European Anthem

Yesterday Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union.
Now the European Union has 27 member states.
On this occassion I realized that most of the almost 500 million Europeans don't know the European Anthem!

The Council of European Ministers officially announced the European Anthem on January 19th 1972: the prelude to "The Ode to Joy", 4th movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th symphony.
More info on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_anthem

Below you find links to the European Anthem:
Long version:http://www.etntalk.com/blogger/european_anthem_long.mp3 (2min27sec, 1.2Mb)
Short version:http://www.etntalk.com/blogger/european_anthem_short.mp3 (44sec, 90Kb)
Ringtone:http://www.etntalk.com/blogger/european_anthem_ringtone.mp3 (6sec, 41Kb)

Sorry, No Christmas presents this year!!

Sidewalk Art and Wall Art

One of the most viewed pages on the ETN websites has absolutely nothing to do with travel or the Internet.
It's about art by 'street' artists for whom I have great respect.

If I can help these endangered species with this page, I would be very satisfied.

Use these artists when you own an ugly building or when you live in a boring-looking street! You find their art on http://www.etntalk.com/sidewalk

Wasting billions of Euros on faster trains

I find it unbelievable that the Netherlands government spent (six?) billions of Euros on a new high-speed train track from Amsterdam to the Belgium border.

Ok, in 2008 passengers can travel by train from Amsterdam to Paris in 3 hours instead of 5 hours. So what?
If people want to be quickly in Paris, they better take a low-cost airline which only takes 1 hour. Or pick up the telephone and call Paris! Or start a video-conference!

For the amount of money wasted on this high-speed train, all homes in the Netherlands could have been connected to a high-speed data network.
This would have benefited all people in the Netherlands instead of the relatively few people who travel to Paris.

Low-cost Business Class airlines Europe - USA

Several months ago the first low-cost (100%) Business Class airlines started to operate between the U.K. and the USA

They are:
Eos Airlines http://www.eosairlines.com
MaxJet http://www.maxjet.com
Silverjet http://www.flysilverjet.com

Question: Should we include them under a separate heading on the ETN website www.LowCostAirlines.org ??
Let us know

Phone numbers available in El Salvador, Iran

On http://www.etn.nl/voip/phonenum.htm El Salvador and Iran were added as new countries where phone numbers are now available.

Calls to these numbers can be routed over the Internet to any telephone number in the World or to any Internet-connected telephone device

All together www.etnVoip.com now offers phone numbers in 50+ countries

Great Low-bandwidth AOL radio

This week I am in the Jungle Villa www.JungleVilla.com and unfortunately we have a very limited DSL line (128 Kbps!)
The Dutch radio stations on www.Nederland.fm use too much bandwidth to listen to.

So much to my surprise, www.AOLradio.com has low-bandwidth radio which gives uninterrupted music from 200+ radio stations.

This is the first service I use from AOL since May 1995 !!

Why this Blog?

Here I will tell and explain you about the updates and new pages of the website www.DiscountAirfares.com
Background info, why we add or don't add certain pages and recent updates.
Leave us your comments and I will try to answer them a.s.a.p.