot believe how life can change in only one year and under such bizarre circumstances. I am so grateful that we were able to achieve this incredibly big and beautiful milestone during the pandemic and that we were able to stay healthy and sane. Time will tell when the world will get back to normal, but I have to say, I would not change my new normal for any other.