Quarantine Diaries, Day 20
20:00 Stepped out for a quick grocery run. Need to get a bigger fridge and stop treating the neighbourhood grocery store as our pantry. Amsterdam was eerily quiet. Felt more like 4:00 AM than 8:00 PM. I could hear bells tolling from at least two churches nearby. Felt significant. The sort of detail that is an important clue in an Agatha Christe murder mystery.
17:00 We are being encouraged to pay with contactless cards to slow down the spread of Coronavirus. The banks here even increased the PIN-free spending limit from €25 to €50. But grocery bills have a nasty habit of being just a shade above the PIN-free upper bound on your card. As a result, we’ve been using Apple Pay a whole lot more since it doesn’t seem to prompt for a PIN for any amount.
16:20 Meanwhile, spring continues its inexorable march.
16:15 Almost all digital advertising space near Centraal Station is now dedicated to announcements about the Coronavirus.
16:00 While the bicycle racks outside Centraal Station are beginning to empty out, the ferries from Noord are running worryingly full. The municipality is pre-empting the temptation to be out tomorrow1 and has banned boating in the canals. People definitely lingered longer outside today while doing their best to maintain 1.5m distance.
11:00 A beautiful animation showing how the HIV virus enters a cell and hijacks its machinary to replicate. via.
Complex organic compounds interacting with each other is what most of what we call living and dying boils down to.
A sunny, 20ºC Sunday. The perfect sort of day to lure winter-worn Amsterdammers outdoors.↩︎