Monday.

A day for settling in, trying to figure out how things work.

Highlights

• Day 0 Covid tests were both negative, so after a temperature / symptom check in the doorway of our room, we were issued with blue wrist bands, and permission to book an exercise slot each day (refer lowlights below!)

• Getting outside into the fresh air – bringing my steps for the day up to 5,532, a big jump from the paltry 2,886 the previous day.

• Still the food – hotcakes for breakfast, turkish chicken sandwich for dinner – YUM!
  (supplemented with our own stash of good cheese, and a much more acceptable bottle of cheap French bubbles, also from the hotel list as our wine delivery didn’t arrive)

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• Getting nearly 9 hours sleep! After a day when jetlag really kicked in, that was definitely an unexpected win!

Lowlights

• Discovering that exercise slots are like hen’s teeth!
  The rooftop terrace was fully booked when we rang, all we could get was a booking on the “ramp” for 6.30pm – literally the ramp from the road down to the carpark entrance under the hotel. 25m of tarmac, between two walls, under the watchful eye of the NZ Army. “Don’t touch the walls or the orange cones” we were instructed, and don’t do anything vigorous – no running or jumping, no yoga… blah blah – basically, you can walk, but not do anything to raise a sweat, in case you shed the virus with your body fluids and pass it on to the next “exerciser”. So Peter and I marched up and down the ramp, for 30 minutes, in the dark… halfway through he put some music on his cellphone and I danced (badly) an Irish jig for at least one lap. Never mind – we have an 8.30am booking for the rooftop Tuesday morning, which will be better.

Discoveries so far
(aka advice for those of you following us into MIQ, and noting that this probably varies by location)…

• Thank goodness we have LOTS of clothes! Yes, there is a laundry service (you get two laundry bags per person for your 2 weeks stay, which seems reasonable. BUT….
  Please note that we are unable to process any delicate, synthetic fabric, cotton, woollen garments.
  Now I’m really trying hard to find a single item of clothing in my suitcase that is not delicate, synthetic, cotton or woollen? What exactly CAN they launder? I think the issue is that virus control means they must wash and dry everything at very high temperatures! But the moral of the story is, bring lots of clothes – or frankly given that no one can enter your room, just wander around in your jammies all day.

So that was Day 2 – only 12 more days to go! We can do this!