What would you do if you had 20 days (and counting) of complete isolation in a hotel room in a foreign country? In my case it seemed like a great opportunity to look into a project I had been thinking about for years – a blog about my experiences exploring the great state of Alaska, and some adventures abroad. In my “good enough” fashion, it probably won’t look great, but hopefully will be navigable, tell a story and maybe even help some people out.
With Athea having an opportunity to travel to Florence for work for 9 days in October 2021, I was happy to tag along and go do my own adventuring. On the 6th day of our trip, however, I lost the sense of smell and the pizza tasted like cardboard. After avoiding COVID since the outbreak, it was finally here. Almost two years into the pandemic, I had finally managed to hop on an airplane outside of Anchorage a couple times, and even gone to a Kansas City Chiefs game. In contrast to the US, the Italians were fantastic about masks and social distancing – but there was always that flight from Anchorage, where Alaska had, for weeks, been struggling with the higher per capita COVID rates of any state (or country for that matter!) in that period of time.
The test
Of course, finding a test was not quick or easy – but by the next morning, I was able to find a clinic. Despite our best efforts visiting the Tuscany website, we had no idea what to expect in the event of a positive test. We knew there would be some kind of quarantine required – it looked like 7 days? Would we be sent back to our hotel room.. together? Would we have to split rooms if one of us was positive and the other negative? Is the hotel going to kick us out? What would be do for food? In a semi-panic we made a shopping list and started gathering necessary supplies for a week long quarantine. 12 1.5-L bottles of water.. yogurt.. of course Vitamin D…
We walked up to the clinic 30 minutes later, where the nurse approached.
“Are you ready for your tampon?”
“Scusi?“
“The tampon. Tampone. Swab test. Can we go?”
Unfortunately, the test was of course positive – in contrast to Athea’s negative test – which meant that this wasn’t going to be the only time I was getting a “tampon” this trip. The rest of our questions quickly were cleared up when the nurse came back. “We have contacted the health authorities and an an ambulance is on its way. You will be taken to Montecatini Terme, where you will be spending 7 days in quarantine.”
“When can we leave?”
“The local doctor will come visit you there – and tell you everything you need to know.”
Quarantine!
Loading up in the ambulance. 
Arrival in the hotel 
My home for 3 weeks
We arrived at the hotel and were split up into our two rooms. Oh, that’s nice, they put us next to each other! I was worried that since I was positive and Athea was a “contact”, they would have us on opposite floors or ends of the hotel. We poked our heads out the balcony – if I turned my head around the corner, I could see her there!
The doctors, fully suited up in Haz-Mat gear and face shields, arrived shortly after and explained everything. This was all free, covered by the regional government, they said – the hotel stay, 3 meals a day, coffee, water – anything and everything we needed. I looked over at the pile of food we brought, most thankful for the bottles of wine. They continued – quarantine would start today, and I would get a single PCR tampon every 7 days, with an additional week of quarantine if the test came positive. After 21 days, if I was still testing positive but asymptomatic, they would let me go.
“So you’re telling me I have to quarantine at least seven days?” I asked.
Even behind her mask and face shield I could tell that she laughed at the ignorance of my comment. “7 days, if you’re lucky.” …
Balcony.. my only “real” connection to the outside world. 
Got the wine open – small victories!
.. As it turns out, we were not.
Time, of course, moves slowly in quarantine. The church tower across the street reminds us of this.. every 15 minutes. The internet helps, of course, but my connection to the outside world is still limited to a 4′ x 8′ balcony. On the eve of the holiday of Tutti i Santi (All Saint’s Day), music was blasting from nearby clubs until 2 in the morning, quite a change from the normal peaceful town. Being next to the local church, it’s not uncommon to see kids playing soccer or what seems to be the local school band practicing in the plaza area. We occasionally see and chat with other quarantined individuals on the balcony – below me there is an older Italian lady who is always smiling and waving while saying some sort of cheerful greeting. There is a Canadian who was dropped off from the cruise ship he worked on who is entering his second week of quarantine.
There are tragic scenes too- such as when an ambulance pulled up in front of the hotel on the fourth day and carried someone out on a stretcher. A sad reminder that, although for us this quarantine is inconvenient, there are others who are having a much larger struggle with this.
For the most part, though, quarantine has just been… this right here. Trying to finally learn WordPress and start up this blog that I first started pondering starting several years ago, but never found the time (most things web are challenging and unnatural for me). And taking care of ever-lower priority stuff at work.
All in all, I appreciate the commitment to provide a safe and caring environment for people in quarantine/isolation. It’s quite impressive that the costs of quarantining (including all lodging, food, and doctor visits) are provided by the government, and despite the language barrier, the hotel staff here have been quick to help us with groceries or food orders.
There are downsides, however. There is strict guidance for release from quarantine in Tuscany, with no room for interpretation: a negative PCR test, or 21 days of quarantine (and obviously no symptoms present following that time). This is in contrast to most other nations in the EU (and even the official guidance from the Italian government!), which have a 10-day quarantine requirement before release if no symptoms are present. There is also no option at all for a more frequent PCR test, or a rapid test – you get the PCR test provided by the government, once a week, and that’s it. Most frustrating is the lack of information for tourists – after hours of searching, we could only find information buried in the Tuscany regional website, and only in Italian.
As it turns out, we would test positive on the PCR test for the next 3 weeks – meaning we had to spend the full 21 days in quarantine. Talking with the doctors, this is exceptionally common, with only a limited few individuals actually making it out before the full 21-day period. This is the reason the CDC recommends against a testing protocol to end isolation, instead suggesting that it be completed 10 days after symptoms, as long as they have been improving.
We learned quite a few lessons from this experience, but the biggest one was that COVID protocols are vastly different by country, and even by region. The requirements for Tuscany are not in line with suggestions for the EU or even just the Italian government, and were also extremely hard to find. As other countries in Europe begin to head toward lockdowns, however, we are just happy to be out and ready to fly home.