The other day a dear colleague wrote to us in regards to the current situation: "Life is mental right? Fucking nuts." Nothing to add here.

Pretty much the whole world is in a lockdown, united in one global annoyance about these little virus buggers and sharing restrictions, anxieties and uncertainty of what will come. It seems just like R.E.M. sang it: "It's the end of the world as we know it ". As over-dramatic as it may sound, chances really are we will never come back to the old normal. While this can be scary, at The Arcade we are actually excited about this. Because no matter what happens, something new will arise from this. And for the time being, we choose to believe this will be something good. You know, as opposed to world domination by some dude with a bad haircut and strange skin colour, or the end of all humanity.
Hear me right, we are not celebrating what is happening right now. Like you, we all have families and friends that are massively affected by the coronavirus in various and partly existential ways. But since it is what it is, we might as well look at the bright side of this shit show and cherish the fact that we are currently witnessing a historic event that will change our world in one way or the other.

We grew up on T.V. shows, movies and games that told stories about new beginnings, secret worlds, global conspiracies, adventures in alien worlds and global changes. And you probably found yourself at some moment thinking "Wow, if this would happen! Imagine being there! ". Well, we are here now. Now we get to live in a time when the whole world is shocked to its knees and forced to look at a whole lot of unpleasantries we might have kept ignoring. To use one popular example, just take a look at our nurses, doctors, bus drivers, garbagemen and other "system relevant" people. They were there before. And did what they do now. And everyone knew about their proportionately shitty pay. Yet, only now do we truly realize how much value they hold, and always have held. Many people around the globe are increasingly experiencing benefits that are hard to measure, like compassionate, unrestricted and unselfish emotional support. We stay at home, not just for our safety but for those who carry the most significant risk. We get to stand together and refuse to let this get us down. With the risk of sounding theatrical, this can be an excellent chance for humanity to get closer to each other.

For now, though, we all need to stay at home and keep our physical distance from those we love and care about to keep them and ourselves save.
At The Arcade we closed our doors for the time being and are now using the oldest trick in the book to distract us from the outside developments. What every student does when she needs to prepare for exams. What your parents force you to do, even though it is not necessary. What is done when the stage is cleared, the lights are on, and everybody went home. We are cleaning. It goes without saying that as a hotel we do this constantly, but now we are taking it to a whole new level. Ripping apart the offices, refurbishing the rooms and fixing whatever comes in our way. We are on fire!
Obviously, we would rather not have been forced by some microscopical villain to close our hotel. He decides to hitch a ride in every human biosystem, he can get his hand on, and we have to pay the price. In favour of the contemporary gender discussion, I am assuming this sucker probably is a guy, and ugly, and fat. 
But now that we are at it, we realize we are preparing for a big day. This is like the days before Christmas when the whole house is being decorated. Or when you are throwing a party and its those last hours before the first guests arrive. In one word: Anticipation. 
We can't wait for the first guest to walk through our door again. We are eager to open our hotel back to geeks and gamers from around the globe.

Turns out anticipation can be a powerful antidote against depression. Well and, our unscientific add on to this finding: Probably also helpful to not freak the "f" out after a couple of consecutive weeks at home with your kids, your husband, the dog and no balcony or garden. Most of us are dreaming up that bright and shiny post-corona future. The freedom of going wherever we wish, our friends around us, sunshine in our face, wind in our hair, beer in our hand, dating without physical distancing, and the experience of new exciting places that ideally are located far far away from those 4 walls we were tucked in for the past weeks.

Planing anything now seems a bit off, especially with the financial constraints many of you are experiencing. So we came up with an idea to support you in planning for a trip, of which we all can not yet say when it can happen.

While we all wait for this to end, we would like to invite you to share your experiences and anticipations around your current situation. What new superpower will we develop as a society? What will we do, once this is over and done with? Will we just go back to the same old same old? What can we take from all of this? What was the best thing you personally experienced in these last weeks?
We would love to collect your stories and share them with everyone here in our magazine. Send us your contribution to: stories@arcadehotel.nl
And hopefully, very soon we can all come together again and share our stories in person.

We made a promise to ourselves and to the world: Be Excellent To Each Other. It is our credo and the single most important rule for everything that happens in our hotel. We hung this over our entrance as a reminder and invitation for everyone to join in. Whatever happens in the next weeks, remember: this too shall pass. And something new will arise from it. We have the opportunity to be part of a change. Who knows, maybe when this is over we will have learned to appreciate each other a bit more.

Now go watch the brilliant video of "OK GO" for their song of the same name. And then watch this one. Thank us later.

Stay strong. Be save. Share love.