Day 14 • After The Longest Day… Freedom At Last • Tennis Player Ellen Perez’s Quarantine Diary

By Ellen Perez

At last, we have reached the final day of hotel quarantine! It’s day 14 and that means we get to leave the hotel and be free. Because our flight landed at 5:35pm two weeks ago we aren’t let out of quarantine until that exact time today. This by far felt like the longest day of quarantine. Time went so slowly, but it could also be the fact it was our most unproductive day.

I couldn’t be bothered to work out or do much. I could only think about the idea of being free. I watched a movie on Netflix to help the time go quicker and did a little bit of colouring. I even had a nap. This was far from my usual routine as that seemed to have gone right out the window.

My mental state throughout the whole process was really good. I had a lot of friends and family call and also had Dasha with me to lean on. We kept ourselves busy and entertained and didn’t really allow ourselves too much time alone to feel sorry for ourselves or be bored. For some reason though day 14 was the one day that I felt the worst on. Maybe it’s because you are so close to the end and you know what’s on the other side that you start to miss it and want it to come as soon as possible. It’s like when we travel as tennis players on the road for months. I usually don’t miss home but when I finally am about to go home and book my flight and have a date, I get really excited and realize how much I have missed home.

Today consisted mostly of packing our bags, tidying the room, putting out the rubbish and rearranging the furniture back to how it was when we arrived. I didn’t want to leave the hotel room in a bad state especially since I had nothing better to do with my day. Packing actually took a really long time as I had taken out everything from my bag and unpacked like I was at home. Usually I keep most things in my suitcase and just take out the essentials but for this stay I wanted it to feel like home since it was for a lengthy amount of time.

As 5:30pm finally arrived and we were able to leave our room and head to the lobby to check out, we were reunited with Storm again. Because they didn’t have a 3-way interconnecting room, Storm volunteered to go alone and the past 14 days we hadn’t seen her except for on facetime. It was great to talk to her again and have her in our company even if it was for only 15 minutes before saying our goodbyes.

So now the part where we get to go home… well because it’s Saturday 5:30pm and there’s no afternoon flight and no Sunday flights either, I’ve had to resort to booking a flight back to Sydney on Monday. This means that both Dasha and I have the opportunity to go to Alicia Molik’s house to stay with her beautiful family for 2 nights.

Alicia cooked us an amazing home cooked meal and we went for a walk with her kids and played with her dog. It’s such a weird feeling to cherish and enjoy such a mundane activity like walking the dog. You take for granted how nice it is just to do these everyday activities until you go through something like hotel quarantine.

Our plan is to enjoy tomorrow and explore Perth. We plan to walk to get a coffee, walk the dog and head to the beach, get our nails done and go for a light hit of tennis just to get some physical activity in and have some fun. This definitely won’t be a serious session! I’m really excited for Monday though when I get to fly back home to Sydney and reunite with my family and boyfriend.

As I look back on this whole experience, I actually take a lot of positives out of it. It’s not easy to get through 14 days locked up and completely out of your comfort zone. It teaches you to sometimes rely on others, it teaches you to be strong, it teaches you to be proactive and self-motivated and lastly it teaches you a lot of things about who you are as a person.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my fans on social media and putting a smile on others day and testing myself in activities that didn’t really excite me or things I wouldn’t normally do. I think going forward it has made me a more appreciative and aware person. I hope you all enjoyed following along and If anyone is about to go through hotel quarantine and needs tips or advice send, me a message!