In the end, my parents did come over for my birthday although I asked them not to. Apparantly in the area I'm from, new cases are very low, 1 or 0 per day. Whereas in the city I live, some days the number of new cases is as high as in my entire home country They refused to keep 1,5 m distance from me as well, technically that's still not allowed. But no one really does anymore. They take the 1,5 m thing very literally. Went out to a restaurant which made me uncomfortable but they're like "The other tables are 1,5 m away!"

It was annoying how they made a big deal of masks. They're not mandatory back home except for public transport - here it's public transport, stores and other places like hotels as well. Every time we'd go inside somewhere "Do I have to wear my mask here as well?" Just wear the damn thing. It's not the end of the world if you wear a mask somewhere it's not mandatoty

I feel like we were lucky here that it never got very dramatic, but we can't seem to get it under control, either. Which means there's no "back to normal" in sight anytime soon People are doing whatever they please. Maybe if people were a bit more disciplined.....
I'm afraid I'm not going to get my happy place back for a very, very long time. Still so ******* lonely.