I have been travelling for most of this year, sometimes babysitting, sometimes going to other countries. It has been busy and enjoyable but with every up there are 3 downs and so it has proved to be. However I am an optimist so humour must take precedence over disaster.
I was sitting in a service station on the autoroute enjoying a coffee. An English couple, who appeared to be stone deaf were shouting at each other, not in anger, just trying to communicate. The woman spread all her Euro coins on the table and demanded to know how she was supposed to know which coins to spend in which country. Her husband picked some up and put them down again. Meanwhile his wife was complaining about how stupid the Euro was and it was a good job that the UK hadn't joined. I looked around the room to see people's reactions but clearly they didn't speak English so missed the insult to their currency. After about 10 minutes of the wife's complaining, her husband said, 'there are 27 countries in the EU so surely you can spend them anywhere', clearly oblivious to the fact that not all EU countries are in the Euro. 'Don't be stupid', his wife retorted, 'Spain aren't going to accept money from France are they?' 'I suppose not', said the husband.
Should I put them out of their misery I wondered but it was just too entertaining.
'Ok', said the husband, defeated, 'let's sort them out into different countries.' And so I left, their coins spread out all over the table and as I reached the exit I heard the wife exclaim, 'What about the notes?'
While on the subject of coins, I have just come back from Romania where they have developed an interesting method of making a profit. There are no coins but everything is priced as though there were. So if something costs 11 lei and you hand over a 10 lei and a 5 lei note that is that. No change and an instant profit of 4 lei. When I was living in Sudan there was the same problem so change was given in aspirin. Years later I was tossing out an old bag and found aspirin in it. It brought a smile to my face.
I was sitting in a service station on the autoroute enjoying a coffee. An English couple, who appeared to be stone deaf were shouting at each other, not in anger, just trying to communicate. The woman spread all her Euro coins on the table and demanded to know how she was supposed to know which coins to spend in which country. Her husband picked some up and put them down again. Meanwhile his wife was complaining about how stupid the Euro was and it was a good job that the UK hadn't joined. I looked around the room to see people's reactions but clearly they didn't speak English so missed the insult to their currency. After about 10 minutes of the wife's complaining, her husband said, 'there are 27 countries in the EU so surely you can spend them anywhere', clearly oblivious to the fact that not all EU countries are in the Euro. 'Don't be stupid', his wife retorted, 'Spain aren't going to accept money from France are they?' 'I suppose not', said the husband.
Should I put them out of their misery I wondered but it was just too entertaining.
'Ok', said the husband, defeated, 'let's sort them out into different countries.' And so I left, their coins spread out all over the table and as I reached the exit I heard the wife exclaim, 'What about the notes?'
While on the subject of coins, I have just come back from Romania where they have developed an interesting method of making a profit. There are no coins but everything is priced as though there were. So if something costs 11 lei and you hand over a 10 lei and a 5 lei note that is that. No change and an instant profit of 4 lei. When I was living in Sudan there was the same problem so change was given in aspirin. Years later I was tossing out an old bag and found aspirin in it. It brought a smile to my face.
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