French President Emmanuel Macron said last year he wanted a rail pass for all, but after months of negotiations, a scaled-back version has been agreed.
and maybe not everywhere, but in belgium, i recall an very large optimism about the introduction of euro… Finally, we could travel more than 1,5 hours without having to worry about exchanging currencies. People forgot fast what a mess it all was before the unified coin and the open borders, just to go on holiday to a neighbouring country 150 km away…
Especially with the Dutch around and their insistence on 25 cents and 2 1/2 Gulden coins and 25 Gulden notes and argh. Schilling? 1:7 ratio to the Mark the maths was atrocious. Italy tended to be nice, more or less exactly 1:1000, though of course that was because I was lucky and they didn’t inflate the currency between my visits.
I’m sure it’s not the same in everyones memories, but I for example recall when I was a kid that some parents and teachers (the knowledge-hungry ones) were borderline crazy about the realisation that an entire encyclopedia of like 40+ big fat books could now fit on one tiny interactive CD-ROM and it being possible to search through it with key words… That’s even before it being constantly up to date and you fitting the entire wikipedia catalogue incl. pictures, maps offline on your pocket calculator if you wish so. The general idea was for sure that people would become so much smarter and more efficient with all knowledge in the world at their fingertips (a desktop-pc with a dial-up at best, mind you) and all that at barely any cost at all (while it cost super much to buy a pc compared to todays low end phones or laptops).
Turns out the majority of people spend the majority of their time with super-pocket-calculators playing clickbait wait-for-your-turn-and-watch-ads-or-pay-up-now games over learning new stuff, and fake news spreads a lot easier and faster than real facts. Badum-tish.
So in the same spirit, and because the wall fell and all that, the idea was for sure that people would come together in peace and understanding, because you could easily learn everything about everyone anywhere in the world.
I’m Gen Z, do you have another example of '90s EU optimism?
and maybe not everywhere, but in belgium, i recall an very large optimism about the introduction of euro… Finally, we could travel more than 1,5 hours without having to worry about exchanging currencies. People forgot fast what a mess it all was before the unified coin and the open borders, just to go on holiday to a neighbouring country 150 km away…
Especially with the Dutch around and their insistence on 25 cents and 2 1/2 Gulden coins and 25 Gulden notes and argh. Schilling? 1:7 ratio to the Mark the maths was atrocious. Italy tended to be nice, more or less exactly 1:1000, though of course that was because I was lucky and they didn’t inflate the currency between my visits.
I’m sure it’s not the same in everyones memories, but I for example recall when I was a kid that some parents and teachers (the knowledge-hungry ones) were borderline crazy about the realisation that an entire encyclopedia of like 40+ big fat books could now fit on one tiny interactive CD-ROM and it being possible to search through it with key words… That’s even before it being constantly up to date and you fitting the entire wikipedia catalogue incl. pictures, maps offline on your pocket calculator if you wish so. The general idea was for sure that people would become so much smarter and more efficient with all knowledge in the world at their fingertips (a desktop-pc with a dial-up at best, mind you) and all that at barely any cost at all (while it cost super much to buy a pc compared to todays low end phones or laptops).
Turns out the majority of people spend the majority of their time with super-pocket-calculators playing clickbait wait-for-your-turn-and-watch-ads-or-pay-up-now games over learning new stuff, and fake news spreads a lot easier and faster than real facts. Badum-tish.
https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=CtnoK68M3Zg
So in the same spirit, and because the wall fell and all that, the idea was for sure that people would come together in peace and understanding, because you could easily learn everything about everyone anywhere in the world.