Getting locked up in Public Storage
and other adventures in international travel
Love notes from Siel is a weekly newsletter from Siel, who’s currently on a Remote Year trip around the world. If you love it, subscribe for free.
Dear friend —
On a hot Thursday afternoon, I drove to a deserted parking lot at the appointed hour. At the center of this lot: a section set apart by orange warning cones. At the center of this section: a makeshift tent sagging in the heat. At the center of this tent: a lone man slumped in a chair.
I’d arrived at CVS’s free COVID testing center.
The setting was depressing, but efficient: I was the only testee in sight. The man shuffled over to my car window, had me swab my nostrils with a Q-tip, then instructed me to create a CVS account online. The results would be sent to me within a couple days — well in time for my flight to Lima at 6 am Sunday morning.
As of October, Peru requires proof of a negative COVID test from within the last 72 hours to enter. On the face of it, this sounds like a simple and clear rule — except it’s not. Is that 72 hours from taking the test, or receiving the results? The discussion on my travel group’s Slack channel suggested the latter. But then again, who really knew? To be on the safe side, I showed up at CVS within 72 hours of my flight.
Having accomplished that, I got weirdly lackadaisical for someone who needed to move out of San Diego, get a bunch of stuff done in L.A., deliver my car to a new temporary owner, then fly out of the country to traipse around the world for a year. I basically did nothing until Saturday morning, when I sprang out of bed at 6 am in a panic. I had to pack!
Everything I needed for the next twelve months had to fit in a small backpack, carry-on, and check-in bag. This required getting rid of a bunch of stuff last minute. “Random question: What size shoes do you wear?” I texted my neighbor Gloria, and when she texted back she wore my size, I took over a half dozen pair of shoes, plus some CBD and THC gummies. Clothes I couldn’t take with me became dust cloths and rags used to tidy up my Airbnb a bit. I chugged leftover soy milk, ate leftover sorbet for breakfast.
Taking a break, I checked Slack again to see a new message: “They wouldn’t let me on my flight,” one guy had written. Oh no! He’d gotten his test taken on Wednesday, and American Airlines was counting the hours from the date the test was taken, not received — and counting until the departure time from the second flight — the final leg of the travel connection to Lima — not the originating flight!
A flurry of worried comments followed his. Another guy who was also flying American said he’d run into the same problem — but that for some reason they’d let him on his flight, with the warning that he might be required to take another test once he landed in Lima. Reading all this, I congratulated myself on my foresight to take my test within that 72-hour window — until I remembered I still hadn’t received the results.
“Why is the U.S. so slow?” I texted my sister.
“Bc we are messed up as a society and purposely undereducate the masses so they vote for laws that enrich the rich,” she wrote back.
Relax, I told myself. CVS said one to two days — and it hasn’t been 48 hours quite yet. I threw my stuff into the car and was off! I whizzed out of San Diego and, making only a brief stop for gas and a Snickers bar, got to Public Storage in Burbank, and zipped in kind of illegally after another car that had already put in the gate code to open it. Whee!!!
Did you know there are actually two different Public Storages on San Fernando Blvd.? It was only after the gate closed that realized I was at the wrong one. I couldn’t get back out because I didn’t have the code for this facility!
I started wandering aimlessly until an employee burst out a door, eyeing me suspiciously. “Can I help you with something?”
“I can’t get out the gate!”
“Do you have the code?”
“No! But I have one for the other Public Storage!
“Oh,” he laughed. “This actually happens a lot.”
He buzzed me out. I sped to the correct Public Storage, found my unit, heaved in a few things. Then I checked email again: No COVID test results.
Driving to Santa Monica, I started freaking out. Perhaps I shouldn’t have trusted a testing center that looked like an abandoned homeless encampment? Once I got to my friend Nitika’s, I barely said hi to her before frantically googling for COVID testing options. Where could I get a rapid COVID PCR test on the immediate on a Saturday afternoon?
Amazingly, businesses have sprung up all over the place to meet this last-minute need. For $199, I was able to book an instant appointment two miles away. I’d been hoping Nitika and I would have time to do something fun on my last day in the U.S. — like get lunch, since I was starving at this point — but instead we drove to the makeshift testing center at Shore Hotel. The email instructions said “DO NOT ENTER THE HOTEL LOBBY!” so instead we went down a commercial alleyway then followed signs into the underground garage, where a guy waved us to a designated parking spot.
This testing center was hopping! People were zipping in, zipping out. Max, an upbeat young guy in a mask and a “Only you can stop the spread of COVID” Smokey the Bear T-shirt, came over. He scanned the bar code from my email and instructed me to do the Q-tip thing again. Results would be sent via text and email within 45 minutes, he said, and gave me a business card with a number to call if they weren’t for some reason — plus a QR code to a survey to rate the service I’d received.
“It’s done!” Nitika said triumphantly as we drove out the garage.
“Not really!” I said. “Not until I have the results!” I was still in freakout mode. I checked my email again. Still nothing from CVS.
I dropped Nitika off, said goodbye. Then I joined the slow crawl of traffic down to the LAX area, where Diane, my car-sitter of sorts, was waiting for me, having returned her rental to Avis.
Just as I turned onto Airport Blvd., my phone dinged: My rapid test had come back! It was negative!
What I’ve learned from this experience is this: Services for which you pay $199 get you what you want a lot faster than than the services you get for free.
I picked up Diane. She dropped me and my bags off at Aloft hotel then left with my car — bye bye car! See you in Oct. 2022!
It was 5 pm. I checked in, ordered a burger and fries, then after eating it, tried to get some rest. Eventually, I fell asleep — until my alarm went off at 2 am and I sprang out of bed! By 2:35, I was in the airport shuttle, by 2:45 in the American Airlines terminal — to find out the check-in counters didn’t open until 3:30 a.m. Well then why tell passengers to arrive 3 hours early for international flights?
Other would-be international travelers had positioned themselves around the periphery of the terminal in various postures of exhaustion. I managed to find a seat between two older men, one of whom, as soon as I sat down, started watching a movie on his phone, no headphones. In it, a woman whimpered — running away from danger, perhaps, or getting fucked.
The counters opened. I checked my bag, made it through the long security line, got to my gate. I started writing this love note.
Five minutes before boarding, I got a text. CVS had my COVID results. It was negative.
Love,
Siel
Three links you might love — female desire edition
Is desire inborn — or a mutable, shapeable thing? Feminist writers explore whether we’re born desiring who and what we want — or if “the premise of ‘preference’ is used to cover for an astonishing array of injustices and abuses.”
How did the desire for emotional connection become uncool? “The word ‘demisexual’ refers to those attracted only to people with whom they share an emotional connection. Before the sexual revolution, of course, many people thought that most women were like this. Now an aversion to casual sex has become a bona fide sexual orientation.”
Why women pretend they don’t desire more from their men. “Performing non-dependence is not about women at all, but rather about reading him carefully enough to know exactly what kind of un-needy-ness he – ironically – needs.”
Hey Siel, have a wonderful adventure! I can't wait to read about it!