On Friday I'm flying home to Australia. When I arrive I'll be tested for COVID and put in 2 weeks of government-mandated (and government-funded) quarantine in a hotel room somewhere in Sydney.

What's about to happen is a book editor's dream: your author is locked in a hotel room with her revisions and cannot legally leave for a fortnight.

Lots of things about this experience are TBD:
What's a 14-hour flight like with an N95 on?
Where will I be placed?
Can my family drop off coffee and Tim Tams?
Will I be allowed to open the windows?
All relevant observations will be in this thread, follow along if you like.

Did you know that the TSA is now letting you bring large bottles of hand sanitizer on the plane? After we spent over a decade travelling with teeny tiny bottles of toiletries that were supposedly essential for our safety?

Plane books:
They Were Her Property, @sejr_historian
Belabored, @lyzl
You Never Forget Your First, @AlexisCoe
Such A Fun Age, @kileyreid
The Boyfriend Project, @FarrahRochon
Wicked and the Wallflower, @sarahmaclean
I know, I know. But it's 30 hours door to door.

Plane PPE:
10 K95s
5 cloth masks
14 pairs rubber gloves
This is going to be weird, and stressful, and an even more uncomfortable a journey than usual.

(But, on the other hand, BOOKS)

In case you were wondering, the Venn diagram of Men Who Watch Videos Without Headphones at the Airport and Men Who Don't Wear Masks at the Airport is a circle.

Here we go. I'm on a Delta flight from LAX to Sydney that's at <50% capacity, with other Aussies and some US cargo pilots. Masks are mandatory at all times, middle seats are all empty.

Hello from Sydney. When we landed the flight crew informed us about the quarantine and warned that violating it would result in a fine (AUD1000) or imprisonment. Also I cried when we flew over the Northern Beaches.

Airport staff were all wearing PPE. Border Force officers were not, not even masks.

We were taken in a group through the airport (bypassing the giant duty free shop, which is shut) and a health official did a temperature check.

A woman in full PPE asked me if I'd experienced any coronavirus symptoms and told me the rules of quarantine (don't leave the hotel, you can order Uber eats, care packages allowed).

None of the Border Force personnel who looked at my paperwork were wearing masks (some had gloves on).

Ours appeared to be the only international flight arriving this morning, I don't think I've ever seen the airport this quiet at 9am on a weekday.

After I got my bags, they were searched, even though I hadn't declared anything. The customs guy saw on my entry card that I'm a journalist and asked me to explain the Electoral College while he went through my suitcases.

(I had been in transit for 30+ hours at this point so I can't promise I did a good job)

We were guided outside and met by members of the military (no PPE) and federal police (gloves, no masks), who asked about our subsequent travel plans.

The entire airport is deserted. Police tape everywhere.

We boarded coaches & told to sit only in the marked seats with a row in between each of us. At this point we still had not been told where in the city we were going.

I sat on the bus for a while, gazing longingly at the flat whites in the hands of some passing ground crew guys.

When we got to the hotel we were briefed on the bus by a state police sergeant. "You will not be given a room key, because you are not allowed to leave your room."

They took us off the bus one by one and processed us in the hotel lobby, where there were more members of the military and state police. All masked.

We were told processing was moving pretty quickly because most people on our bus spoke English. So, I guess they're not providing interpreters?

And while I was in the air, the government slashed the number of people who can fly into Sydney airport each day. Delta just started running this service again on 1 July.

Multiple people have pointed out that a two week hotel quarantine is an excellent rom com set up, and they are not wrong.

On your first day back in Australia the name of the game is STAY AWAKE, which was easy because I watched all of The Babysitters Club. Seeing Marc Evan Jackson play a flustered single dad with a crush is just delightful.

So far the hotel has delivered some solid food, and my parents kindly dropped off what appears to be half the contents of an Aldi.

I'm glad I brought an AeroPress with me, but I fear that @zachwahls will now use it to entice me to go camping.

Elsewhere in Australia, residents of public housing towers have been put on a 5-day lockdown, announced with almost no warning and enforced by a large police presence.

Here's the food they've been sent. https://twitter.com/JoshButler/status/1279641383284772866

To answer the questions I asked earlier in this thread:
Wearing a mask for a 14-hour flight is not comfortable, but it's not unbearable.
They put me in a hotel in the city where the rooms have kitchenettes.
Tim Tams can be delivered.
Windows cannot be opened.

Some notes on processing: we were asked where we'd traveled from and about any medical conditions. We were given an info packet that included numbers for medical and counselling services.

The packet included a 2-pager from NSW police called We Know You Would Rather Be at Home (But That Can't Happen Right Now).

It tells us how to stave off loneliness and advises we switch off "noise" like social media and talk radio, and take up meditation.

The police info sheet also has mental health hotlines and websites listed. Around 3pm a nurse called the room and asked again about my medical history and told me about counselling services.

The hotel's info sheet briefs us on deliveries and amenities. Small amounts of alcohol okay, larger quantities will be turned away; toiletries including nappies/diapers and formula provided free of charge.

"We are here to help, but please don't ask us to break the law."

Breakfast is served.

Another nurse just called, to go through a checklist of symptoms and asked if I've experienced any (I have not). Also, she informed me that tomorrow is my day to be tested, and that a team will be around some time between 9am and 5pm to swab me.

Good morning, it's Day 3 of hotel quarantine. Which means I have 11 more days until I get to see people. But also 11 more days until people ask me to explain Trump to them.

Nurses just came to my door, went through a checklist of symptoms, and had me stand in the doorway while they swabbed me in the throat and both nostrils.

It feels like my face just got a pap smear.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne. Some of the residents of the locked down public housing facilities were also asylum seekers, so they're being locked up by the Australian authorities a second time. https://twitter.com/riserefugee/status/1280396654210736128

Waking up at 8am Sydney time means it's already 6pm on the east coast and you have to catch up on the last 12 hours of America have an extremely normal one. It's a LOT first thing in the morning.

I have had two very welcome deliveries from family/friends this morning: a flat white, which I would usually obtain within minutes of collecting my bags, and a foam roller, so that I can be quarantined with my best frenemy.

It is day 4 here at the Quarantine Inn and Suites, and despite the rumours of how this played out in Victoria, the number of security guards I've had sex with here is 0.

Lunch has arrived. The hotel staff drop the meals at all the doors, then go down the hall knocking to avoid contact with any guest who comes to get their food.

Since I arrived on Sunday I have been doing yoga with the blinds open because the room has very little light otherwise. I had assumed that the office block directly across the street is empty because everyone is working from home. Today, I realized... they are not.

Delivered with breakfast today, a 4-page quarantine newsletter with sudoku, podcast recommendations, mindfulness and fitness tips, and "useless (but very interesting) facts."