Get into the car in the morning and drive through France into Belgium on the way to the Netherlands. And the only sign of change of country is a sign along the road that I almost missed. Nobody checked our (German) IDs and we did not need a passport.
Living in the #EU, we tend to take it for granted that we can easily cross borders. But it's an wonder, an achievement, something worth fighting for.
Indeed, I live in Luxembourg about 15 minutes from the Belgian "border". I quite often go shopping in Belgium where a few things are available that are difficult to find in Luxembourg. The French border is about 25 minutes away and often go over to France to get food from a street market or to eat in a decent restaurant.
Germany is about 45 minutes drive from me and their DIY stores make B+Q and the like look like a very expensive corner shop! So if I want something a bit out of the ordinary in the way of DIY supplies I go there.
Although technically I should carry a passport when crossing the border as I am not an EU citizen, I never do and in any case a driving license combined with an Article 50 resident's permit will normally keep the authorities happy in any EU country.
As you say crossing the "border" in a car, coach or truck is normally done at about 30 - 50 MPH on motorways (autoroutes or autobahns) and on back roads there is just a modest plaque that indicates you have left Luxembourg and tells you what the speed limits are in the country you have just entered - that's it!
Unfortunately, Britain is full of bigoted, racist imbeciles who rather cut off their nose to spite their face, i.e. leave the EU!
Farage must have been enraged by his colleagues at the EU parliament most of whom were sharper than he in two or three languages other than their mother tongue!
In Luxembourg, kids leave school speaking 3 languages fluently - they have to! The teaching at the early stages in school is conducted in Luxembourgish, then switches to French and finally to German so you can't get through school without speaking all three pretty damned well! English is also taught to almost all school kids after they have mastered the other three!
When you found ticks crawling up on your legs while hiking and now constantly think that every little birth mark or freckle is a tick attached to your skin... 😭😭😭
You don't owe anyone a follow (this includes me). Not even people you've been mutuals for a while. Not even people you know on real life. Not even people whose profile you check often.
Sometimes they just post too much. Or post stuff you don't want pop up on your list (but want to check on your terms). Or they start (re-)posting hate (you don't owe them a call out; especially not if you don't think it will go well). Sometimes they are lovely folks but just bore you with their favorite sports.
@vicgrinberg Yes! I enjoy the range of options here. I have regular pleasant interactions with several people I don't follow, and do short mutes of some people I do follow.
I usually don't follow unless we've been interacting a bit. When prev toots are all squarely in my interest zone I'll jump on.
I don't follow posters of parenting, kid updates, sports content, nor continuous outrage tooters, but might still enjoy interacting with them.
#TIL that German is the third official language in #Belgium (I thought it was only Dutch and French!) and that there are more folks speaking Dutch than French as their first language in Belgium (I thought it was the other way around!).
@bert_hubert that reminds me of the confusion Austrian and Swiss radio stations always cause me (my partner and thus part time also I live close to both borders 😅)
@vonneudeck oh, I totally believe that! It's just that in my brain for some reason the proportions were vastly different from the official numbers, whatever they are worth.
I love book recommendation lists but they often tend to upset me. My favorite kinds of lists are either international lit (where I am usually upset that there are not enough women represented) or books by non-male folks (where I am upset that it's often mostly English-writing folks).
So: here is a list of my personal recommendations of books by women in (English) translation. One book for every day of June. Feel free to join - doesn't have to be every day!
Mariama Bâ - "Une si longue letter / So Long a Letter / Ein so langer Brief"
I remembered reading the book some 15 years ago and being thoroughly impressed by a world so different from my own - both in terms of society (I know almost nothing about Senegal!) and the viewpoint of a then much older women having lived such a different live.
Ingeborg Bachmann - one of the most important voices of post WWII German-language literature (not German, but Austrian). One of the main German-language literature prizes is named after her.