I'm going to be taking off for a couple weeks after school is out, and when I travel I like to have some cash on me. You never know when it will come in handy.
So I went to the bank today, and en route I remembered that in less than a month I'll be in Canada. Anyone who's traveled much knows that the way to get cash in a foreign country is to use the ATMs, but I figured if I'm going to the bank anyway....
I had a few dozen Canadian dollars stashed away from my last trip up north, and now I have an additional week's worth on hand. I can go to an ATM if I need more.
(Why not use my credit card? Well, I can, but to me, part of the fun of travel is using the local currency.)
I used to like that too, but then Europe went to the Euro and then it became routine. I have to admit that I like the Euro economically. I used to travel a couple different countries at a time and you get killed on the exchange rate trading dollars for Marks, Marks for Francs, Francs for Pesos, Pesos for Escudo. Now I can exchange dollars to Euros and be done with it.
ReplyDeleteIt is also fun to collect a one Euro coin from each of the EU countries. Each have the same front but the back is country-specific.
I get the convenience, what I miss is the "character". And let's face it, the only money more boring than the euro is the US dollar.
ReplyDeleteI loved German Marks as a kid. Every French franc bill should have been framed in a museum. And the Austrian schilling? Nice! Swiss francs could have been nicer, but Italian lire were always cool.
Next summer I'm probably going to take a North America trailer trip. I'll need pesos and more Canadian dollars.