Imagine feeling a cool breeze, hearing birds chirping and seeing animals coming alive in the secluded forest that houses your family’s cottage. This is the life for Ethan Brandauer ’21, who traveled to his family’s cottage in Canada to be among relatives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Both of my parents are originally from Canada. My mom’s family owned a cottage before she was born so my family has always had a cottage up in Canada,” said Brandauer.

For most school breaks, he goes up there with his family because Canada is like a second home.

 “My mom was up in Canada already because the cottage was getting work done on it over break but my brother and I were at home for break. After break we went up to Canada so we were together as a family.” said Brandauer.

She also prepared the house for her family to stay into the summer, as there is still a ban on non-essential travel between Canada and the U.S. until June 22nd.

Like many students in quarantine, Brandauer found himself lacking in motivation when it came to schoolwork. 

“Personally, online learning has given me more free time, but since it was enriching right after break, my mind never transitioned back to school really. For this reason I find myself procrastinating a lot.” said Brandauer. 

The move to online school was a difficult adjustment for most, but doing school in another country while the pandemic is around is even harder. The lack of school over break gave Brandauer more time to spend with his family and as the school came back on it was hard to regain focus on school work.

“If it were up to me I would not like to move here permanently because even though I like our cottage there are very few people that live close to us, so we’d be alone most of the year.” said Brandauer.