Returning to Germany

At the beginning of September, after more than two months on the road, we drove back to Germany for a week. The wedding of two very good friends of ours was coming up and we really wanted to be there! Therefore we went from Szczecin with a regional train first to Berlin to change to an ICE to Hamm. We were just crossing the border into Germany when two officers of the Federal Police got on board to check the passengers. The officer compared the data of the ID cards with a database online (at least we think so) and we directly experienced a "Welcome to Germany" moment: Because the border is in the middle of the pampas and therefore there was no network. For us it was really funny at that moment, because we were in the Baltic States as well as in Poland so often in small places or in nature without civilization, but we always had the best internet. Hardly in Germany it looked completely different... The officials only shrugged their shoulders, because the problem is probably more than known to them.

The Corona Test in Berlin

Although we were always careful on our journey, wear our masks, avoided unecessary contact with other people and disinfect our hands regularly, we were still aware that we can only protect ourselves against corona infection to a limited extent. At the beginning of September there was a regulation in Germany that allows returning travellers to be tested for the virus free of charge - regardless of whether they come from a risk area or not. In view of the upcoming wedding, we wanted to play it safe and had ourselves tested in the test center at Berlin's main train station directly after our arrival.

This was all really uncomplicated. A team of the German Federal Armed Forces had set up a tent in a cordoned-off area and after a really short waiting time we got there. We had to fill out a questionnaire about our means of transport, time of arrival, country of travel and of course we had to indicate where we were going to go after entering the country. Afterwards we went immediately to the test (we had a throat swab), which was really not painful! It scratched a little bit on the throat, but it was over so quickly that you can really get over it. We also got a QR code that we could scan with the German Corona app. The result should be sent to us via the app within 2-3 days. Alternatively, we could download a pdf with our smear numbers from the laboratory's website, where the result could be found. We strongly assumed that we had not been infected, as we did not show any symptoms. Nevertheless, we are of course concerned about what happens if the test is positive after all? However, only 1.5 days later we received our negative test results via the Corona App, which were later sent to us again by mail.

A small addendum to this:

A few weeks later...

...we were already in Greece, where we flew shortly after the wedding. In Hamm, where the wedding of our friends took place, another wedding with significantly more guests was celebrated at the same time. At this wedding there were probably also guests who were infected with the corona virus and the infection numbers in Hamm increased rapidly so that Hamm even became THE corona hotspot in Germany. The wedding of our friends had nothing to do with it and none of the guests at our wedding was infected with the virus.

That led to the fact that the public health department of course investigated clearly more and examined in particular also the travel returnees under the magnifying glass. We were therefore both called and asked about our entry, but were able to end the conversation quickly, since we were finally tested negative. We were still asked to send our negative test results to the health department by mail so that they could remove us from the list. Fortunately we had received the results by mail, so we could simply forward a photo of it.

Again a few days later...

...in the meantime we have travelled further through Greece and we were still doing well. I get a call from the health department. They just want to inform me quickly that our negative test results have arrived now and that we don't have to be in quarantine anymore. This was very amusing for us, because we never were in quarantine and because we already knew that we are tested negative, there was no reason to be quarantined. After all, I was sending her the negative test. But although we had to smile about it, one can only conclude that it is a completely new situation for the health authorities and that there are certainly easier activities than finding out the possible ways of infection of all travel returnees at the end of the summer vacations.