Rachel S Travels with a COVID Vaccine

Greetings, Chickverse!

It’s been a while since we talked—if memory serves, the last story I brought to you was about the exploding vagina candle. Ah, good times.

I won’t bore you with the details of my emotionally demanding job or extraneous commute in order to make excuses for my absence. No one cares. It’s okay. But I’m back to share some experiences that inquiring minds DO want to know: Traveling in the era of COVID passports.

That’s right, I’m coming at you not from the great state of Florida (PSA: Stop trying to poach our governor, he’s OURS), but the diametrically-opposed-in-every-way Reykjavik! Áfram Ísland!

Well, okay, full disclosure, at this EXACT moment I’m at the JFK airport nursing the hell out of a pint of Stella in the midst of a five-hour layover. But by the time I finish the article I’ll be in Iceland, because this first in an at least two-part series is about traveling to other countries as the world slowly (so, so slowly) reopens from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of you (my mom) may know that I spent a year in Iceland finishing my degree, and it is my singular favorite place in the world. So when I found out that it was planning on admitting American travelers who have received their COVID vaccine, I immediately went out and stabbed the first needle I found into my arm—which probably explains why I felt like literal roadkill after the second dose. (Just kidding, obviously I hired a professional to do it, but for real—who else felt like they’d been run over by a semi after the second Moderna shot???)

Those of you who have been vaccinated probably know that they give you a little official card with the date(s) of your shot, certifying that you actually did get the vaccine since “taking your word for it” isn’t something border control are really interested in. You know, that little COVID passport thing that’s such a harmless, basic rights-respecting idea.

HAHA no, not that one, the one that is at the top of a very slippery slope of totalitarian measures exercised on the basis of private medical history and 0 scientific facts! But when it comes to getting a break from crazy children (whom I LOVE, but holy shit they are CRAZY) and going to my LITERAL favorite place on earth, I will play the budding fascist game. I will play it so hard.

Anyway, enough back story. Iceland is open to vaccinated travelers, but they’re not messing around. They require travelers to pre-register and provide basic identifying information (including your Kennitala, which is the national identification number, which I still have from my time as a student so yeah, basically I’m a local) and information about your COVID status—either you have to provide proof of a negative test within 72 hours of arrival, then quarantine for like ever and take two separate tests, or you can provide proof of your vaccination and then you just take the one test on arrival and quarantine until you get the results. It usually doesn’t take more than 6 hours to get said results, so it’s really not a big deal—either you roll in at night and go to bed or, like me, you roll in at 8 in the morning and just hang out being tired and jetlagged for a day.

Getting out of the country is a solid NBD if you know your crap. You can’t check in online, or even on the kiosk, but once you finally get in the right line at check-in the agent will look up your destination, tell you they’re not allowing visitors from other countries, give you a tiny heart attack, and then look a little closer and check your information. Turns out, even airline agents aren’t experts on various countries’ COVID travel protocols. You know why? Because NO ONE IS.

But the guy I talked to was very nice and checked out the rules, checked out my documents, and agreed it was okay for me to get on the plane. So from that point on everything was extremely normal, except I had to get my seats assigned at the gate instead of at check in. But whatever.

Fast forward two flights, one long layover, four drinks, and the best sleep I’ve ever gotten on a plane (probably something to do with the four drinks), and I’m in Iceland. Hooray!

The preregistration prize is a little barcode that everyone at Keflavik International Airport is desperate to see. Showing your passport? Better have the barcode. Giving proof of your vaccine? Not without the barcode. Having swabs shoved down your throat and up your nose? Barcode out, bitches.

Before you can even get to the first person who wants to see your passport and scan your barcode, you have to show your barcode to the scrubbed up Viking who just needs to know that there is a barcode to scan. Then you get to the first kiosk, where usually the Vikings just want to see your passport, but now they want your passport AND your barcode. To be honest, I’m not even sure anyone looked at my vaccine record? Like I definitely wouldn’t risk NOT having it, but they definitely didn’t look at it as closely as my passport.

Then after that line, you get in a line to get a COVID test. This was my 6th COVID test, and the first one where they swabbed my throat. The young lady doing the test didn’t seem excited for me to have this new experience, but she’s Icelandic and they haven’t been excited about anything since Iceland was last in the World Cup.

I’m sure many of you have gotten a COVID test before, so I know I’m not the only one who thinks of Sir Robin’s minstrels from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The gagging on a cotton swab was a refreshing change of pace from having my brain molested, though– or at least it would’ve been if I didn’t have to get both.

THEN you can finally do the ACTUAL border check where they ONLY want to see your passport. Normalcy! The customs agent asked where I planned on quarantining and how I’d get there, then went to stamp my passport. “Oh, you’ve been here before,” he said. He flipped through the pages to find an empty spot for his stamp. “Oh. You have been here before,” he said, after flipping past 8 or so pages of mostly Icelandic stamps.

I took a cab into the city (which I don’t recommend, I have $150 less than I used to) and took a nap while I waited to get my results back. I got the text around 9:00, and a notification at around 2:45 that my test results were available. No COVID! Hooray!!

Now that I’m certified COVID-less, I can do pretty much whatever I want as long as I follow the mask rules. They’re pretty similar to the US– masks on in bars and restaurants until you’re seated, and they’re not required outside. So the worst is over, and now I get to enjoy beautiful, sunny Reykjavik. Peace out!