We Don't Need No Stinkin' Euros!

No one will ever accuse the Belgians of giving up their traditions without a fight. I just read a blurb in the excellent, English-language weekly newspaper, Flanders Today, that, 8 years after the introduction of the Euro as the currency here and elsewhere, there are still 15 million Belgian franc notes in circulation, worth something like $10 billion. One can still use the franc as legal tender, though I have to say I have not actually seen any in the 2 years we've been here. Belgians seem behind most of the rest of Europe in so many areas, but here are just two more: 1) in converting restaurants to entirely non-smoking establishments, the Belgians trail even two of Europe's most famous human chimney nations, France and Italy. They apparently would rather fight than switch (you have to be real old to understand that one). 2) their license "plates," and I use the term loosely. They look like something East German Trabis might have had on them - some sort of mixture of paper, plastic, and metal. The paint fades so badly on them that I've actually seen a couple which are totally unreadable at 15 feet away. The mandate is to switch to the more modern European plates (I think glue-on numbers would be more modern here) by this summer, but the Belgians are moaning, claiming that this will do away with vanity plates. No such thing actually exists here - you can evidently choose your 2 or 3 letters and 3 numbers and that's it; nothing clever or original is possible. And yet they continue to fight. I wonder how you say "get over it!" in French...