We’ve been a little quiet this past week because we were fitting in four months of social activity into two weeks. Friends, family, Chicago to Baltimore, Thanksgiving, with lots of lunches and dinners and even a bit of work sandwiched in. But, we’re on the road again, complete with the latest Covid drama.

Yesterday, our very communicative and kind Fes AirBnB host told us that Morocco was suspending all flights in and out as of today because of Omicron. Yes, we were supposed to be headed to Morocco in less than two weeks. December 7 to be exact. Hmmm, what to do?

Steven and I have worked out a pretty good system for decision-making, I may patent it:

• Step 1: Ask, “What are you thinking?”
• Step 2: Listen to answer.
• Step 3: State your opinion.
• Step 4: Go back-and-forth on the merits of different plans.
• Step 5: Confuse the matter by saying, “How about this?” or “Did we consider that?”
• Step 6: Say, “I think we should do this.”
• Step 7: Person 2 says, “Me too.”
• Step 8: Accept that everything will cost more than you want it to.
• Step 9: Execute plan.
• Step 10: Stop thinking about plans you opted out of.

So, that is what we did. We waited for Ryan Air to cancel our flight (didn’t want to pay a chance fee but Steven chatted with them and they said they would email when the cancellation became official) and then re-booked the same flight for a week later.

Our new plan is to stay an extra week in Barcelona. (Oh the pity!) (Oh the things we do just so you, our dear readers, can sit at home and live vicariously through our foolishness,) Our ears on the ground in Fes (that’s our AirBnB host) says that the scuttlebutt is that the ban won’t last longer than the original two weeks because Morocco doesn’t want to miss the holiday tourist season. Fingers crossed.

For those of you asking if we are worried about Covid, the answer is no. Morocco doesn’t want us there because they have a low infection rate, well lower than that in the United States. You can argue that we have a higher testing rate, although I don’t know if that is true or not. All I know is that since we have been here, I have seen more unmasked faces in indoor, public spaces (including food-service workers and pharmacy assistants) than I saw in France or Turkey. And, in those places you had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to get into public places such as restaurants or museums. Restaurants also (mostly) required proof of vaccination. Given all that, we believe the risk of travel is really no worse than the risk of staying here.

We’ll keep you posted. If we can’t get into Morocco, we may be looking for a place to stay at a guest bedroom near you. 🙂