I don’t know it at all. And there seems to be no Dutch version. 
I just read it started in 1969 already, so how come I never heard of it, haha?
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It’s going to be okay. We can still see the sky
and feel the sun 
At first, knowing that the country would be quarantined is a shock and strange, but as human beings, we can’t let ourselves go.
I appreciate more the things around me (not the corona) and the solidarity between people.
Youtube suggested me this, an interview of an Italian woman living under this lockdown (Italian is really nice to hear):
https://youtu.be/VW8X9Qw7LyE
Instagram is showing me this:
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Way to spread the positivity piranna! Yes, we are very blessed to have a home around us and things to do even. My heart goes out to those who do not have a house or apartment or a stable roof over their heads, for those who don’t have something to take care of (maybe a plant, animal, or another human, since we need to love something or someone), and for those who are fighting the sickness and not just the coronavirus, but other sicknesses/illnesses.
I think we in general should find sometime to pause and think that this is temporary and to be in the moment, to feel the sun (like you said) on our skin filtering through the window or from the balcony, and maybe find a favorite song to dance to without worries and to sing at the top of our lungs.
I’m fully aware of the suffering others are going through, but I also think that I should look at the positive things in life as a way of keeping sane. People get to spend more time with their families, communities are getting together to share music via balconies, and there is a global empathy going around. Humans can overcome this difficulty as they have overcomed them thousands of times in the past. I may be overly-optimistic (which I usually am not), but remembering to be content and thankful with the things I have helps me to keep my pessimism at bay.
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Since this is mentioned so often I’d like to add something:
This is only true if one lives together as a family. In German cities there are 41% singles/alone living households. Even when their family members or partners live in the same city, it is now forbidden to visit (in most cases). So I get a bit sick of all the ‘enjoy time with your family’ postings because that is only the case when you live together, what is unusual for many Germans unless they are young families with kids but for many Germans their family are their relatives like brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents aunts and uncles.
Other nations, no matter if they live in Germany or in their own country, e.g. Italians, may have different culture of living together with several generations in the same house/place (that is why Italy got such a high wave of infected elderlys at the beginning, bc they often live with 3 generations in the same house in this high crisis area). In China there are also many people who live together with 3 generations at the same place (grandparents, parents, kids) and different to Germany they did not forbid the contact or tried to split families apart… I talked with many Chinese who’re living in different cities in China and they all said the same: German rules towards family and relatives are way more strict; they said that only in Wuhan/Hubei they had very strict rules but not in the other less high risk areas. So if you look at Germany’s death rate that is still very low the rules are not only cruel but also against our law for personal basic human rights (a former judge from our highest court said this in an interview recently).
On the other hand those old people who are unable to live alone and live in elderly houses are now infected in high waves and also dying in high numbers - probably even without being able to see their relatives once again…
Many elderlys here prefer living freely until the end instead of being locked and isolated like criminals; what kind of life is that when the ‘others’ are allowed to go out again and they are locked for whatever time? What kind of ‘last’ impression is that? Isolated, locked, separated from relatives in the way of not being allowed to see them anymore.
Of course they are a high risk group, same with ill/weak people with younger age but a general isolation + locked inside rule for them steals their freedom of choice. Some may want to stay inside because they are afraid but some get despaired when they even think about being locked just because of a certain age (and not everyone who is old, dies; there are also cases of old people who recovered like the 102 year old Italian lady from the article that was posted here few days ago or a 93 year old man).
Death is always part of life and they should allow people to decide for themselves when they start loosing the strict rules of the lockdown/shutdown.
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Here in The Netherlands a lot of people live alone as well. Visiting others is not strictly forbidden yet, as long as you don’t have more than 3 visitors at a time and they sit 1 and a half meters away from each other. Obviously, noone checks that.
But of course some of us don’t even have family left. Either because their family members have died at some point or because they are estranged, or a combination of those.
And if your family lives on the other side of the country it’s not easy to visit them either, even in regular times.
So, indeed, this period doesn’t mean happy family time for everyone. For some it means having to miss the company that they might normally have, and for others it means getting even lonelier than they already were.
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Yes, the supermarket’s online services here in the Netherlands are pretty packed too. I am thankful that a lot of the smaller businesses have grouped together to form delivery services, so you can get what you need without relying on supermarkets. And luckily, not all of them have a 50 euro limit, but limit the cities where they deliver, for example only Amsterdam / Delft / Rotterdam etc., so they can have a lower limit or less delivery fees.
I’m sorry you feel that way and I hope you can find little things that make you happy.
Yeah, no one checked that. I live in front of a park and I have to stop myself from looking outside, because I’ll get frustrated… (alhoewel op koude dagen is het best stiller)
Or impossible for now when they live in a different country. Luckily we have technology.
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Indeed. Imagine this happening in a time when internet hadn’t been invented yet …
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I prefer to stay in my happy place 
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We also have the only 2 people rule, but that only counts for outside, for outside more than 2 people are only allowed if they live together in the same flat/house. If people don’t live together the new rule takes action that means you are not allowed to be inside of someone else’s living place.
They also don’t allow people to live in their own second homes now… e.g. many older citizens who are living in big cities in a flat but do have a (small) holiday house, often close to the sea, aren’t allowed to stay there even though the risk to get infected is way lower there because of more nature, less crowds (compared to cities) and because only a limited number owns a house there, it wouldn’t rise the amount of people much - because tourists usually stay in hotels and don’t own houses there…
So some citizens now changed their first residence from the city to their second residence at the sea…but even then villagers attack them when they see that their car is from a city (note that they are ALL Germans!). Some even said that local shops refused to sell them food or toilet paper…
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I think we didn’t have such a panics and paranoia then…
Look at plague, Spanish flu… it was way more deadly than corona but they didn’t split family like today even though the age groups were completely different. The Spanish flu killed mostly people between age 20-40, corona kills mostly weak/ill people with certain diseases and old weak people (also often with diseases).
So from that perspective corona is really different and it is not that ‘strong’ in the way that you can easily destroy it by using warm water and soap while other parasites and bacteria are immune against many things so they are worse (if everyone would have access to the special masks that might be another easy way of protection but of course at the moment not even medics have enough masks).
One aspect that makes corona19 special compared to other corona/flu viruses is the way it infiltrates the cells; it uses the same enzyme within the human cell like HIV and Ebola (that is why some special medicine helped also against corona19). In the end people die by their own immune system through an overreaction (scientists assume that this is the reason why corona19 usually has no symptoms or only mild cases for kids, because their immune system reacts more balanced than those of older people when the own cells flood the lungs and people die because the body doesn’t get oxygen anymore and also because the lungs are destroyed; even those who survived after/because of breathing machines often got severe lung issues because the machines damages the lungs so much that they probably won’t recover from that).
So in other eras without internet there would be less travelling, no 10 € flights within whole Europe, not millions of tourists that flood the cities, not that many people who meet at clubs, festivals etc. So maybe in a different era covid19 wouldn’t be able to spread that fast and kill so many old/weak/ill people.
I think it is important to keep in mind that there have been way more deadly diseases in the past and now in our global era a not that deadly virus already caused a global lockdown.
(I read many scientific articles that compare pandemics of the past and our recent situation, also the reasons for its outbreak, the way it spread and the average death rate. Compared to the past corona is not that deadly. I didn’t post all the sources because they’re all written in and by German speaking scientists)
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The phone bill would be probably high, back then, phone calls across the continent was very expensive!! And mail would likely take longer today as well as normally since post offices are overwhelmed with online shipments 
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Indeed, and in some places the mail wouldn’t even be delivered. And we might not even find out about our loved ones not receiving our letters.
I had several occasions in past that the local post office in US lost letters from Europe, only upon mentioning this to the postman some letters were found next to the sorting machine. And a Xmas card sent to Europe came after 2 weeks back to me, never left the town saying the address did not exist, right, it was the machine reading who did not recognize the zip code!! So I gave it back again to post office and it arrived after Xmas, lol.
Even in modern times there is no guarantee… it seems the US postal services have more problems these days or lucking of good workers or not enough workers. I had issues in fall like thousands others with creating shipping labels online, it was impossible to use it and they said they wouldn’t know when it would be fixed!
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I once got a card to the US back, apparently cause I wrote down an old address. I was surprised they even bothered to send it all the way back, haha.
In February I shipped a parcel to Korea. I did everything handwritten and brought it to the post office, where I filled out the customs form. There was not enough room on the form to write down everything, but the man from the post office said it didn’t matter. And it arrived completely without trouble in about two weeks.
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You got lucky, my parcels last fall to Europe also labeled by hand cos online wasn’t working went only to NYC and back and are now in my storage “again”. The story is x pages long and kind of mystery. I can’t fly over there now due to Corona to repack and ship again. I probably picked up a wrong timing or had a bad dude scanning them; there was nothing dangerous… I know the drill
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Ah, that sucks. I once got a present from an American friend. She asked me several times whether I had already received it, but each time I had to tell her no. But after several months it eventually did arrive.
@feyfayer@jadecloud
Please don’t cancel your trips yet. I don’t know the policy of refund with your airlines but wait a bit more if you can. We need to let the money circulate so we can get up victorious from this, with little to NO damage. I have faith you’ll be able to enjoy the trip except, we need to be more cautious from now on, and use the mask for a while longer. I’m planning a trip too so that makes me to look forward to this summer! No longer I’ll take for granted enjoying life even if I have to drag with me my walker with attached seat. lol
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I haven’t cancelled, because the airline let’s you change the date due to the special circumstances, plus we’re not allowed to leave the country for now anyways. Also, I’m travelling with my mom, so if it still isn’t safe enough, I’m postponing the trip with a year 
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I just wanted to share this video for those who haven’t seen it yet. I thought it was great (specially from 8:29 till the end)!
Even vacation cards within Germany/Europe sometimes need 3 weeks until arriving if they arrived. So usually my mother was back from vacation before the card arrived.
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