Hi Happy New Year to you as well! :)

Believe it or not, I actually ended up in Berlin at the end of my trip to Germany and I had to think of you as well when I was there.

I made it to Germany in early December and isolated for 2 weeks in an Airbnb. After two weeks, when I had no symptoms and all was well the harder restrictions just abot started and I went to stay with my mom and spent a quiet two weeks and Christmas with her and my brother. I saw my grandfather and two of my cousins, but that was it. All of it socially distanced and over several days. The rest of the family celebrations were cancelled and I didn't get to see anyone else in my family. Which was a bit sad as I hadn't seen them all year, but under the circumstances the only responsible thing to do. 

I was actually in the county in Lower-Saxony that had the highest incidence rate in the whole state and they had even stricter rules than the rest of Germany. We had a curfew from 9pm to 6am every day and it was only lifted for one hour on Christmas Eve to make it from 10pm to 6am instead.

All in all, it was a very quiet Christmas and very relaxing. 

I hope you and your family had nice holidays as well :)

While I was in Germany the Netherlands introduced a rule that everyone entering the country from December 29th needed a negative PCR test. I was due to fly from Amsterdam on the 30th, but couldn't get a test (they announced this new rule only two days in advance!). In my county you can't just book a test and pay for it yourself, especially not when they had the incidence that high and laboratories and doctors were overwhelmed anyway. So I had no way to meet the Dutch rules and had to book a new flight from Berlin. I had first booked a new flight from Cologne which was then cancelled and in the end ended up flying from Berlin. As it was a 7am flight, I had to stay in a hotel the night before. Thankfully, I was returning to Dublin for work, so I could officially say the trip was business related and I was allowed to stay in a hotel legally... 

Having the rules change every day and having to rebook my return flight over and over was a bit stressful, but well... I took the risk of flying during a pandemic, so it was my own fault!

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have flown over, but I know how important it was for my mom and my grandfather to have me there for Christmas, so that made it all worth it in the end, you know? And I took all precautions and thankfully nothing happened! Thank God!

And now I am back in Ireland where we went from the lowest numbers in Europe to having the highest numbers in the world in just six weeks. Happy days :/ 

As for the political situation in the US: It's just scary! Unfortunately, as shocking as the images from the Capitol were, they weren't surprising and I have to admit that I am honestly disappointed in the Republican party even more now than I was ever before. I would have hoped this would finally be the last straw for them to break with Trump, but I guess even an insurrection and coup attempt are okay as long as it will keep them in power... The whole situation reminds me so much of 1930's Germany... very scary and I wish there would be more people standing up against that kind of behaviour! 

Which brings us to the story: I have to admit that I loved the Handmaid's Tale. Watching it was very scary, but it was so well done. And a lot of things in the show, when they show the rise of that horrible regime, you see so many parallels to 1930's Germany, to the US right now... You just can't help but wonder why Americans don't see what's going on and aren't waking up :( 

As mentioned, the story will play in the regime of Gilead, former US and over the course of this story we'll find out some background on the rise of this regime and how all of it was possible. It won't be exactly like it was in the TV show/novel by Margaret Atwood, but there will be clear parallels. This story will be more QAF focused and everything will have a clear QAF connection. As for Brian and Justin, the story will be pretty similar to the TV show up to a certain point (which will be made very clear in future chapters). Except for Ethan (who Justin only met in Canada), most of the rest will be the same up to the point when the rise of Gilead started. But we'll find out more details in future chapters... ;) 

You raise some very good points and I can promise you that all of those will be covered in the next chapters :) 

I am glad that you liked the first chapter and that you're giving this story a chance. More will be up tomorrow! Stay safe :)