Quarantine Diary 2.1
(About Food)
9 September 2020
Day 2 began with a bird’s eye view of “Rush Hour” in Adelaide’s Hindmarsh Square.
This timelapse video starts about 6.30am and spans about three hours.
It changes colour beautifully when the sun rises about the Adelaide Hills (just before the one minute mark). Then the cars and buses start rolling in:
Did you spot the single frame visitor!?
Today I received the first DAILY phone call - essentially checking on physical and mental health.
I was asked if I was coughing, had a fever, losing taste, etc. - no, no, no.
And they also made sure I was mentally okay with the solitary confinement.
And each day little one-pagers like these seem to be left at the door.
I totally cracked that maze - and in less than an hour!
So, food…
Three meals a day are included in the compulsory $3000 quarantine fee.
You can express dietary preferences, but it’s a set menu (see below for my first two daily menus).
The food has been pretty good, but it’s certainly not silver service.
Everything is delivered in brown paper bags (which appeals to by Numberphile stylings) and the main course is usually in a recyclable container.
Disposable cutlery, etc, is provided.
You can request more traditional crockery and cutlery (which I did) but must keep the one set throughout for two weeks, washing it yourself in bathroom sink with sachets of detergent.
The bag of food is left at your door and the delivery person knocks and scampers before you get there.
It certainly enhances that feeling of being treated like a highly-infectious pariah - which I guess is the point of this whole exercise.
Here’s pictorial “dinner unbagging” of tonight’s Green Thai Chicken Curry, starting with my peep hole out to the corridor!
It’s also possible to order food from the outside world (eg: Uber Eats), which is left at reception and dropped to the room by staff.
You must pay for this yourself - and cannot cancel the hotel food to reduce the $3000.
You can also order groceries (I have done so) but the room has no cooking facilities and only a small-ish bar fridge.
It’s permitted to source your own microwave (if it is electrically tested by the hotel first) - but nothing else.
Here are the first two set menus from my stay:
Rubbish is collected once a day, to be left outside the door in a tied bag at 3pm.
You aren’t supposed to leave rubbish outside at other times, but my glimpses down the corridor indicate this rule is more honoured in the breach than the observance.
No-one can enter the room, so cleaning and changing linen, etc, will be done by me... I‘ll write about that when the time comes.
Finally, despite the circumstances, I must say all my dealings with the staff thus far have been great.
For example, I requested an extension cord so I could power the cameras on the balcony, and the tech guy went beyond the call or duty to find what I needed.
So far so good.