Thinking of shopping on a Sunday? Not in Portugal. It all happens on Saturday morning, for clothes and food alike. Open air markets attract masses of people and shopping streets fill up. Halfway Saturday afternoon, most shops close their doors only to re-open them on Monday. If it wasn`t for the restaurants and supermarkets, the streets of the city would be empty on Sundays. How do people keep themselves busy when everything is shut?

Posted by Bruno

Many of the big European countries have a wide variety of different people within their boarders. Firstly on the individual level, secondly in the groups they belong to. Beside human barriers ? language, religion, habits, wealth ? these differences are often caused by natural reasons. Landscape, climate and the presence or absence of natural resources exercise major influences on the way people in a certain area behave.

Posted by Bruno

I`m a few days ahead of schedule, inserting another `personal reflections` article into the Us Europeans archive. The reason is fairly simple and straightforward. I have been following the news in The Netherlands quite closely while travelling, and am quite worried about what`s happening. Politicians are messing around with something they all label as `Dutch heritage` and which they see as the ideal future for The Netherlands: a future of national safety by social exclusion and religious separation, where freedom of expression means that people should be prepared to be insulted by people who have a different point of view.

Posted by Bruno