The 10 greatest achievements of 2020 ...
The end of an old year is the time to sum up and the begin of a new year to make predictions and resolutions. My friend Bert published a list of the ten most annoying points of the year 2020. Eventually he found 12. Of course the previous year was and the following year will be dominated by what president Macron called a war, a war against a virus. Everybody is frustrated by restrictions and likes to sum up the many disadvantages he had and has to undergo.
"Het groene hart" is the green center of Holland. However, usually silence is much disturbed by the landing and departing air traffic to Amsterdam airport
Many people are at the brink of an economic catastrophe since their businesses are shut down. Some will have to stop all together because it looks like there will be permanent changes which will not be reversed even after this pandemic has eventually stopped. Artists, musicians and many others had a tough year. But these are not the complaints I myself keep hearing. People moan about weekend trips they cannot do any more, trips mainly used for shopping that they could have done at home much easier. People who did not see the interior of a theater in many years suddenly complain that they are closed. The crises of cinemas did not start because of a virus, but before, because everybody prefers to adapt to the preselection Netflix has to offer at their homes instead of getting up and going out.
The windmills of Kinderdijk are protected as UNESCO monument. Consequently in normal times the area is overrun by touritsts and tour buses
I think that you have to adapt to the circumstances when you cannot change the course of things. Seen that it is my personal opinion that the year 2020 has brought us achievements which would never have happened without the outbreak of a pandemic.
1. Let’s start with new year’s eve. The discussion to forbid fireworks was in the mind of many people before the pandemic even started. People owning pets dreaded the night long before. Wild birds screamed in despair and looked in vain for a quiet shelter. Each year hospitals and security forces were working under high pressure. In an interview on the radio an eye specialist in a hospital said that he had the first quiet new year’s eve since he started the job. Forbidding fireworks was overdue and that it did not happen earlier was nothing but the consequence of gutless politicians.
Even in winter the center of Delft is overrun by tourists. In 2020 the locals have their market for themselves
2. The time between christmas and new year is the time for a trip. Tourists from all over the world pack the popular destinations. But this year historic town centers like in Delft, Amsterdam or Leiden stayed empty of the usual crowds of Chinese, Japanese, Italians and Spanish. It is time that locals can enjoy their beautiful towns again.
"De burght" the castle above the center of Leiden without a single tourist
3. The ban on traveling has other unexpected positive consequences. I am from the back bag generation and never understood why I should pull a trolley up a staircase or along the narrow aisle of a train. The trolleys have disappeared and with them their rumbling over the cobbles.
4. Another noise that has all but disappeared is the noise of starting and landing planes. Even when flying 10 km above ground their noise could be heard in quiet spots in the world like deserts. Their contrails were in the sky everywhere, their flickering lights added electric stars to the night sky.
Back to the skies of Brueghel: not a single contrail in the sky
5. The reduced air traffic must have led to a highly reduced air pollution in the higher atmosphere. Even in the Netherlands, where the light pollution is such that only the brightest stars can be seen, less bright constellations like the pleiades can be seen now. The past year also had days of an intense blue sky never visible before, which might be the consequence of less condensation and pollution due to air traffic.
Beaches with plenty of space
6. But not only air traffic is reduced. From fear of infection people avoid public transport. Trains are basically empty and never in 2020 while taking a train there were more than 3 people in an entire wagon. Since the dutch railways regards bicycles as in particular contagious, the ease of transport of bicycles has been reduced. Therefore also that serious reason for infection is gone. If they now would also actually start to clean the trains travel on rails would probably be what it always was: the safest and easiest way of transport.
7. Next to shopping the visit of a museum is one of the motivations for a city trip. Places like the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam or the Louvre were packed with people and there were more in the queue outside. Looking at a famous and small painting like Vermeer’s girl with a pearl earring or Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was only possible above heads and pointed phones and tablets. The numbers of visitors visiting simultaneously are now strongly restricted. When you have your ticket it is a pleasure to roam through the empty halls. Reduced numbers of visitors are a pleasure.
8. How many of the people around would you actually like to have at a distance closer than 1.5 m? Restaurants were packed with tables so that your partner is farther away than your neighbor at the next table who eagerly follows all of your words since (s)he does not understand h(i)er companion either. Entire strangers who lean against you in a pub (and these are never pretty young girls), people who breathe into your neck in the queue behind you (and they do not always smell nice), people sitting behind you bumping their legs into the backrest of your seat, those noisy idiots spreading out their blanket right next to you on the beach, these are only a few of many examples before the start of the pandemic where I would have loved a rule of keeping distance. Is 1.5 m really sufficient?
9. A dutch invention is the “fonteintje”. These are tiny sinks, usually in toilets, if they have got one at all, which are just as big as your two hands and usually only have a tap of cold water which is spilled all over the place when you actually use them seriously. While people clean their cars meticulously, their hands stay a viral mother ship. The ubitiquous presence of hand sanitizer is a great leap forward only made possible by the sudden positive influence of the pandemic.
10. There wasn’t a lot of choice of entertainment when I was a teenager. The number of pubs was limited. To go out you did not call but just passed by friends’ houses. If they were not at home, they were in the only available joint anyway. That changed. Until recently it was impossible to just pass by and visit a friend. If they were at home it was because they were busy. The pandemic has made everybody stay at home. If you want company you go out and ring at your friends’ doors. They are always there. They are longing for your visit. Isolation makes social.
Windmill in Delfland, an area which is plagued by the noise of Rotterdam-The Hague airport
11. And then the workspace. You have to work at home and complain that you do not meet your colleagues any more? Think about how many of them you never wanted to meet anyway. Most of them you were glad that you got rid of when you went home at the end of the day. Working at home gives the chance to only meet those you really want to meet. The others can disappear in the anonymous black background window of skype meetings.
12. You start hating your kids because they have to stay home and distract you? I can tell you that there will be a time when they are gone and you would love to have their company. Put that microphone on your laptop on silent and play a game with them while that meeting is going on. Or build a palace from Lego together. Or even better, start a caricature competition of that face speaking endlessly in that skype meeting.
13. You cannot travel anymore? Look at the pictures. There are brilliant places around you to discover if you keep your eyes open. You will never see them from the window of a plane or from your car on the motorway. All these pictures were taken during the Corona Lockdown.
I only can advice to enjoy the quietness, the blue sky, the empty streets, your lonesome workspace at home and your friends’ houses as long as it lasts. They will find a solution to the pandemic. And then our old life will start all over again. You can stand in line to get into the castle of Versailles again, you can sit hours propped into an uncomfortable airline chair enjoying their miserable food, you can sneeze into the back of the guy in front of you in the cinema again and you can start taking pictures of Chinese in front of the Van Gogh Museum instead of going inside.
Here is the link to the previous post
