lecture in Lisbon tomorrow

HERE.

It will be my first time in Portugal since 2002. I was there on vacation with my father that time, but also happened to be there for Portugal’s fancy Euro rollout at midnight on January 1, 2002, replete with a laser-generated hologram of the Euro symbol.

Thinking I ought not to miss this historical moment, I stood in line at a bank on January 1 for a good long time to get a sample of the new currency. It turned out later that I was simply in line behind dozens of paranoid pensioners who thought they needed to trade in all their escudos that day or lose their life savings. In fact, you could already get as many Euros as you wanted from ATMs and even as change at McDonald’s. It was a complete waste of time, but an interesting sociological experience.