Diary of a French Digital Nomad post-Covid lockdown
This diary follows the containment log that documents my 54 days of containment related to the covid outbreak19
Same logic for this deconfinement log: keep track of the events that will follow.
I hope that it will be less loaded with news and that a return to normal will allow us to close it quickly.
May 11, 2020 – Deconfinement day 1: We stayed quietly in the apartment so the deconfinement changed absolutely nothing for us. The only appreciable difference is that I didn’t need to make a certificate of exit during my jogging at the end of the day. It was much more crowded than when I went out during the confinement, both from a traffic and pedestrian viewpoint. Most of the people I passed were wearing masks but not everyone. It is possible that some people who wanted to wear one were not yet able to get one. I saw on Facebook that the city hall had distributed them directly at home in the last few days but they don’t seem to have passed through our apartment.
Traffic on public transport seems to have gone rather well. Unsurprisingly, the RER and line 13 were the points of tension where social distancing couldn’t be respected during rush hours.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover on Twitter pictures of the “gel service” teams allowing travelers to disinfect their hands.
The coronavirus that caused the fall of the economy and thus the price of oil is an absolute disaster for countries that depend on oil exports. This is the case of Saudi Arabia where the oil industry represents 31% of GDP and 79% of exports. The kingdom has just announced the abolition of the universal allowance from which every citizen benefited (I couldn’t find the amount) and the tripling of the VAT which will go from 5 to 15%. Enormous screw tightening!
May 12, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 2: We made our cannonballs today. During the day, we heard someone knocking on a door thinking it was the neighbor’s door. It wasn’t until several hours later when I went out jogging that we realized that it was agents from the town hall who came by to give us masks! It’s a failure but bravo to the Lilacs town hall who did the job!
After the teachers resumed teaching yesterday, a (small) part of the children went back to school. The image of the day is this playground where the space of each child is delimited on the ground to respect the distance. A prison without walls… at school… what sadness! The comparison is completely out of place but when I saw this picture I instantly thought of the prison for (suspected) terrorists in Guantanamo. For the first months, before permanent constructions took over, the prisoners were locked outside in individual cages
May 16, 2020 – Deconfinement day 6: The last two days have been busy with our move to Rouen. The confinement having temporarily had some of our minimalism, in addition to our two usual suitcases we had food, books, DIY equipment from Anh and even a table. Impossible to transport everything by train so we rented a car. The day before yesterday morning I went to pick up the rental car on foot to avoid taking the subway, 35 minutes walk. Loading of the car then departure towards Rouen after a detour to return the keys of the apartment
We use Waze to get a route avoiding the highway: nicer landscapes, no toll, only 20 minutes more travel time and less risk of control. Even if our motive of travel is probably valid, we are a little bit tucked in beyond the 100 km radius.
Once arrived in Rouen, the move was sporty with 5 floors without an elevator
It’s worth the candle since the view from our loft on the Saint-Ouen abbey church is absolutely magnificent. Our accommodation is large, comfortable and very bright. We were well installed in Les Lillas but it is without possible comparison with our new home. We are located in the hyper center and to remain here until the end of July is a pleasant prospect.
The next morning, I make the reverse trip to return the rental car. As I was in no hurry, the weather was nice and I wanted to avoid public transportation as much as possible, I walked half of Paris to reach the Saint Lazare train station
I was able to see the measures taken for social distancing as in front of this school.
In front of the Saint Lazare train station, one bench out of two is condemned.
And in the station itself, which is well organized with, among other things, contactless gel dispensers.
Little stress not seeing my train on the screens. At the ticket office, they tell me “that it had to be deleted”. Luckily, I am offered to take one which leaves in 10 minutes, 30 minutes before my train initially planned.
The journey is smooth, with one out of every two convicts also sitting in a seat and being required to wear a mask.
These two days between Rouen and Paris allowed me to feel the difference between a “green zone” and a “red zone” with high population density. Clearly, the tension is much more palpable in Paris where I estimate that more than 90% of people wear a mask whereas in Rouen we must be at less than 50%. In Paris, I met more and more people with plastic visors. It looks absolutely ridiculous wearing such a device but it’s probably the most efficient/comfortable because clearly, wearing a mask for several hours is far from ideal
If the wearing of masks seems to be becoming a habit, there is still work to be done on their proper use. We constantly come across people putting them only on their mouth without covering their nose, chin or even forehead (like sunglasses that we don’t use). I have even seen friends lowering their masks to… kiss each other!
In Rouen, even if the wearing of the mask isn’t generalized, it is compulsory in all the stores where we went with generally distribution of gel at the entrance.
We are really happy to have changed city, especially since a reopening of the restaurants for June 2nd is evoked in the “green zones”. The beaches are starting to reopen and we will surely take advantage of it by renting a car to go there. The Prime Minister also indicated that the French could go on vacation in July and August. If this is confirmed, we will start to consider a vacation in August
Our new life is getting organized: Anh has set up a workshop worthy of a professional. She likes it so much that she could consider an XXL project: a giant flower!
I was able to drop off my Macbook for repair and since we’re staying for 2 1/2 months I even offered myself the luxury of buying a screen to be able to work with a double screen (19 € the second hand screen at Cash Express!).
INSEE has published a very interesting graph on daily mortality over the last 10 years compared to a few striking episodes. What marks me is the impressive peak of mortality during the famous heat wave of 2003 but which is very brief in time. The “mortality surface” of covid19 is comparable to that of the 1969 Hong Kong flu, when the measures taken at the time were out of proportion to those taken today, which tends to show the dangerousness of covid19 (even if the figures would have to be corrected to take into account the increase in the population.
May 18, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 8: How happy we are to be in Rouen! Our apartment is beautiful, we are close to everything. Doing my daily jogging along the Seine is a real treat.
On top of that, without having done it on purpose, we find ourselves in one of the French areas least affected by the epidemic. Since the deconfinement, 25 new clusters have been identified just about everywhere in France, except in Corsica and Normandy, where we are currently. Even if we’re not particularly worried and we’re taking every precaution, it adds peace of mind to the situation.
All this makes us optimistic and we start to prepare our August vacations. It will be a road trip in France and I have just booked our car with a Leclerc rental whose services we have already tested several times.
Fun fact of the day, the American supermarket chain Wallmart explains us that the sales of shirts, jackets and t-shirts exploded while the sales of pants and skirts are stable, I let you discover the explanation below.
May 21, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 11: It’s been years since I’ve had a workspace like this! It used to be my daily life, but since we went on the road 4 years ago, I have to make do with a small 13″ laptop. As we stay 2 1/2 months in the same place, which is exceptional, I went to buy a second hand screen at Cash Express (19 €!). At this price, it would have been a pity to deprive ourselves (we will resell it to Cash Express before our departure).
Community life is organized with these new constraints of social distancing. Beaches, for example, will organize individual spaces as in this example at La Grande Motte. We will have to get used to it…
If we feel a certain euphoria due to the return of a certain freedom of movement, we will have to wait a few more days to see if we don’t suffer a new wave of contamination. After two months of confinement, many people cannot resist being reunited with their loved ones. As the incubation period of the virus is 2 weeks, it is impossible for the moment to know the impact of the deconfinement.
While the curve for the number of daily victims is falling sharply in France and stabilizing in Europe, the global curve remains linear and is exploding in some countries such as Brazil. We risk living for many more months with this virus as a sword of Damocles.
May 22, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 12: Incredible graph I discover today: the volume of C02 emissions on April 7 (at a time when the majority of humanity was confined and the world economy was at a standstill) corresponds to that of 2006 with an economy that was running at full capacity. This gives an idea of the incredible progress that has been made in 14 years and the immensity of the challenge that is before us to reduce our impact on the climate.
On the political side, there was certainly no good solution regarding the municipal elections. The government decided that the least bad solution was to hold the second round on June 28. As a reminder, the first round had been maintained in general incomprehension on March 15, the day before the announcement of the confinement. Participation is likely to be very low. On our side we will not vote because we are still on the Parisian electoral lists and we feel in any case little concerned by local elections in a city in which we no longer live.
May 24, 2020 – Day 14: The coronavirus will have made me discover the spectacular headlines in the New York Times. While the United States will soon pass the symbolic 100,000 victims mark, the daily displays on its cover the names of 1,000 victims (only 1% of the total!) as well as a few words to describe who they were. The idea is to remind that behind the statistics there are countless human dramas.
For our part, after nearly 3 months of crisis, we are really starting to see the end of it and we are finally starting to plan projects again. In 10 days, we rent a car for two days in order to visit the surroundings of Rouen and to go to see the sea. We also prepare our itinerary for our August vacations during which we plan to make a tour of France. We don’t book anything in advance to be as flexible as possible. With the exception of the cinéscenie, the famous show of the Puy du Fou. I attended this show when I was a teenager but this isn’t the case for Anh, the show was already sold out when we visited the park together. We are very excited at the prospect of these vacations and we cross our fingers so that the virus does not reserve us bad surprises.
Anh continues her paper flower workshop, including a second giant flower (you can follow her on Instagram @mehachcom)
gerbera – the new giant flower 
the real flower she was inspired by
May 27, 2020 – Deconfinement day 17: I got my computer back !!!! Having broken down in the middle of the containment, I had put it in for repair when I arrived in Rouen about ten days ago. It’s good because the computer I was using for troubleshooting was much slower. I found a nearly new computer because “we changed everything except the screen” said the salesman. Another good surprise, while I was expecting to be there out of my own pocket (I found out that the warranty for companies was 12 months vs 24 months for individuals), I only had to pay about thirty euros. I spent a good part of the afternoon reinstalling everything and I’m up and running again
In the last few days, there has been a lot of talk about Eric Raoult, the famous professor who has made headlines since the beginning of my crisis by claiming to have found a cure for the coronavirus: chloroquine. Debates have been fierce between fervent supporters and detractors annoyed by the lack of scientific evidence
The games seem to be over since several studies in recent weeks tend to show the absence of results at best, serious side effects at worst of the treatment. In a lunar interview on LCI, Professor Raoult stubbornly stubbornly stubborn despite common sense and seems not to be mourning what he probably in good faith believed to be a discovery that would heal the planet.
May 28, 2020 – Day 18: Emmanuel Macron had said that we were at war, so June 2 should look like a liberation. The Prime Minister announced the next phase of deconfinement. First news: the famous “deconfinement map” has evolved well. All of France is now in the green zone except Mayotte, French Guiana and Ile de France which are in orange.
From next Tuesday, most of the bans will be lifted: restaurants and bars will reopen (only terraces in the case of orange areas), parks, gardens, museums, swimming pools, theaters, … life will start again! All the more so as the limitation of travel within a radius of 100 km also disappears.
There are still some restrictions: cinemas for example aren’t going to reopen and gatherings will remain limited to 10 people but it will feel good!
The American press continues to give us magnificent headlines, this time it is The Washington Post that stands out as the United States has just passed the symbolic 100,000 victims mark.
May 29, 2020 – Day 19: While doing my morning jog, I noticed that some restaurants were getting ready for Tuesday’s reopening. The sanitary measures will be quite drastic with for example a minimum distance of one meter between each table. Even though I’m dying to go back to the restaurant, I’m not sure I’m very motivated to lock myself in a restaurant room with other customers nearby. I think we’re going to give preference to terrace dining in the first instance.
The famous StopCovid application should be available this weekend. The principle of this application is to record the anonymous identifier of people you will be near for more than X minutes (typically in a restaurant or during a public transport trip). If you contract the coronavirus, it will then be possible to notify them so that they can be tested. It is the bluetooth technology that will be used with a range of about 10 meters.
For such an application to be effective, it must be massively used and this is far from being won. We can already think that it is a bit late, this application would have been very useful before the containment, 3 months ago. On the other hand, the promised transparency on the availability of the source code isn’t respected for the moment. This is an important point: the government has indicated that the authorities will not retrieve the location data of individuals (which would represent a massive surveillance of the population). In order to verify this, it is necessary to be able to audit the source code. Without that, I am unlikely to use the application.
June 1, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 22: Restaurant openings and the end of the 100-kilometer travel limit is tomorrow!
Given the customer limit that restaurants will experience due to the need for minimum distance between tables, permission has been given to set up in the public space without any prior administrative request. The terraces will therefore flourish everywhere, even if it means having tables that don’t always match!
The night before last, we had dinner at the home of our friends A. and N. who live in Rouen with their son A.. We hadn’t seen any familiar faces for a long time! Today they proposed us to have a picnic in Varengeville-sur-Mer, how good it feels to be back in nature and the sea!
Internationally, the ebola epidemic is back in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States is in flames following the death, filmed, of Georges Floyd during a police arrest
And to think that we are only halfway to the year 2020…
June 3, 2020 – Deconfinement day 23: Since yesterday the Stop Covid application is available. Funny anecdote: there was a small delay in the launch and for a few hours, only the equivalent application for Catalonia was available in the app stores when searching for “stop covid”. As a result, they were downloaded by French people who made negative comments complaining that the application was not in French!
I downloaded the application to see what it looked like before uninstalling it. Maybe I’ll change my mind because all the source code has been made public, which was not the case before. If no wolf is detected, there’s not much reason why I shouldn’t use it.
Anh bought us disposable masks. We already have 3 reusable cloth masks each but since we have to wash them after each use, we are regularly out of stock. Even if in Rouen the use of the masks is in free fall (except in stores and public transport), it will be useful in August during our itinerant vacations when we will be outside all day long and we will not have a washing machine at our disposal.
June 4, 2020 – Deconfinement day 24: Today we rented a car to visit a little bit the surroundings. How good it feels to move around and play tourist again! For the last four years we have been traveling abroad all the time. It’s now 3 months that we are “stuck” in France and we miss the change of scenery! But how beautiful France is, it’s a foretaste of our “tour de France” vacations in August, we can’t wait to be there!
This excursion was also the occasion of our first lunch at the restaurant since their reopening. For my part, my last restaurant was on March 12, almost 3 months ago. I think that such a delay between two restaurants had not happened since I left the family cocoon 15 years ago ^^.
June 5, 2020 – Day 25: Second day of a road trip, we had the chance to pass between the drops. We went to IKEA to buy us two office seats, the chairs we have in our Airbnb being uncomfortable. Fortunately that we have to return the apartment at the end of July because at this rhythm, we were becoming sedentary again!
The good news of the day comes from the scientific council consulted by the government throughout the crisis. According to it, even though the virus is still circulating, the epidemic is under control. The council even goes so far as to rule out reconfinement in the event of a second wave. It smells good the return to normality!
June 14, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 34: I don’t write very regularly anymore because life has almost returned to normal. For the past few days, there have been large demonstrations to protest against police violence. It is striking to see these images of compact crowds after these months of social distancing.
A few days ago, in a hallucinating interview at the JDD, the President of the Scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy explained that confinement “was not a good decision but the least bad, given the tools we have avions : 3,000 tests per day, when the Germans had more than 50,000”. In other words, France will enter an unprecedented economic slump because of an insufficient number of simple tests… Consternating.
We finally received 6 masks from our mutual insurance company Alan. It’s a bit late because we use them less and less. They are however lighter and more comfortable than what we had until now and will be useful during our tour de France.
The positive evolution of the crisis allows us to look forward to the future once again. After our vacation in France in August, we will move to Rome for 45 days. After 3 months of living under a bell, it feels great to have plans!
Tonight, Emmanuel Macron will make his 4th speech since the beginning of the crisis but to be honest, I’m more interested in the barbecue we’re going to enjoy today! We’re taking the train to Paris at the invitation of Mr. We’re going to enjoy it!
June 20, 2020 – Deconfinement day 40: Emmanuel Macron spoke last week, mainly to say nothing. Apart from self-congratulation and very vague perspectives (the famous “next world” which will have to be ecological), nothing to report. The promise not to raise taxes is even already a lie, since the CRDS (contribution to the repayment of the social debt), which was supposed to end in 2024, is being transformed without saying so into a “covid tax” and will continue at least until 2033. Let us note all the same the reopening of restaurants in Île de France and the return to compulsory school from June 22nd (to allow parents to return to work).
I observe with curiosity the evolution of the situation in Sweden, one of the few countries that have decided not to confine themselves. Public opinion is beginning to regret its choice: not only is the mortality rate much higher than its neighbors, collective immunity is a failure, Swedes no longer have the right to travel in many countries (even within the European Union). On top of that, the world economy is so globalized that Sweden cannot escape the economic shock.
The European Discovery clinical trial organized by France seems to be a huge failure. On May 4, Emmanuel Macron announced the results on May 14. It was understood that it had made teeth grind in the field. More than a month and a half later no news, the trial simply disappeared.
After many twists and turns, the mass seems to be said for Chloroquine. Numerous studies for or against its use have been controversial and have caused much ink to flow but more and more countries are abandoning its use. The American health authorities advise against it and the WHO has definitively withdrawn it from its clinical trials.
China, which seemed to be out of the woods, is worried again. Dozens of cases have reappeared and neighbourhoods in Beijing have been reconfined
Very interesting graph found in Les Echos which shows on an index 100 the evolution of the morning distance travelled by cell phone users. We can clearly see the fall linked to the confinement but we can also see that one month after the deconfinement, we are still very far from a return to normal. Many continue to telework, others are still partially active and others unfortunately have lost their jobs.
Here in Rouen, even though new cases have appeared in recent days in the south of the city, coronavirus and containment seem to be distant memories. The shopping streets are full, the terraces are under attack. Only the queues in front of the stores (which limit the traffic) and the wearing of masks, which is mandatory in most shops, are a reminder that something unusual is going on.
Finally, last announcement of the day, team sports will be able to resume from Monday and the stadiums will be able to welcome spectators from July 11th with a maximum of 5000 people.
June 25, 2020 – Deconfinement Day 45: Exactly 100 days ago, we entered containment. There followed a few days of siderations, then the confinement and its release certificates became a routine for 54 days and we enjoyed regaining our freedom.
100 days that I keep my containment and then decontainment log. Having less and less interesting things to tell, and wishing to get some news, I close it (definitively I hope).
You can continue to follow our adventures on this blog.
Although life is back to normal in France and Europe, the coronavirus isn’t yet behind us. We will soon pass the 500,000 victims worldwide and there are one million new cases confirmed in the last 8 days.
The list of companies that go bankrupt is getting longer every day. Thousands of people will find themselves unemployed, with all the life changes, divorces, suicides that this will cause…
In France, the Scientific Council considers the arrival of a second wave in the fall very likely.
We will be in Italy at this time, I dare to hope that we won’t have to open a reconfinement journal .
