Bought some more flight tickets...

We already have tickets to fly from Ottawa to London, England (Gatwick) on October 12th, less than six weeks from now. The original booking called for us to fly Ottawa to Halifax, Nova Scotia, then connect to London.

I received notice last week that they changed the routing so that we now fly Ottawa to Toronto, then connect to London. And I'm not surprised. There probably wasn't enough demand for the flight from Halifax to London.

The problem is that England still has a 14 day quarantine for anybody arriving from Canada. (Despite the fact that Canada has a much lower rate of infection.) So, that would be a problem for us if that restriction is not lifted by October 13th when we arrive at London's Gatwick airport.

I have found out though, that we do not have to quarantine if we don't leave the airport terminal. Which means that we can take a connecting flight from there to anywhere in Germany where we are currently welcome without restrictions. Keeping in mind that too could change over the next five weeks!

However, if we need to buy last minute flights from Gatwick to Germany, they will be relatively expensive. If we buy them now, they are quite cheap. But due to the Covid situation, they also have fairly flexible terms. I can cancel and reschedule within 14 days of the flight without extra charge. And, I can still cancel and reschedule within the 14 days right up to the flight time by paying a £32 ($56 CAD, $43 USD) fee.

So yesterday we weighed all the options and decided to purchase flights from London to Berlin, Germany for £25 ($44 CAD, $33 USD) per person, The flights are scheduled for 3 hours after we land, so it's a bit of a tight connection time, but there were no other direct flights that day. All you can do is cross your fingers. With the reduced number of planes flying, you would have to assume that most flights are departing on schedule.

This way, we figure that if the England quarantine is still in place we will simply carry on to Germany and the flights were pretty cheap. If the quarantine is removed, we will reschedule our Germany flights for two weeks later.

Berlin wasn't really the city we wanted to go to. We wanted to go to Dusseldorf, but there were no direct flights from Gatwick and we would have had to change airports, which we can't do if the quarantine is still in place. But, we've never been there before, so if we do end up there, we'll explore for a couple of days before taking the train back to Dusseldorf area.

It sure is a circus trying to figure this stuff out in today's world! But, if you want to travel, that's what you have to do.

Yesterday, we went into the city (again!) and visited Ruth's dad Tony. They have reduced the restrictions at the care home now and we are able to take him out for a drive. We ended up down at Andrew Haydon Park by the Ottawa River.

Ruth and Tony.

There are too many Canada Geese.

It looked like it was going to rain but it never did. We got a short stroll in, and it's good for Tony to get out and get some fresh air. We stopped at Tom Horton's on the way back to "the home" to get him a "medium double double"... that's Canadian for a medium coffee with two cream and two sugar!

Tony loves his Tim Horton's coffee.

Back to Galetta for 5:15pm or so, and then we did our 45 minute power walk.

Overcast with some showers today. Maybe I'll actually get my taxes filed! Due to Covid, the Canadian government keeps putting off the deadline. It was originally April 30th, now it's September 30th. I don't mind putting it off. We owe, but the money looks better in my account than theirs!

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