Gala in Anglet next week~

This weekend’s weather in Paris is still unusually pleasant. I am entering my 10th year in France and in the past 9 years, I have never had a 28-degrees and very sunny weather in September. Normally by the end of August, we would already feel that summer is leaving and the weather slowly gets windier and cooler. 28 degrees at the end of September!? The Planet is undoubtedly telling us that something’s wrong.

However, on the other hand, I am very happy about this nice weather, and was out for a bicycle ride. During the lockdown here, the government decided to develop the bike paths in the city of Paris. The idea was of course to reduce traffic jams and pollution but also to encourage people to bike instead of taking public transport, in order to limit the spread of the Coronavirus. In a few months’ time, many roads are transformed and now include large separated lanes reserved for bicycles. On this Sunday morning, I was among many Parisians to enjoy a safe bike ride along the Seine river.

The rehearsals of La Bayadere at the Paris Opera were planned to start tomorrow. Nevertheless, due to the Covid-19, the company needs to use more studios than usual in order to limit the number of people in each studio, so they would need one more week to organise the rehearsals. It feels like the summer vacation never ended! What worries us is the unprecedented high number of new cases in France, week after week… in this past week, we hit more than 13 000 cases of Covid-19 in France in a single day. Apparently, the high numbers can be explained by the large scale virus testing campaign in the country. Many of the new cases are without symptoms. But experts still forecast a saturation of hospital services in 15 days if the tendency continues….

Anyway, still no rehearsals at the Paris Opera this week. But I will rehearse for another gala performance next weekend in the South of France, in the city of Anglet (near Bordeaux). It is expected to be another exciting and uneasy adventure with all the sanitary restrictions and precautions. Another update, I might start a proper internship that I had been fighting for this Wednesday. Hopefully it will happen and will be another enriching experience! The good side is that many companies were forced to let their employees work from home since the pandemic and are more open to this option today. This would allow me to work mostly from home and continue my dancing at the Paris Opera at the same time.

And you? How are the sanitary restrictions affecting your life/work?