Ben Avis, son of el Restaurante Publisher Ed Avis, boards a flight in Austria last week.
By Ed Avis
If it wasn’t for the coronavirus, right about now I’d be writing you a first-hand report about some Mexican restaurants in Germany. Instead I’m sitting in my boring little office in Chicago pondering my adventure of the last few days.
I had planned to go to Europe last week because of a conference. That conference was canceled, but since my trip was already paid for, and I had a couple of other potential meetings, I decided to go anyway. Plus my son Ben had been working on a research project at a university in Slovakia for about the past six weeks, and I planned to spend a couple of days with him. I figured that in lieu of attending the conference, I could visit a couple of Mexican restaurants and write an article for el Restaurante about them.
But as the coronavirus situation worsened, I started reconsidering. Did it really make sense for me to fly into a continent that was suddenly becoming overwhelmed? Italy was already shut down, events were being canceled everywhere, scary images of crowded hospitals filled the news… In the end I bought a new return ticket for a week earlier than my previous return. I would still visit a Mexican restaurant or two and Ben, but then hurry home.
My flight landed last Wednesday afternoon in Vienna. I settled into my AirBnB in a charming old neighborhood near downtown Vienna and found a comfy coffee shop/bar where I could do some work on my laptop. I had a pizza for dinner at a restaurant about two blocks from my AirBnB, then crashed into bed about 9 p.m.
The first text woke me at 2 a.m. As the father of two young adult sons, I keep my iPhone on all night. I didn’t bother putting on my reading glasses, so with blurry, tired eyes I read a sentence or two of the text and figured out that it was by brother Pete suggesting something about a trip to Latvia. Odd suggestion, I thought, as I drifted back to sleep without reading the rest of the text.
A few minutes later came a brief flurry of texts. Again, I blearily looked at the screen. This time it was a group text that included Pete and our other brother, Wally. I was going to ignore the texts, assuming they could wait until morning, but the last one stopped me: “I bet Ed is still asleep.”
Hmm, if they’re saying that, maybe this is important. So I opened up the chain of texts and realized why they were trying to get my attention: Trump had just announced that he was blocking all flights from Europe starting Friday. Suddenly Pete’s previous text made sense – he was suggesting that Ben and I get to Riga, Latvia, where we have relatives, and stay with them until the situation improved.
I lay there for a minute before typing back: “Now I’m awake!”
I called my wife, Kathy (the editor of el Restaurante), in Chicago to discuss the situation. We quickly figured out that U.S. citizens were exempt from the travel ban, so maybe the situation wasn’t as urgent as it seemed. And I checked Expedia and learned that most flights leaving before Saturday were in $2,000 range. Ouch!
In the bleariness of the moment, we couldn’t decide what to do. The only thing we agreed on was that whatever we decided, Ben and I would do it together. We didn’t want to leave him in Slovakia alone under these conditions. I told Kathy I needed to think about it and hung up.
I love Europe, so the possibilities filled my mind: Instead of rushing back, I could hang out with Ben in Slovakia for a month….we could take Pete’s advice and travel to Latvia for a while…I could move in with friends in Germany and enjoy their hospitality…At least I could wait until my flight on Tuesday.
Then another thought emerged: Once most Americans left Europe, the travel ban would probably force the airlines to cancel any remaining flights to the United States. That meant waiting for my flight on Tuesday probably wasn’t really an option. On the other hand, a few months in Europe seemed interesting….
But slowly the grownup inside me took control. “Don’t be silly,” it said. “Get yourself and Ben back home, pronto!”
I logged back into Expedia and found a flight for that evening that flew from Vienna to Stockholm, then resumed on Friday morning to Chicago. The price: $1,250 each, so $2,500 for Ben and me. Despite the price tag, the grownup in me took full control and clicked the “purchase” button.
I was a little nervous about what Ben would say about having to leave Slovakia (he still had about two weeks on his term there), but I knew it was the right decision. Kathy and I had been trying to reach him ever since we first spoke, and he wasn’t answering his phone, so after I told Kathy about the tickets I drifted back to sleep.
The phone woke me again about 6:30 a.m. It was Ben – he had seen the nine missed calls from his parents and figured it was important. I explained the situation and he immediately agreed that it was the right call. He said his research was nearly complete anyway. He told me he had to pack and hung up.
I got up then and figured I had at least four or five hours before Ben would arrive in Vienna. I was somewhat concerned about his trip -- he had crossed the border between Slovakia and Austria three times before without a hitch, but would things be different in this crisis?
I wandered through downtown Vienna looking for a nice coffee shop for breakfast. Things were pretty quiet, but not desolate. I found a little restaurant that had wifi so I could check my email and keep up with the news. By noon I had packed up my stuff again – it was barely unpacked, of course! – and was in the Vienna main train station.
I’ll never forget the moment I saw Ben walking in. He was carrying a basketball in one hand and his giant green suitcase in the other. What a relief! He said there had been no trouble at the border, the bus just sailed right through.
We put our bags into a locker at the train station and wandered over to Goldener Lowe (Golden Lion), a traditional Austrian corner restaurant near the train station. After a couple of beers Ben and I invented a more interesting story about his departure from Slovakia – in our version we snuck out together in the midnight darkness, dodging the coronavirus border patrol with their angry dogs, barely making it to the Vienna airport for the last bedraggled flight out…
Well, if you ever want to hear the rest of that version, buy me a beer at a future restaurant show. The truth is we encountered minimal drama the rest of the way. In fact, the airports were eerily quiet. I assumed once we arrived in Chicago on Friday afternoon that we’d have to wait with a crush of frantic Americans trying to get back (and in fact, that is evidently what happened on Saturday and Sunday), but Ben and I sailed through customs with barely a glance. No one asked about our health or took our temperature or anything.
Kathy picked us up and the journey was over. Escape from Europe? Well, OK, it was more like a quick day trip. But an adventure nevertheless!
Ed Avis is the publisher of el Restaurante.