Quarantine - Days 4-8

 I haven't worn shoes for eight days now. Or socks. As it turns out, you don't need shoes when you can't go anywhere. 

The government continues to monitor our location, with the app constantly running on the phone (and draining my battery at least once a day) and sending vaguely threatening messages to get us to submit our reports three times a day.

I take pleasure in logging unkempt selfies. Of course I'll comply, but I'll give you some unattractive photos! (Fist shake.) This is one of my more attractive photos, btw. 

They also call each of us at least once a day asking the same questions. What's our immigration pass number. What's our immigration pass. Where are we staying. What room. Who are we staying with. Do we know we can't leave our hotel room. It feels like they're trying to trick us into saying something wrong. Marcus tends to get calls twice a day since the location on his phone is a little wonky and shows his location as being a few blocks away. 

The other thing that comes three times a day? Food. We get woken up by the doorbell every day announcing the arrival of breakfast on the chair outside our door. Out in the hallway there's a chair sitting outside each door that serves as the drop-off location for our meals three times a day. The sound of the doorbell is one we both anticipate and disdain. More food. More and more food. Usually a stir fry of some variety. And while the food is still mostly decent, we're starting to tire of greasy noodles, strange fish, and grisly chicken. We did order room service on Saturday--a bit of a weekend luxury. 

The bombolone was a force to be reckoned with! Though I couldn't look at it without thinking, "Feed me, Seymour."

We also received lovely care packages from fellow company expats--Marcus's coworkers and spouses that I connected with before we left Seattle. I was nearly in tears of gratitude for the gesture. It's far and away the nicest gesture from anyone in the company.

Bottles of wine, treats from both the US and Australia, fruit, and a hard drive loaded with movies. Legends. 

Other than eating too much (and not moving enough) the presidential election has commandeered much of our time and attention. We flipped through multiple channels constantly to see how the different media outlets were portraying results and noteworthy news. CNN and Fox were our mainstays. It still amazes me at how partisan our media is. My expectations of Fox are always low, but I was impressed to see them call Arizona first (rightly or wrongly) and to see that much of their coverage was above board and less inflammatory than expected. CNN was disappointingly inflammatory in ways they didn't need to be. I have higher expectations for those of my own leaning. 

Each morning we'd wake up and, like our friends and family back in the states, see which way the votes were swinging. Not loving this race between two white men in their 70's, but deeply rooting for Biden. Minnesota was a relief. Then Michigan and Wisconsin. It was a massive relief to turn on the news yesterday morning to see that Biden had won, and to see his speech, which we deemed to be not bad, and certainly light years beyond what we've had for the last four years. 

Despite the win, there's still nearly half of the country that voted for Trump. People who believe in his style of governing, with hate, misinformation, and bullying. In the most simple and fundamental terms, he's a bad person. He's mean and selfish and dangerous. He spread lies about the election process himself when it didn't go the way he wanted it to. His silence right now is likely a time of strategy for how else they can fight his loss. It scares me that so many people believe him. Believe in him. While he spreads doubt and distrust using information that should be distrusted. 

I'm glad Biden won. And I'm ok with being outside the US right now. Even in a country where the government tracks my every move (at least for now).