Travel Update: Passing the Tests - August 2021

The rules to travel have been a moving target. Each time we travel it's a new set of rules and new experiences. The USA has few restrictions on outbound travelers, but does restrict inbound travelers from certain countries like the UK, Europe & Canada (currently prohibited, except for certain diplomatic reasons). However the UK has it's own restrictions on travelers from the US.  These rules were updated in mid-July for holders of British passports so they no longer need to quarantine upon return from the USA, if they have been vaccinated. This may seem odd, since the USA still prohibits UK citizens from coming to the USA on holiday, but it does apply in certain narrow circumstances. 

We carefully reviewed these new rules and didn't see any loop-holes for US citizens going to UK as the new "Freedom Day" rules of July 19th were published. This meant we would still need to do pre-departure tests, arrival tests and more tests while we were in quarantine. We kept waiting for a clarification on the rules for US passports, but as it got closer to our departure date, we had to bite the bullet and order the box-load of tests.  This box of tests included monitored electronic at-home rapid antigen tests, and PCR tests that needed to be express mailed while we were in England. In all for the both of us, these tests kits cost as much as one of our overseas plane tickets and that did not include the Day 5 (early release tests). 

Box of Testing Kits for Travel

To our joy, just two days before departure, we read news that UK had also dropped the requirement for travelers from USA with American Passports to quarantine, if they were fully vaccinated. For us, if it applied, would mean 10 extra days with our family and grandchildren and no isolation upon arrival!  

Some of the tests were still required, but not all of them. So we ended up paying for some of the tests we no longer needed. We did need the pre-departure tests. These were a bit different than the other antigen tests we've used. The sensor strip was electronic, with it's own batteries and power switch that when activated connected to a special app on the phone via Bluetooth. This was to support the need for a monitored test that could be done at home with nearly instant results. All very convenient, in theory.  

Electronic Rapid Antigen Test Sensor

In practice, it was all still pretty bleeding edge and not very well debugged. We had some trouble getting everything connected, but had a live video-chat with the support people to get it all worked out. It eventually operated as described with some very rough user-interface design and the hardest part was the long wait while the timer counted down the required fifteen minutes before the results would be displayed. If it said positive for either of us, we would need to reschedule the trip! 

Now since we went with the testing provider that was partnered with the airline we were using, we expected to have the test data passed directly to the airline through the app or at least through a back-channel between the testing provider and the airline. But no, it's not so sophisticated. Instead the testing app displayed the test results and had a secure connection to allow a download of a PDF form confirming the (negative) test results. The airline's app had no way to upload the required testing results form from the phone. Even the airline's mobile website had no way to upload the required form to our reservation. Instead we had to email this form to ourselves and then use a regular PC to access our reservation and upload from there. 

Of course they recommended that we print-out everything on paper and bring it to the airport with us, just to be sure. The airport experience is so different from what it was just a few months ago. At Seattle airport the security lines were long and slow and it took us 45 minutes to get through. The airport traffic was just like any typical summer travel season with domestic flights going full speed. 

Departure Airport Security Lines

Since the rules for overseas travel were so new, the airport staff were still not fully trained or quite sure of what was needed for going where.  We were told conflicting messages from the baggage check-in staff and the gate staff. The domestic portion of our flight (SEA-ATL) was 100% booked with every seat taken.  

International Terminal at Atlanta Airport

When we got to Atlanta, we had to go to international terminal. The terminal was a busy place with flights going to all sorts of international destinations and most of them fairly full.  I wouldn't say it was operating normally, but it was quite active. Lines were moving slower than normal and our flight was delayed a full hour because they required every passenger to check-in with the departure gate and show hard-copies of all the required documentation needed by their destination. "Show us your papers." was becoming a familiar phrase. Nearly everyone was carrying a folder or binder with all these documents. 

The flight from Atlanta to London was long, but uneventful. At London Heathrow we flew through customs and passport control without delays. At no point in the USA or in UK did anyone ever ask us to present proof of our vaccination - yet this was stated as a necessary requirement to avoid the self-isolation requirements. 

After arrival, we were again required to do a PCR Covid test on Day 2. We completed these tests at home and dropped them in the priority post box. It was a full 97 hours later that we got the results of these tests (negative). Again it as a bit nerve racking to wait so long to find out if we were going to be required to quarantine.  But we passed the tests and have been busy exploring since.  

After 22 hours of travel at London Heathrow Airport

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More info on traveling to UK:  https://www.gov.uk/uk-border-control

Lessons Learned:

1. We had pre-ordered our COVID tests before the new rules went into effect, so we were charged for the pre-departure, Day 2 and Day 8. If you're fully vaxxed in the US or UK, you no longer need the Day 5 or Day 8 tests, so make sure you get just what you need. 

2.  Our flights were cancelled and rebooked three times  by the airline (Virgin & Delta)!  The airlines schedules are quite unstable.  We spent over 7 hours on the phone to handle the rebookings - have patience and be prepared for slow service. 

3. The US airports are at typical summer capacity (very busy). We had to wait 45 minutes to get through security (SEA). 

4. Any domestic (connecting) flight is going to be 100% booked. No empty seats and masks are still required all the time. 

5. Our overseas flight was 80-90% full.  This is so different than it was just last May when we flew with only 10% of the seats occupied or last November when the crew outnumbered the passengers. The First, business and economy+ sections will fill up first. The flight had a high load of business travelers and families with small children. (Again a more typical mix as if it was pre-pandemic, compared to the last 3 times we flew. )

6. On departure, they checked and rechecked all that we had all the required UK paperwork. Everyone had a full binder of everything needed. Be sure to print a boarding pass, they weren't taking the digital boarding pass, because they needed to write notes on the boarding pass with the paperwork inspection. 

7. They NEVER asked nor requested any proof of vaccination.  (You do make a declaration on the UK Locator form, but that's it.) 

8. At LHR the passport control station went fairly fast, considering several full flights arrived at the same time (term 3 @ 9AM). I passed through the electronic checkpoint with no trouble and never had to speak with anyone. Becky's didn't read correctly, so they redirected her to the manned station, but it was no trouble.  Again, there is no check on the UK side for any vaccination records, but I would recommend bringing your CDC form if you have it, just in case. 

9. From LHR gate to curb took less than an hour. 

(Your mileage may vary...)

-David 

 

Bagels and Boredom

 We are now in the final week before traveling back to England and since we have to take a Covid test before we can travel, we decided not to take any chances of getting sick. We have therefore decided to do a self imposed self isolation for the last week. This might sound fun to most people but to David and I, who are type A personalities, and always need a project, this is difficult. Sure we have things to wrap up around the house but not a whole weeks worth of things. What to do when I am bored? Bake!

Years ago I was given the cookbook, "Baking with Julia". The Julia being Julia Child who in my mind is one of the Mozarts of cooking and baking. This cookbook is a bit different than other cookbooks by Julia Child. It is full of recipes from guest chefs that visited her show and was printed in 1996. One of these recipes is bagels by guest chef, Lauren Groveman. I tried this recipe years and years ago, like 20 years ago and had some success. I remembered it being  a recipe that had several steps but was worth the effort. So in my boredom decided to try bagels again.

Step one, reread the recipe and research who is Lauren Groveman. This lead me to a Google search and also to the original episode with Julia Child. I watched in fascination at the amazing hairstyles from the 90's but also at Julia and how even in her later years she commanded the screen. I also decided that I could do bagels, which by now I was craving. It was also mentioned that Lauren was from New York which clinched the deal.

Original Episode on YouTube

The recipe is pretty direct. The only ingredient that gave me pause was, 3 Tablespoons of solid vegetable shortening. This ingredient clearly dates it to the 90's but secret fact about me. I have shortening and occasionally use it but it did seem like a unusual ingredient to use. 

The technique was to make the dough the day before. Allow it to proof once for an hour, punch it down and let it do the final proofing in the fridge overnight. The next morning was the shaping, boiling and baking. This allows us to enjoy the bagel in the morning with breakfast. At least that is the idea but it did take me about 2 1/2 hours to heat the oven, shape, boil, bake and then cool. So unless you are going to start at 6 a.m. then it is a second breakfast food.

After watching the original episode, I decide to put the Kitchenaid aside so I could mix and knead by hand. There is one technique in the recipe that I don't think I will repeat. In the early stages, after softening the yeast in warm water, you add the yeast, salt, 2 more cups of water and shortening in a bowl. I immediately heard Paul Hollywood in my head reminding me that salt kills yeast but I decided to give Lauren the benefit of the doubt and followed the step as printed in the recipe. I am not sure if this is the cause, but I felt the bagels did not rise as they should. The first proof took longer than printed and the final result was a bit flatter than I hoped. I think next time I will follow my gut, and Paul, and not add the salt right in with the yeast.

Shaping the Bagels

Shaping the bagels was fun. No, you do not use a donut cutout on bagels. After dividing the dough into balls, it is then flattened and poked with a finger until it comes out the other side. Then there is this magical twirling motion to get the bagel to open up to a huge hole. I would have thought the hole was too big but after letting it sit and the boiling process it looked like the correct size.

Boiling the Bagels

The baking process also had several steps. First set the oven to 500 degrees, with a pizza stone. When the bagels are placed in the oven the temperature is lowered to 450. After baking for 25 minutes the oven is then turned off and the bagels bake for 5 more minutes. The oven door is then open for 5 minutes, with the bagels still in the oven. Then the bagels are taken out for the cooling. All the while I am smelling bagels baking wondering how they will taste.

Bagels in the Oven

Final result? It was delicious. I will try the salt/yeast technique different next time but it really was not too difficult. The hardest part of making bagels.....the wait.

-Becky

Our new Laundry Room (in USA)

 We just finished our laundry room remodel at the Coupeville house.  Originally we had two laundry rooms for the business, one room had three machines (two dryers and a top-load washer) and some nasty old brown cabinets that look like they had been salvaged from some older home. The second room had one additional washing machine and the sink, with more of those salvaged cabinets.

We tore all that out and since we didn't need the second top-load washer, we put in more cabinets for storage. We replaced the old plastic sink with an extra deep stainless sink. So this room has been transformed into all storage space. 

In the adjoining room, that had the three machines originally, we put new front-load washers/dryers and had more room for extra cabinets too.  We added a new countertop for folding the laundry.  The floors were also replaced and we completely removed all the old brown ceramic tile and replaced it with LVP. 

Here's a wide angle shot showing how the rooms are connected now with continuous flooring instead of the half & half floor we had before. . 

-David 

Is this a good place to park?

We noticed that in England, there seems to be a pretty lax attitude about parking. So here are a few examples we've spotted.

Is this a good place to park?

On the walking path, fenced off from the street, on East Road near Newtown. 

Is this a good place to park?

Double parked on sidewalk under the M27 in Port Solent directly in front of No Parking signs. We regularly saw a parking enforcement officer sleeping in his patrol car, under this bridge, in broad daylight!

Is this a good place to park?

Parked on the grass next to the sidewalk.

Cars parked in odd places are a hazzard to drivers and pedestrians. Parking enforcement is nearly non-existent based on our observations. Be careful out there.

Back in the U.S.A.

Coupeville Wharf in springtime

After six months of living in the U.K., we are back in Washington! This was a bittersweet journey for us to make. It was super hard to leave our sweet grandsons behind and say goodbye to our daughter in-law, knowing that they will have another 6 or 7 weeks before our son returns from his deployment. But, we had reached our 6 month limit and had to leave. We also had to leave our newly refurbished apartment and a way of life we had come to accept. The good news, we hope to be back in August.

This is the second blog about traveling during Covid.  If you read our early blog post about traveling to England, we wrote about how surreal it felt. How it felt like traveling in a Sci-Fi novel, empty airports, closed shops and restaurants. There was a certain thrill of seeing a historical time of our lives up close and personal. It also seemed like people working at the airport were happy to see us. We were travelers and maybe we were a sign that things were going to get better soon. This time traveling, it was so much the same and so much different.

Flight Cancelled! 

Our travel struggles started the night before our departure. David was online trying to check us in but our reservation said we were cancelled. What did this mean? We had been watching our flight to Seattle and it stilled showed that it was flying so how could we be cancelled. I immediately went into panic mode, thank goodness David kept a clear head. First, David tried calling Delta only to be told there was an hour wait time. I next tried to call another Delta number, a number that is reserved for Delta frequent fliers. I was told that there was a wait time of 35 minutes but they would call me back. Somewhere in all this, David reached out on Twitter to the airline for help. 

Twitter for the save! 

After 2 hours, no one had called back and David was still on hold but he was having a conversation with someone from Delta, via Twitter. Long story, Twitter came through and whoever was on the other end got our flight reinstated. It was about another half an hour before I finally got a call back. Thanks but too late. What we think happened, but we are not sure, there was an equipment change, that caused a flight number change that somehow cancelled our reservation. It was now coming on midnight and we had an Uber picking us up early the next morning. We had scheduled an Uber since our normal train and bus method of getting to the airport was not running costing us an extra $100.

Uber ride to the airport

Next cause for concern, nobody gets on an international flight without a negative Covid test. I knew I wasn't sick, I knew that David wasn't sick but we still had to take tests at the airport. The reason I was concerned? I have heard that there are a fair amount of false positives. What if this happens? Do they retest? Do we have to head home again and wait 14 days to travel again? Luckily, our test were negative and that was another extra $95.00 each.

Covid Testing Center at London Heathrow

 We have made it this far, now on to checking in and airport security. This was relatively painless since there were so few people traveling but this time it just felt different. Gone was the excitement of seeing travelers replaced with the constant interrogation of why were we traveling. Maybe this has something to do with leaving the U.K. since it is illegal for their citizens to travel on holiday but it still felt like something out of the Cold War era. Once we told them our story explaining that we were part of support bubble to help our son and his family during his deployment they were all sympathetic but the fact I constantly had to  explain this felt wrong. I had bought a ticket, I had jumped through their hoops to fly and I was going home! Stop asking me! I was already feeling very emotional at leaving so much behind and to constantly have to tell the my story almost brought me to tears.

Empty security scanning area

Sadly, the airport was just about the same as 6 months ago. Most of the seats were blocked from using, stores and restaurants were still closed and everyone who was traveling seemed to be sad and exhausted. There is a sadness to traveling when there are no families on holiday, there is no laughter or excitement. Our airplane only had 47 passengers. During normal times you would be happy and excited if your airplane only had 15% capacity but now it just another reminder at how far we away we are from feeling or acting normal. 

Airport waiting area at London Heathrow

I am sorry if this blog post has a certain sadness to it. I really want to document what we saw and how we felt because I am sure at some point in my life, this will all feel far away and hopefully hard to remember. I am sure that life will resume, families will travel and laughter and excitement will return. One thing this has taught me, never take those mundane, happy moments for granted!

-Becky

More empty corridors at London Heathrow

Waiting for boarding

Empty seats on Boeing 767

Constant mask reminders on flight entertainment screen

Baking in UK: Part 3 - Staffordshire Oak Cakes

It has been a long month of no new baking. In my defense, my kitchen looked like this for a good part of the time!. Notice no oven, cooktop and no sink so that meant no cooking. I hope you have taken time to read David's posts about the remodel and have seen my beautiful new kitchen. So on to cooking.

Kitchen chaos

 As a reminder, I am taking my recipes from, "Paul Hollywood's British Baking" cookbook. Todays recipe is Staffordshire Oatcakes. Staffordshire is from the Midlands, in the area of Birmingham. Again, one of those areas I would love to explore more when life returns to normal.

This recipe caught my eye from the very beginning and was recommended by one of David's friends as a a local food we should try while we are here. It is a griddle cake using relatively simple ingredients with the addition of yeast as the leavening agent. The only preplanning necessary was the ingredient, "fine oatmeal". I was not sure what this meant. I figured that it was like oat flour but when I looked in the grocery store I couldn't find anything that was called fine oatmeal. I did hear that some of the porridge oats are pretty fine but I decided to take matters into my own hands and make some oat flour. This did require the use of my daughter in law's blender. After a few whirs in the blender I had fine oatmeal. If you are looking at the picture of the ingredients, that is what is in the glass jar and the oats I used are behind the jar.

Ingredients

Also notice that I switched to salted butter but since the recipe called for salt I used a bit less that the amount of salt that was called for in the recipe. The other thing to notice is the fact there is no sugar in this recipe. If you are like me, you think pancake when I say it is a griddle cake but these are more like a crepe than a fluffy pancake, with the exception that this recipe has no eggs.

Batter

This was an easy recipe. It did require some planning ahead. After mixing all the ingredients, with the exception of the melted butter, it needs to sit for 1 1/2 hours for the yeast to do its thing. This wait period gave me time to think about what fillings to roll into my griddlecake. Paul recommends crispy bacon and cheese. I am not sure where Paul shops but I have yet to find anything that resembles "crispy" bacon. There is a bacon here called 'streaky bacon" which I suppose is the closest a person can find to American bacon but I would not really call it crispy. I also looked at the photograph in the cookbook and to me it looked like traditional English bacon, more like Canadian bacon, so that is what I used.

Cooking

In keeping with the tradition of crepes, the first attempt at cooking one was not pretty and was used to tear apart and sample and while none of them came our perfectly round, they were acceptable with the last one being the best of them all. (This picture is of attempt number 3).

Take a minute to listen to the bacon frying in the pan. After years of innkeeping, I can't smell and hear bacon cooking without thinking of one thing.....eggs. So while I did eat my first oatcake with Paul's suggestion of ham and cheese, (as pictured below), I also added eggs to my second and it was also delightful. David, not forgetting they are like crepes, rolled Nutella and jam into one. I am pretty sure he liked it by how fast he ate it. 

All in all, I would definitely make these fun oatcakes again. They were a light, slightly fluffy way to wrap up food and eat. Thanks Paul for another great bake. (Can I call it a bake when no oven was used?)

With bacon and aged English Cheddar Cheese

Becky

Kitchen Remodel: Part 2

 This is the rest of the story on the kitchen. This is the area that was so in need a of an upgrade. There were so many problems with the space originally, we struggled with how to start over. Let's review the status of this kitchen when we moved in. 

First the obvious code violation; directly above the cooktop or "hob" as they call it here there is a full size upper cabinet - no vent, no hood.  So anytime you cook a pot of spaghetti (or anything moist) the bottom surface of the cabinet collects all the steam until it literally rains back down on the stove. If you ever have a chance to design a kitchen don't do this!  Apparently they are quite lax about inspections over here.  Yes before you ask, we did get full approval from our town council to renovate the kitchen.

Next, the wasted space and total lack of any usable work surfaces.  Notice how the corner space is wasted and blocked by the cabinet with the double-oven.  Even the upper corner on that side had no cabinet, just a make-shift shelf and the narrow gap in the dead corner.  You can't really tell from this angle, but the cooker is off-center and probably too-close to the left side. Also notice that the sink is a single bowl with no drain-pan and the dishes are simply drying on a towel directly on the counter-top. Of course when we dismantled the cabinets, we noticed that this corner had an obvious moisture problem that we had to fix.  See the details in the "Before Picture" below. 

Another big obstacle we faced was the floor. When we removed each of the three pantries (larders), we found that the floor tile was missing below the cabinets!  We had to do something to fix these gaps because we weren't putting anything in their place. At first we thought we would just rip everything out and replace the entire floor. The tile was throughout three of the four rooms in the house, so it was going to be a big, messy job ripping everything out. Since we were also living in this flat while remodeling, we became dissuaded from this path.  

Missing floor tile

Another option we considered was putting in floating laminate click-lock planks directly over the existing tile floor.  It can be done, but making sure everything is perfectly level first can be a challenge. If there are any bumps, the planks can chip and break their tabs, creating a mess. These planks add another 1/4 inch to the floor, which also means that all the baseboard trim must be redone and possibly some of the interior doors may need trimming.  If instead you use a thinner, flexible vinyl, the bumps and seams will show through. 

So after much deliberation, we kept coming back to the need to just patch holes with matching tile. How hard could it be?  We found a couple of tile contractors who were willing to do it for a reasonable fee, but none of them had any tile that matched. We spent about a month trying to locate some matching tile and ended up finding some about 2 hours away. We made the four-hour round-trip drive nearly to Wales during the lock-down to retrieve the two boxes of matching tiles. It was just enough!  The tile installation turned out to be the only work we hired out to a local contractor. I just didn't want to deal with that part of the job. He came in and was done in a few hours, so we could move on.  

The existing kitchen was obviously an Ikea kitchen. I had previous experience doing a full Ikea kitchen back at the blue house in Washington, so that seemed like the natural place to start.  I was already familiar with their 3D design tools and the core technology (Google Sketchup), so that is where we started. We quickly ran into some problems with the space. Ikea cabinets only come in a few fixed sizes and they have only one option for corner cabinets. They also aren't designed with any off-set from the wall to allow for plumbing behind the cabinets.  Finally their upper cabinets are only avialable in either the standard 70cm or the the extra tall 100cm height, which we didn't have room for. Finally during the lockdown Ikea stores were closed and with the recent implementation of Brexit, many of the Ikea parts and components were delayed as much as six months!  

Trucks backed-up waiting for permission to cross the border at Dover after Brexit

We found a local big-box DIY shop here similar to Home Depot called B&Q that did these flat-pack kitchen cabinets.  They manufacture almost everything here in UK, so there wouldn't be any problems with bringing stuff over on the trucks.  B&Q also seemed like they were more adept at fitting kitchens into the English style of small flats. They offered many more variations of cabinet sizes and had offsets for the necessary plumbing that runs on the walls behind the cabinets. While they were more expensive than Ikea, we decided to go with the B&Q "Goodhome" brand for everything in the kitchen. 

The main kitchen arrived in two separate shipments. The first shipment was just the uppers and included 38 separate boxes that we had to stack-up in our lounge while we worked to install them. The second shipment for the lowers came about 3 weeks later and included 54 boxes!  It was quite a mess in the house wile we were installing. As we progressed, I kept discovering that there was just one more special tool I needed and had to make many additional trips back to the hardware store for these tools and extra items. Isn't that the way it always goes?  The hard part for me was, knowing that if I had been doing this project back in the states, I already had all the tools I needed. It was hard for me to buy a tool just for one job, knowing I can't bring it back and will probably never use it again.  

After much hard work it all finally came together. We decided to skip the vent-hood (not required here for electric cooktops, if there is an opening window nearby). But did leave the space open for the air to circulate above the stove. We used that space as an accent wall to match the color band of the existing back-splash (that we kept).  We also reused the existing cooktop which was in good shape. Becky was so sad to give up the double oven, but we replaced it with a very nice single multi-function convection oven, which we centered in the wall. We replaced the sink with a new composite (like quartz) black sink with an integrated drain pan.  The biggest change was in freeing up the extra counter space. The worktop space flows seamlessly into the breakfast bar so that can double as workspace when needed. 

We discovered a hidden power outlet after removing the double oven, which was a big bonus since we had decided not to upgrade the electrical for budget reasons. We installed new kickplates (plinths) which had been missing from the original kitchen and due to the clever size options of B&Q, we gained a few extra cabinets, making better use of the space with no dead-zones. The kitchen is so much brighter and more usable now and all the teal is gone!  

-David