My Last Week in The South of France

Full. Panic. Mode.

Everything went full force during my last week in France. Nothing made sense and everyone was hysterical because of it. Let me backtrack a bit for everyone to get a bit of perspective.

February 22-March 2:

When I left for Spain, Morocco, and Portugal on February 22, I had no real concern about COVID-19. At this point, there was no widespread panic because case numbers were relatively low. The only bump in the road that we had was when we landed in Morocco and had to fill out a form about COVID-19.

Little did I know that this was only the beginning of the ending of my study abroad experience.

March 3:

Just a day after we all reconvened and shared our favorite Spring Break memories, my friend got an email from her school, Auburn. The email stated that all Spring Study Abroad Programs are cancelled so all students abroad were recommended to make plans to come home. We were all shocked and reluctant at this news because we did not realized it had escalated this much. However we were not full blown panicking yet because she was the only one who got an email like this and we heard it was mainly bigger schools that were cancelling programs.

March 5:

Then another friend got an email.

Now we were all worried about receiving an email and having our semester abroad being cut short. He goes to University of Pittsburgh and, unlike my other friend, he was given a date that he had to be back by in order for him to get any credit. His notice was only given to him one week before he had to leave, which left a lot of loose ends regarding school.

This brings us to the weekend of March 7th. when he inevitably had to book a flight home. At this point everyone else was safe from the thought of returning home two months early. We were still in denial that anyone had to pack their stuff and leave.

March 12:

The day when President Donald Trump made the announcement that most travel from Schengen Area would be banned.

My goodness did people go bezerk. France is six hours ahead of EST so his speech aired roughly around 3 AM on Friday March 13. I was rudely awakened from my deep sleep at 3:30 AM by my housemate who screamed "WE MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO GO HOME!! WHAT IF WE CAN'T GO BACK HOME? SHOULD WE BOOK OUR TICKETS HOME?"

I was infuriated to say the least. First off I am no use to anyone, let alone myself, at 3:30 AM and especially when I was in my REM sleep. Secondly, I was not about to drop thousands of dollars on a ticket home when I could easily wait a few days for prices to deflate. Third, and most importantly, I actually understood what the President meant by 'travel ban'.

Everyone in my house went absolutely berserk because they fully believed that they were going to be denied access into the United States if they did not get a ticket home that day.

THIS WAS NOT THE CASE. If you were a US citizen or a permanent resident, this travel ban did not apply to you. People could not fully grasp this concept. This is exactly why prices of tickets skyrocketed within minutes of his speech. Many people in my program bought tickets home at 4 AM and paid an exorbitant amount of money to secure a seat on a crowded airplane. My mother and I had a long chat and ultimately decided that, in that very moment, it was not necessary for me to but a $2,000 ticket home. So, I waited.

March 14:

My friend and I decided to travel to Nice because we realized that we never got the chance to explore it, despite it being only 30 minutes away from us (keep in mind this was before social distancing was enacted). We honestly thought it could be a 'nice' (see what I did there haha) day trip later on in the semester because it was so close and convenient for us to travel to. All in all, we had an amazing adventure filled day in Nice.

However later that night, President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement that all non-essential businesses must close at midnight. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever expect an announcement like this to actually be enacted. We honestly did not believe that our old little town could actually follow through because of how it would affect the local businesses.

I was being told two very different things this night:

1. You need to come home NOW because COVID-19 is getting very serious and we don't want you to get stuck in France.

2. You should NOT travel at this time because airports are crowded and contraction of COVID-19 increases if you are in densely populated areas.

March 16:

President Macron said that there were very limited reasons why you could leave the house.

There are only a five options for being outdoors:

1. Professional reasons – in which case you will need a separate attestation from your employer. 

2. Purchasing essential item, such groceries or medicine

3. Medical purposes, such as going to the hospital

4. Emergency support for family members or childcare

5. Individual exercise, such as walking or jogging by yourself in your neighborhood, or to walk your dog.

Any time that I wanted to leave the house, I had to have a letter stating why I was out of my house. A separate letter for each activity and a separate letter for each day. Who could have predicted this?!

It was as if I had been transported into a post-apocolyptic world. The streets were empty, the air was silent, and the people were nonexistent.

This was when my mom and I ultimately decided that it was time to finally book a flight home. I put off booking my flight for so long partially because of the cost and risk, but mainly because I simply did not want to admit to myself that my time abroad was coming to an end. March 20th marked the day in which I would have to go back to Plymouth, Massachusetts.

This was also the day that all schools in France could no longer conduct in-person classes. SKEMA had announced that all students would have March 16-March 20 off and classes would resume the following week. We were actually just finishing up our second round of midterms, which made it a very difficult and tricky situation for the school. Every student, teacher, and director had burning questions that were could not be answered simply because of the uncharted territory we were in.

March 19 (morning):

My friend and I were saying our last goodbyes to our two and a half month home when all of the sudden we were stopped by these intimidating men. I didn't really think much of it because I had my handwritten letter in my pocket and we saw others being stopped throughout Antibes. However, the policeman started spewing French in my ear and I just stood there feeling his warm breath on my face. Finally he realized that I didn't speak French very well and told me that the letter I gave him was for March 16th and not for March 19th. He told me that I needed to return home immediately or there would be repercussions. Furthermore he said that if this were to happen again, I might not be as lucky and may get fined 100 Euros.

What a way to start the day! I love being interrogated by the French police at 10 AM!

March 19 (night):

My friend and I actually left for the airport at 10 PM on March 19th out of fear that our flights were going to be cancelled and we would have to wait a long line to rebook. We did not want to risk the chance of not getting on a plane that day so we packed up all of our things and headed to the airport 12 hours before our actual flights.

The Nice airport had a very eerie vibe because there was almost no one there and half of the lights were off due to a terminal being shut down.

We both looked at each other and our eyes said it all "Time to buckle in for 12 hours of no sleep and then 11 hours of travel immediately after."

There were a few times where we switched off between the napper and the watch dog, but the quality of sleep was not amazing on the airport benches.

March 20:

Finally after what seemed like a whole year, it was time to get our travelling started. There was no issue with TSA, but we did notice that there was enhanced security measures when it came to managing the crowd flow. There were no tape marks or certain spacial distances being enacted in the airports at this time, but people definitely were on edge if you got to close to them.

On the plane the flight attendants gave each passenger a basic form to fill out so that if someone were to be infected on our flight, they would have a way of contacting each passenger to monitor their symptoms.

When I landed at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, they gave us another form that was an updated version of the form that we had filled out on the plane. Once we were done filling out the form, we were directed to a table where CDC personnel stood behind a table to ask a few questions.

The basic questions were:

1. Have you had a fever recently?

2. Do you have any symptoms like a dry cough?

3. Have you been in contact with anyone who has a confirmed case of COVID-19?

My airline was Air France so they already knew that everyone from my flight was traveling from Europe, where some Level 3 countries loomed.

I was expecting a lot worse to be completely honest. I would say the only questionable thing I saw was pen sharing because there were limited amounts to fill the forms out with. I fortunately had my own so I did not need to share anyones' germs.

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It was not how I envisioned my study abroad experience ending, but it sure will go down in the books as one of the craziest experiences of my life. Being in Europe throughout this entire panic gave me an unique perspective that most students cannot say they have gone through. Do I wish I had more time in Europe to travel? Of course. Am I disappointed that it halted so abruptly? Absolutely. Despite all of this, I am so grateful for all of the unforgettable memories that I was able to create with the new friends I made. Over the course of a short two months I was able to travel to 16 cities, 7 countries, and 2 continents. It honestly has been such a dream to have been able to travel, learn, and live in Europe as a 21 year old Junior in college. There are so many more countries to visit on my bucket list, so get ready for me Europe because I’ll be back!