Last month, as families embarked on trips abroad for the first time in years, the return back home proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. The surging Omicron variant and the terrible weather conditions in the U.S. were no help.

Angelia Thomas (12) and Pooneh Zehtefard (12) are just two of the many people who experienced traveling issues coming back from their winter vacations. Forbes reported that the U.S. experienced 2,616 flight cancellations just on Jan. 1, only two days before students returned from winter break. This ended up being a peak in cancellations that unfortunately had been rising for a while due to poor weather conditions and staff shortages caused by the omicron variant. Nearly 5,000 flights were canceled worldwide on that day, without including the cancellations or delays that occurred throughout the entire two-week-long break.

During winter break, Thomas traveled to Canada to visit her grandparents, which was something she was unable to do for more than two years because of COVID-19. She and her family left for Canada on Dec. 18 and planned to return to San Diego on Jan. 2. During this visit, Thomas said that she began to see just how bad COVID-19 could be.

“When we first got there COVID was bad, but it got a lot worse after,” Thomas said. “Lockdown was much stricter there. [We were] really just stuck inside. It showed me just how different restrictions in Canada are, and how difficult it is for people to actually live like that all the time, especially in the cold weather and snow.”

Thomas characterized the entire experience as stressful and scary. This only got worse as her family’s return trip to San Diego went awry. Her flight, like many others, was canceled because of COVID-19 restrictions and snowfall. The period was an incredibly stressful one for Thomas and her family.

“Everything was up in the air,” Thomas said. “We did not plan on staying overnight in a random place in Calgary. We had no idea our flights were going to get canceled twice and then delayed and then that we were going to miss our next flight all because of COVID, [the snow, and cold weather].”

In addition to the stress that this caused, Thomas also had to worry about Westview’s quarter 2 finals that were steadily approaching.

“[Finals] definitely added to my stress levels during this time,” Thomas said. “It was scary because I had no idea when I would be able to come back.”

Luckily, Thomas and her family were able to return on Jan. 4, causing her to miss just two days of school. Despite the seemingly short duration of missed classes, it was still a difficult obstacle for Thomas to overcome especially with finals and make-up work.

“It’s like crunch-time,” Thomas said a few days after returning to San Diego on Jan. 6. “I have to do make-up labs and make-up work, which prevents me from actually studying for my finals. I also still have projects and work that is being assigned on top of the work I have to make up.”

While Thomas was able to return relatively quickly after her delay, Zehtabfard was not as lucky. Following her family’s winter-break trip to France, Zehtabfard and her family’s plan was to return to San Diego through a connecting flight in Italy on Jan. 1. Unfortunately, both Zehtabfard and her parents tested positive for COVID-19 at the airport in Italy and were forced to quarantine.

They had to book three separate hotel rooms to quarantine in as they knew no one in Italy. They were transported to the hotel room in an ambulance to reduce exposure opportunities and effectively locked in their hotel rooms.

To make matters worse, Zehtabfard had also lost her phone in France, which meant that she could barely contact her friends back in America.

“I only had my really bad and old computer and a 29 euro burner phone that I bought at some gift shop,” Zehtabfard said. “It was really difficult [to communicate with others] because I couldn’t text or call normally.”

Stuck alone in a small hotel room without her phone and across from a relatively large ostrich farm, Zehtabfard said that she would mainly describe the experience as a chaotic one.

“It was [also] incredibly scary,” Zehtabfard said. “I was also afraid for my parents’ health because they’re both high-risk. It was definitely terrifying and overwhelming.”

Zehtabfard also said that the quarantine they were forced into was strict. They were not allowed to leave the room, have contact with others in the hallways, or even open their doors except to receive their meals.

“My entire family was extremely frustrated during this time,” Zehtabfard said. “It was frustrating not being able to leave or do anything. We just had to sit there and do nothing.”

As troubling as it was to communicate with others in America given her resources and the time difference, Zehtabfard also experienced complications when trying to communicate with the officials in Italy who helped her and her family during the quarantine to obtain tests and other resources.

“There were times where I would get calls from people who didn’t speak English and I couldn’t understand them at all,” Zehtabfard said. “It was a lot of back and forth with them trying to explain something in Italian and me still not understanding. It was very hard to communicate with the people who worked there, especially because they had odd working hours, which meant it was difficult to just get in contact with them.”

Zehtabfard also had issues with completing school work during this time.

“It was hard academically because I had no idea how I was supposed to accomplish anything,” Zehtabfard said. “I didn’t have any paper so I couldn’t do anything. It was also mentally challenging because I didn’t know when I could escape. On top of being alone in a room doing nothing all day, I couldn’t try to catch up on any of the school work I was missing.”

Zehtabfard was forced to order paper at the hotel just so she could finish her math homework and often had to stay up to 2 a.m. just trying to help her peers in group projects that she was missing. Zehtabfard said that thankfully, her teachers were very understanding of her situation, offered extensions, and even excused assignments.

“[They were very accommodating] which was really nice and very helpful,” Zentabfard said. “[Their help and understanding] gave me a sense of stability amongst all of the uncertainty that was going on around the time because I could depend on having a bit of leeway so that I wouldn’t have to be too stressed out about school.”

In the end, Zehtabfard and her family were able to come home to San Diego, 12 days after they originally planned to. She returned to school on Jan. 13 and began to take finals right away.

“I had to take an [APEL] final in first period the day after I returned,” Zehtabfard said. “It was a little mentally draining and pretty stressful. It felt bad to take it but I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

Finally finished with all her finals, Zehtabfard said that she is glad that her Italy quarantine experience is over and that she learned a lot, both about how COVID-19 was impacting others around the world and about herself.

“I definitely realized how many things I take for granted,” Zehtabfard said. “[This experience] opened my eyes. In the end, I’ve learned that sometimes things are inevitable and instead of just being really upset with how things are going, I could take a step back and understand that things are inevitable but I just need to continue to move forward.”

After their stressful travel experiences, both Thomas and Zehtabfard said that they have a new outlook on the pandemic and traveling in general. They both urge others to continue to be cautious and proactive.

“One important thing is to research where you are going and look at the COVID-19 infection trajectory there,” Zehtabfard said. “For me, COVID-19 in France wasn’t that bad when I was there, but in Italy it was. Even having a connecting flight in Italy posed a significant risk for exposure and is something that we should have considered more. It’s something that I would urge others to be more cautious of.”