Coronavirus.   It’s been in the news for weeks now.   Schools being closed.   Events being cancelled.   Flight restrictions coming into place.

All the while I remained optimistic that, while I knew this wouldn’t all blow over, that it wouldn’t affect me and my trip.

Well, optimism died today…

It started a few days ago when Lex announced on his poker stream that he had been in discussions for a few days with people about the future of next month’s poker community meetup – Lex Live 3.   You could almost tell that as much as he didn’t want to do it, that the way things were going, the event would inevitably have to be cancelled.

I mean, things were already getting cancelled left, right and center – conventions, classes, sporting events…

And so, on today’s stream, as much as he didn’t want to, he announced that the event had been cancelled.

Now, that wasn’t the end of the world for me.   All it did was alter my plans a little.   I was still flying into London, but now instead of flying to Kosovo 10 days later, I’d just change my flight so I’d leave immediately instead giving me 10 extra days at the end of my trip.

I had taken adversity and run with it.   I had solved the problem, rather easily I might add.

Until tonight.

Tonight the Canadian health minister announced that anyone coming back from a trip would need to be in a 14 day self quarantine.   So, what does that mean for me?   Well, it means that while I can still go on my trip, I have to be prepared to not work for 2 more weeks after I come back and that would cost me a ton of money just to sit around the house for 2 weeks.

And I wouldn’t even be sitting around the house because I’d be moving at the end of the month and staying in a local AirBnB for a few weeks when I came back home while I looked for a new place to live.

And can you even self quarantine in an AirBnB?

Argh!!!!

So much was going through my head tonight.   Do I cancel?   How do I cancel?   Do I just say “screw it, I’m not gonna let this take me down”?

In the end, I decided to postpone Balkan Trip 2020 until the fall.

Postponed.   The trip I was originally going to do in the fall of 2018 and then the spring of 2019 has now been postponed yet again.

Luckily my landlord hadn’t rented out my place yet so I can stay at my home until then and my airline had already sent me an email earlier in the week allowing for cancellations to be turned into future trip credits so, for the most part, everything is reset back to what it was except for maybe a couple hundred dollars.

So, let’s reset the timer…

Balkan Trip 2020… just six eensy teeny tiny months away…

Edit:   Well, 6 months turned into 3 years… bring on BeNe Trip 2023 and Balkan Trip 2023!