And that's the kind of thing I am talking about. Why would I want to spend big money visiting another country, when people are going to vandalize my car for no better reason than that I am an American? Lemmesee, I can spend $10,000 visiting Europe and being held personally responsible for whatever wrongs the locals feel my country has done and generally being treated like dirt because of my nationality OR I can spend $2000 and take my kids to Disneyland andbe just another face in the crowd. Tough decision, that.....
Wow.
You seriously need to control your prejudices of how other countries view Americans - especially European countries.
I'm appalled to see such blatant ignorance and xenophobia. Really. You need to travel more often.
And how much of that area could a Dane reach, without a passport, ten years ago?
What does that have to do with anything? FYI, it hasn't changed one bit. You would know this, if you had made the effort of educating yourself about these issues.
Europe is huge. It's a continent. European countries, by the standards of the Western Hemisphere, are tiny, which is why prior to the establishment of document-free travel as part of the development of the EU, passports were essential for Europeans in a way that they weren't for Americans.
Sure, Europe is huge. It's bigger than the US. Which you didn't know, because you were too lazy to educate yourself about geographical matters.
Thanks for proving my point.
Which is why I suggested that you might want to fly, instead. Taking some reading classes might help you as well.
I read and understood perfectly. You thought you could drive 500 km due south from Copenhagen. Well, gee: You can't.
Although you can actually drive 500km due south from Copenhagen. You just need a rather specialized vehicle (and a hell of a lot of fuel), but these vehicles are fairly widely available on the military surplus market (and used a lot in various parts of the tourism trade).
Har-har-har.
Depends on how you drive and how bad the Low Countries traffic is.
That goes for driving in the US, too. So? I'm sure you don't want to talk about how congested US highways are.
You've missed the point that nowhere in the United States do you have three large-sized distinct linguistic communities with a 700km drive of each other. The only place you'd find anything remotely like that would be on some of the larger Indian reservations, where English is more commonly spoken than the various tribal languages in the first place.
What does it matter if you have to drive through distinct linguistic communities? You can easily get by in Europe, even with your limited American-English.
Do you mean the 1985 agreement on document-free travel to which Denmark wasn't a part, or do you mean the 1990 convention that ratified it EU-wide?
I am talking about the present one, of course.
And if you're discussing the possbility of document-free travel as a practical matter, the dates of interest are probably either 1995, when it officially came into effect, or '99, when it was officially incorporated into EU law, since you would still have needed a passport for much of Europe even that late. And since we're discussing Denmark in particular -- Denmark didn't actual implement the Schengen Agreement until late '96.
So? We are talking about today.
So, basically, it's been less than ten years that Danes have been able to enjoy document-free travel throughout a fairly substantial minory of the European continent.
I see that you have only glanced at the information without actually understanding it, thereby once again underlining my point about the necessity to have an inkling of geographical knowledge. Danes can't travel document-free: We have to carry our passports with us, except when travelling to Norway and Sweden.
But don't let that stop you from ranting about how little Danes have needed passports....
WTF does that have to do with how you can travel in Europe today? I couldn't travel without identifying myself during the Napoleonic Era either. So? I can travel passport-free in Norway and Sweden.
Given that you have exhibited an abysmal lack of knowledge about European matters, do you think it might be a good idea for you to take a few geography classes?
If there are also individual states in the continental Europe where you can drive 500 km in a straight line without leaving the state, what is your point?
How many countries can you travel to, from the US, within seven hours, by car? How many of them are non-english speaking?
Remind me, but when did it become a necessity for travelling that the countries you visited would have to be English-speaking?
Where I am, I can drive 20 hours north, and still be hours away from leaving my province.
.........and?
Did I say it was anything other than anecdotal? Americans are treated completely differently than Canadians in my experience. I can recall instances where they were charged more for their rooms, or meals, or had their passports taken by border guards, and had to pay to get them back - where the same border guard didn't even open mine before tossing it back to me. I have photos (not digital, unfortunately), of anti-American graffiti all over various cities, from 2000.
ETA: A lot of it in Italy, especially Rome. Not sure why.
This calls for hardcore evidence. In the absence, I'm sure you don't mind if I dismiss that as anti-European slur. Do you?
