I'm going to France this week. Maybe.

I'm getting the paperwork together anyway. And there's a lot of it. One thing's for sure - what I need today will change tomorrow.

Marlene Dietrich’s apartment in The Lancaster, Paris. photo: tonyamos.com

I say I’m going to France on Saturday, but that might be the most optimistic phrase I’ve ever uttered.

These days, the only thing travellers can be certain of is uncertainty.

I have my ticket, to Cannes first, then on to Paris by train. Back in Australia before Christmas.

I know you’re smiling. Is it even going to happen? Right now, with the new Omicron variant raising its spiky little head in Africa, Hong Kong, Belgium, Israel and now Australia, there’s a bit of a wobble in my confidence that all will be well.

As one wag tweeted, this is not the way I wanted to learn the Greek alphabet.

Right now, I’m in a holding pattern. I’m waiting to hear what governments will do in response. Will the Australian government close the international borders hard? Or reinstate hotel quarantine for all returned travellers? What about France’s declared fifth wave? Is there an appetite for more lock downs over there?

There’s a backlog of stranded Aussies who have their hopes and dreams pinned on coming home this Christmas. It’s not entirely out of the question that the borders may shut tight again or that caps on passengers flying into the country will be reintroduced.

I think we had about three weeks, didn’t we, when international travel seemed possible again? It was lovely.

The 44 percent of Australians who are unwilling to travel overseas right now say what worries them most is being trapped away from home. I think that percentage may have gone through the roof this weekend.

Not all international travellers are holidaymakers. I’m going for business. Other Australians just want to see their families, or simply come home.

However, Omicron has to be taken seriously.

My return later in December is already complicated by the new quarantine rules. The NSW, ACT and Victorian governments have introduced 72 hour home isolation for all international arrivals, regardless of vaccination status or country of departure. Passengers found out mid-flight.

This morning the CMO Paul Kelly seemed to suggest that the government is holding the line on reopening the country. Good-o. This might change by the end of the day. And change again by the time I’m on my way to the airport.

I pity travel agents.

Travel is risk now. Not the risk of an exhilarating climb to Tiger’s Nest in Bhutan or zip-lining through the Amazon jungle, but the risk of being trapped in a hotel room for a claustrophobic 14 days of quarantine.

For the meantime, I’ve decided to charge ahead with my plans.

And these days, boy do you have to plan.

To enter France, if you’re from a non-EU country such as Australia, the USA or even Britain, the amount of paperwork is fiddly but I have to say not excessive. France is not so far demanding a PCR test on departure from your point of origin if you’re double vaccinated and from “green” countries, which includes Australia. No PCR on arrival, either. My friends at Atout France confirmed on Friday: As of today, France does not require a PCR test to do in Sydney before your trip.

But does my transit airport, Dubai, demand it? I’ve spent the good part of a week trying to work out if the airline, Emirates, will turn me away at the airport if I don’t present a negative PCR test when I check in for my flight. Information online, even from reliable sources, has been conflicting, depending on which date the article I read was written. On Friday, I was assured by the airline it wasn’t necessary.

But what a difference a day or two makes. Yesterday morning I received a text from Emirates warning me a negative PCR test within 48 hours of departure was now essential. Because the PCR test needs a QR code, I can’t do it at a government-run, free testing centre. I can book online for a private lab in Potts Point and it will cost me $150. Or, I can get it done at the airport with a 90-minute turnaround, for $79.

So I’m right to go?

Wait. I love them to death, but the French invented bureaucracy. And that bureaucracy likes nothing more than to play Gotcha.

When we moved to France in the early 1990s, we needed a long stay visa, or carte de sejour. My husband, being a photographer, got his visa immediately, but I was a journalist, so I needed a press card. This was obtained by making an appointment with a humourless woman in a small room in a building near the Eiffel Tower.

She explained I couldn’t get a press card without a visa. A subsequent appointment with a sinister man in the Interior Ministry, who asked me intrusive questions such as how many people slept in my bed, left me without either press card or visa. I needed the press card before I could the visa but I needed the visa before I could get a press card.

Gotcha.

That meant every month for two years I had to report to the Prefecture of Police on Quai des Orfevres with a dossier of documents. My French was poor and the official always seemed to be asking for a document I didn’t have. It was ritual humiliation and I knew they enjoyed it.

But I learnt something. Not only do you need every document asked for. You need documents they haven’t asked for. Like an official French translation of your grandmother’s birth certificate. Or proof of the seventh last address you lived at.

The Gotcha document for travel to France right now is a ‘sworn undertaking to comply with rules for entry in Metropolitan French Territory (from Green List countries.)’

It’s a statement that you have no knowledge of being in contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 during the last fourteen days prior to departure. It can be found HERE on the France Diplomacy website, which links to the Ministry of the Interior. (Yes, them again.) It’s not exactly obvious on the website.

I’ve printed it out, signed it, and made two copies. That goes in a folder with my Australian vaccination certificate, my ticket, accommodation, travel insurance policy (free with Emirates tickets bought before November 30) and passport. The advice is to print everything in case your phone runs out of juice or you have mobile data issues. I’ve also photographed everything as a backup.

By the way, the QR code on the Australian Government International COVID-19 vaccination certificate will not scan in France (or anywhere in Europe, from reports) so it has to be converted to a French QR code on arrival. Mais oui. The information regarding this has changed twice a week, but Atout France confirmed that I will need to make an appointment at an approved local pharmacy when I arrive in Cannes and they will convert it for me, for a fee of around 45 euros.

With hundreds of people arriving in Cannes on the same day for a conference, I wonder how that will go?

Stay tuned.

For now, I’m still packing my bags.

There is a small chance I could get stuck in Europe for winter or spend Christmas and New Year alone in a tiny hotel room with a view of a carpark. Even though I’m double-vaccinated and have had a booster.

As the situation is constantly in flux, I might have to leave the country unsure of what will happen when I get back. If I get back. Maybe it’s too much of a risk. I don’t even know the odds.

But I know the odds of the French asking me for a document I don’t have. I’m taking my birth certificate.

Would you stay or would you go? Join the conversation in the comments section.

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Written on Gadigal country.