My partner, Marc, and I tested positive for COVID during our second week of vacation in Europe.  We knew when we got exposed and from whom.  As a consequence, we lost our nonrefundable plane tickets to Malta on Lufthansa and we had to pay a fine for cancelling our Valletta hotel reservation last minute. We booked a hotel room with a kitchen in a new hotel and we isolated for a week per the advice of Marc's sibling, a New York City doctor.

Two days before our departure for Europe, a neighbor dropped by our home to say hi and chat.  She stayed at least 40 minutes.  Although she wore a mask when she arrived, she coughed a lot and her blue surgical mask was wet from her breathing. 

I quickly placed my N95 mask on while Marc didn't.  While with us, we socially distanced.  She sat in the dining room, Marc stood by the kitchen, while I sat on the sofa in the adjacent living room. 

Before leaving, she gave Marc a hug and wished us a wonderful trip.  The following morning, she called and informed us that she had just tested positive for COVID.  It turns out, she had already suspected something was wrong which is why she went to the hospital to get a PCR test early Friday morning.  Meanwhile, while waiting for the results to come out, she still mingled, paying us a visit later that night among others.

When we learned that we had just gotten exposed, our first instinct was to stay home and cancel all plane ticket and hotel reservations.  We felt it best to stay home just to be safe.  It was definitely better that getting sick of COVID while on the road in a faraway country. It just wasn't fair after we had excitedly planned our trip for over a year.  No doubt we looked forward to seeing seeing and revisiting cities and towns in Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and England. 

Twice vaccinated and twice boosted, we decided in the end to take the risk and so we left San Francisco for Frankfurt.  My family was worried about our decision.  Everything went well for our first week in Germany.  That first week was full of travel to new cities and even to Strasbourg, France, our first to that French city.  On our fifth day of vacation, we even thought we didn't get infected with COVID at all.   

Marc got sick first then I did two days later.  Marc was sick for two days while I was ill for a day and a half.  He had a fever, cough, and colds while I had a fever.  I did worry and prayed a lot since Marc was awfully sick his first day.  In my case, my temperature went up to 100.8 for a full day but my fever broke exactly 24 hours later.

Now home nearly three weeks after our return from Europe, I am sure that even if we had not been exposed to our neighbor, we would have gotten sick anyway since we were in very close proximity to other passengers who sounded and seemed very sick while we traveled on local trains around Germany, when we moved to Brussels from Frankfurt on the DB ICE train, and even when we took the Eurostar from the Brussels Midi Train Station to St. Pancras in London.   I cannot tell you how many people we saw in hotels and on the trains who coughed and sneezed the way we did when we were positive.  Some very sick people even sat next to us in waiting lounges and trains.

Overall, we are still thankful that we got to travel this summer and that our summer was not totally ruined.  Except for the second week we isolated, we waxed nostalgia and made lots of wonderful memories visiting the places we saw.