When I found out that I was going to be stuck for an indefinite amount of time in Moscow, I was honestly not all that worried. Traveling during the pandemic I did try to go through police registration and to update my visa only to find out that I didn’t need it. My visa was automatically renewed until September 2020 and only through my insistence did I finally manage to convince a police officer to put a more legitimate stamp on my travel permit stating that I was allowed to stay until September 2020. Which also implied I wasn’t about to leave the country any time soon. Moscow was my home now.
I was one of the lucky few that has job working remotely. Well, sort of lucky as you will find out later. At least I didn’t have to worry about money in the near future. Thankfully, I was also not stuck in a random hotel but living with my girlfriend and her brother in a “vintage” Russian apartment, to put it lightly. Her apartment has all the post-soviet era decorations, style and kitchen. It feels a bit outdated but has its own charm too. Since I had time to discover Moscow, I started with her apartment and explored the many trinkets, artworks and memories around the house to learn more about her life. From her time spent learning piano, to the paintings produced by her grandfather all the way through the books that made up her childhood and her dream to become a writer. While Covid forced us to be stuck under the same roof 24/7, it also gave us the chance to connect differently. Many couples ended up breaking up during the pandemic because they realized sharing the same air 24/7 with this other person might have been more than they bargained for. In our case, whether it was long conversation of profound silence, the other person’s presence was calm and suiting to have in our lives. Now it all sounds perfect to be in quarantine in Moscow, but I also had something darker looming over my shoulder.
As mentioned earlier, I was lucky enough to have a job while in quarantine and working remotely. But a time came where the company had to make a business decision. They were amidst relocating all their marketing employees in New Zealand. Given the difficulty to move foreigners into New Zealand, my contract was bound to end. It’s just business. I loved working there though, mainly because of all the other employees that were brilliant and smart people that gave everything they got to that company.
This whole episode brought me all the way to August, where I was finally free of my employer and was already busy working on new projects. So again, I was lucky to be able to still get an income without a job, being stuck in Moscow.
So, with my newfound freedom, I ended up finding my own way back to China, and it required for me to go back to Canada to renew my visa before heading to China. By mid-September, I went back to Canada amidst the pandemic and the travel restriction. My flight from Moscow to Montreal was canceled 4 times by the airlines. They ended up canceling all together, but never refunding me. I have a voucher instead. Airlines used this tactic to stay afloat, never refunding, always offering vouchers. Royal Air Maroc and Turkish airlines still owes me flights to these day.
I thankfully managed to grab a flight back to Montreal and after my quarantine period, I renewed my visa which was done faster than I expected. How lucky can you be? I booked my flight from Montreal to Beijing. I was going back! Or so I thought.
Flights from Canada to China were going through difficult times. So, every 12 hours, my flight was getting canceled. I ended up calling once a day for almost 2 weeks, rescheduling, finding another flight, finding another agent to help me until it worked. My flight was not to Beijing anymore, it was to Shanghai, but what did I care for? This brings us to November 5th. The finale part of the saga to go back to China and to my dog, Milo.
My flight was schedule on Sunday, November 7th. As per regulations, you need to have two covid test done (Nasal swab and anti-nucleoid) in a 72h window prior to boarding. But a recent change within the same week brought the window down to 48h. So, I did make sure to be within that timeframe, having my test on Friday morning and the company confirming I will receive the results by Saturday. Perfect for my flight the following morning. Only, the results never came. I called the company and their labs to find out they were closed on Saturdays despite confirming several times with them over the previous week that I will have my results. Nothing. After all the trouble and the hassle to go back to China, the life in a suitcase, the lost flight tickets, the wasted money to get through everything, the lost job, I was about to be done by that missing test. Therefore, I did what any reasonable person does. I got myself some whiskey, started singing and listening to loud music while acting like a teenager defeated by life. Until it dawned upon me that I had ONE last move. I started to type a polite, but emotionally charged (no anger here) message that I distributed to EVERY single employee that I found on LinkedIn working at the lab. ALL OF THEM. Sharing part of my story and how important it was for me not to miss my flight. It was 10:30PM. And then, went back to scotch and music. at 11:02PM, I get a reply back from a former employee of the company and she wants to help me. She tells me I should receive a call within minutes from the director of the company. 11:06PM, my phone rings. The director is on the phone and he apologized for the delay, but he made sure I will receive my test results within the next 5 minutes. If I didn’t, I should give him a call back on his cellphone and he will make sure I get what I need. I thanked him profusely. I hung up the phone. And then I laughed at all the craziness. 8 months after I had left China, I was finally going back to my dog, to my friends and to the life I had started building there. 8 months of being stuck between worlds, in a suitcase at no choice of mine where I basically had my life completely changed.
So, there I was, boarding the plane on November 7th and my only thought was “Get ready for round 2 China. Here I come!”
