The Britons have been extremely lucky that the Government has pretty much lifted all the travel bans, or the day-to-day bans. But that is not the case everywhere. Also our dreams might be shattered soon if Boris announces another lockdown!
For almost two years now the humanity has gone through a lot. Christmas is the holidays most people look forward to the most. It’s fun, people get to eat, and share presents, they get to go home in different parts of the world to reunite with their families or grab their loved ones and travel the world.
In 2020 Christmas didn’t feel the same. Families were pulled apart with no way of getting to each other.
Because of the pandemic the toughest restrictions and bans were put on travelling. You couldn’t fly out or drive anywhere, it didn’t matter if you did or if you didn’t have a Covid-19 test done beforehand.
Most importantly most people probably couldn’t have even been able to afford traveling considering the rates of unemployment or the furlough scheme that was put in place.
But, fortunately, in 2021, things have become a bit more relaxed. Restrictions on day-to-day life in the UK have been put to bed. Travelling, although still a headache with some restrictions, now has been made somewhat easier.
Sara, from Hays Travel Agency in Southsea Portsmouth, says that people have been more interested than ever to travel: ‘We are getting a lot more booking and enquiries’.
Because the rules are a bit confusing more and more people are seeking the help of travelling agencies in able to do everything right: ‘We go through that with them because we don’t want customers to get confused. We get all our information from the foreign office website, and that is where we direct them to look for information as well’.
Londoner Denisa, 20, has just come back from her holiday and seems to not have really enjoyed the process. She went on holiday in Greece.
She found the process ‘extremely difficult’ due to all the restrictions and the fact that she hasn’t been double jabbed.
‘It has been an excruciatingly long and hard process’.
As long as the process might have been, and as hard as it is for people to go on holiday, this seems to not have stopped most Britons to leave the country. This means that people have gained hope. It means that the world is going back to normal.
But not everywhere.
In Amsterdam, for example, there have been new restrictions put in place.
For the Dutch, the masks are back, there is an 5PM curfew on all non-essential shops, restaurants, bars, and pubs, and an 8PM curfew for essential shops such as the supermarkets, pet shops and chemists. Maybe not as bad as before but let’s remember that the UK has never had a curfew since the Pandemic has started.
In the last week they have had double the cases they had since the pandemic started.
Ioana Nicolae, 20, student at Hotel School Amsterdam, is a foreign student that is looking forward to going home to Romania for the holidays. But the rules there are ever changing, so she is quite scared of the restrictions.
‘To be honest it is very stressful. You have school or work from 9 to 5 and then when you want to something to relax and take your mind off stuff, you have nothing to do. So I really hope this doesn’t last for long. It is scary.’
Ioana also added that: ‘Leaving Amsterdam is even worse. But to be honest in the near future I think we are going back to online school, again. So, I am not really scared of going back to Romania, because if I get stuck there at least I am at home.’
As you can tell, different parts of the world are experiencing Covid in different ways. While in the UK we haven’t had restrictions in a very long time, in other parts of the world they are being reinforced each day, due to new variants.
There is a lot of hope for the feature. Hopefully travelling will be made even easier, and the process will get back to pre-covid days, no more day 2 tests, and Covid passports.
With all that being said, we are a long way away from ‘normal life’. We need to learn to live with the virus and have basic vaccination for it, like an immune jab.
Until then, everyone stay safe, do your tests, and have your vaccines!
