The sunny ‘warm’ weather continues to wreak havoc on the STOP HANGING OUT ‘request’ from the Dutch government.
It would be so much easier if the weather would be normal – rainy grey, cold and miserable.
#DamnIt
But, first, the news:
- Dutch to decide next week about extending corona measures
- Coronavirus will have major impact, recession into 2021 likely
- Efteling theme park appeals for help to pay salaries
- Roche urged to share info with Dutch corona test labs
- Keukenhof flower gardens won’t open this year
I live in a ‘village’, not a city, way up north near Groningen and yesterday I walked over to the pharmacy to drop off my prescription.
When we go out for a walk, we don’t wear anything special, but when we go to the grocery store, we wear rubber gloves.
I also wear a face mask.
Also when we go grocery shopping, we go as early as possible to avoid crowds / people / contact / COVID19.
This time I went at 12:30 local.
While the streets were still relatively empty compared to a normal lunch hour on a sunny day, there were still couples walking closely to one another.
Which makes sense if they live together.
But, for example, there were three painters walking right next to one another on their lunch break.
I crossed the street.
Also people are not wearing any kind of protective gear – no gloves, no masks – and HAVE NO IDEA how react when they see someone walking around with both.
Mostly staring.
No hate, though.
Some immune compromised friends wearing gloves and masks in America have reported scoffs, fake coughs, and sneering comments.
Now?
REALLY?
The medicine was ready today and instead of going by myself, I took the oldest with me. And because I was going to pick up the meds without having to enter the pharmacy or anywhere else, I didn’t wear rubber gloves or a mask.
ASIDE: ZOMG the pharmacy has this self pick up machine OUTSIDE THE PHARMACY. So you can go anytime to pick up your meds. And it’s a lot more secure / safe / all those words than going into a building, waiting in line with potentially sick people, taking meds from a person who is potentially the third or fourth person to touch your meds. But you do have to learn a bit of Dutch, “Geachte K Leander, er ligt een bestelling voor u klaar in de uitgifteautomaat Haren,” and big words like uitgifteautomaat but if you ask the pharmacy people, they’ll totally help you and if you run into issues, they can hack the machine and I’m so impressed with this little piece of technology.
A and I walked into town at five ish instead of lunch ish and it was a whole different world than yesterday. This is the time when (normally) everyone is headed home from work and picking up kids and cooking dinner and such and Haren was just… empty.
At one point I looked over at one of my favourite cafes, Bij Jo’s, and it was closed.
Cleared out.
GONE.
“Due to the Corona measures, I am unfortunately forced to close Bij Jo.”
Jo
She’s not the only one, either.
There were a LOT of stores that shut down, moved inventory COMPLETELY out and had a sign on the door. The stores that remain open have truncated hours and RULES on the doors.
Yeah, I should’ve taken a picture of those, too, but by then I was kind of freaked out.
It’s SO empty.
Stay safe, Warriors.