It’s Been A Rough Year. I Just Want Some Glühwein.
It’s been one year since the World Health Organization declared the spread of Covid-19 a global pandemic. Since then it’s been months and months of lockdowns, curfews, masks, and hand sanitizer. It’s hard to think of a time when I didn’t have a mask station at the front door.
There have been plenty of difficulties throughout the year beyond just the omnipresent threat of infection by the coronavirus. Job loss, poor physical and mental health, confusion, and numerous other ailments have plagued just about everyone during this time, myself included.
Out of everything that has been taken from me, the thing that I miss more than anything is travelling.
I was cursed with itchy feet since my first transatlantic flight to the United Arab Emirates. The sweltering desert heat my family endured for three years was well worth it when I knew that I could find some respite just a quick flight away.
I had always dreamed of seeing the world when I was a kid, envious of my uncle who had been all around the globe thanks to his time in the military. I dreamed of watching sunsets sitting in the dunes of a desert; of zooming around cities in Southeast Asia in shoddy rickshaws. I have been lucky enough to experience this and more thanks to my expat lifestyle.
In fact I’m writing this article from my latest stop, here in Hungary. Formerly part of one of the last great world empires, I am in prime position to hop on a quick train or plane ride to almost anywhere in Europe or Western Asia. Just about the perfect place for someone who loves the idea of burning through passport pages.
And it’s all for naught. The closest I get to travelling these days is the 10-minute tram ride downtown to get some groceries.
Sure, millions of people are getting vaccinated every single day around the world. The Herculean effort put forth by governments and corporations worldwide has put the end of the pandemic in our grasps, but it still feels like a distant dream.
And that almost makes the waiting even worse. It’s like when you went to Disney as a kid. You would start seeing the billboards saying pure happiness was only a few miles away. Just hold out a bit longer and you’ll be riding high above Tomorrowland, the world laid out beneath you as you ascended into childhood bliss.
It all feels a bit wistful, doesn’t it? A nostalgic yearning for a time that seems long forgotten.
But that’s what we’re left to grapple with for now. Whether it’s just having some friends over for an afternoon barbecue or drinking lassis on a rooftop in Kathmandu, we just want our normal back. We want those reminders of our former lives back again.
For me, it’s the feeling of a cup of glühwein warming my hands as I walk around a Bavarian Christmas market. Oddly specific, I know, but that’s what does it for me.
It brings back the memories of bustling crowds and laughter cutting through the crisp winter air. It reminds me of my daughter’s excitement seeing her first German Santa Claus as she munched on traditional Christmas cookies. It reminds me of the warmth of the food and the people as I sat down in the Hofbräuhaus and regaled the locals with my horribly stilted attempts at German.
Sure, I had a few cups of mulled wine in Budapest this past winter, but it doesn’t really quite hit the same way I guess. Memories only rekindled, not formed.
That’s really what we have been left with these days. Memories that make us happy and a bit sad at the same time. Even new experiences are weighed down by the times we live in right now.
There will come a time soon enough when we are able to return to the embrace of the world. We will sit in each other’s company and breathe in the freedom we took for granted so easily before. We’ll get to our normal lives with our normal stresses.
Me, I think I’ll be trying to find that perfect cup of glühwein that seems to make the itchiness in my feet subside.
