Since the age of 18, when I left San Francisco as a merchant marine and sailed to Asia, I have traveled extensively through the world. It was not always easy. 

The virus put a dent in that early in 2020, and I am just recovering from those restrictions. Right now, my wife and I are at a beautiful resort in Egypt on the Red Sea. We are only 90 minutes away from Tel Aviv, where we live, if there was a direct flight, but there is not one. So we had to travel from Tel Aviv to Cairo, which is about 75 minutes, spend an hour and a half transfer to a 60-minute flight to Hurghada, which is where we are now. Sounds easy unless you have become a worry wart like me. I think about every step along the way and what could go wrong. 

For us to get to the resort on the Red Sea, there were 19 steps:

1. Get an e-visa to enter Egypt
2. Get an online exit permit to leave Israel
3. Limo pickup. (Would it be there)
4. Entrance check to get into the airport (easy for us because we had fast-track)
5. Security check( easy because we had fast-track)
6. Flight counter check-in. (Some issues because we had vaccination certificates no PCR tests as they were not required) 
7. Passport control (had a small problem because my wife had recently renewed her American passport)
8. Security Check
9. Check to board the flight
10. Check to enter the flight. (vaccination certificate again)
11. Vaccination certificate check Cairo
12. Passport control
13. Security check
14. Gate check for flight to Hurghada
15. Pick up luggage
16. Clear customs
17. Find driver
18. Check into hotel
19. Enter villa

I spent hours imagining what could go wrong at each stage. For instance, what if we could not clear passport control in Cairo in time to meet our connecting flight. In reality, we had just momentary hiccups, which were easily overcome. But that does not keep me from worrying about our return to Israel next week.

Returning we will have steps:

1. PCR test
2. Online entrance certificate for Israel
3. Limo to airport
4. Entrance to airport
5. Gate Checkin
6. Security
7. Passport Control
8. Enter plane
9. Border Control
10. Gate checking
11. Enter plane
12. Passport Control Israel
13. Pick up luggage
14. PCR test at the airport 
15. Limo home
16. Wait for SNS from the Israeli Ministry of health to confirm the negative PCR test to exit quarantine.