More participants are here at Kelly's
Probably a lot of you have never seen the Euro, which is now the official money for most of the European countries. It only exists since 2001 and we all had very hard to get used to this new currency. Just imagine that your actual currency would be replaced by a completely different one ? You have to get used to the value of all payable things, from food to a house. If you payed 100 X you suddenly have to pay 200 € or 50 € depending on the value of the local currency. In Belgium 40 francs were suddenly 1 € and in Germany 1 DM, 0,50 cents !
I got used to it by now but most of my friends still calculate in francs and the older once will probably never get used to the new currency and do their shopping with a calculator in their own country.
Fivty and twenty € bills and 2 and 1 € coins
a 10 € bill
All these countries changed to Euros : Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
Happy Friday.. I can understand the difficulties to adapt to the change of currency.. I have few euro's bill and coins.. from the left over trip before..
ReplyDeleteFirst time I've ever seen this. Thanks for sharing. I would be lost with all the conversions you have to do. Either that or have to carry a big calculator :)
ReplyDeleteFantastic Show n Tell Gattina. This brings a bit of European culture for us American bloggers. Love it.
ReplyDeleteNo I have never seen a Euro & I'm glad you showed it. I fear that our country will come to that too. I dont like the thought of it at all. Sounds complex.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was like that in the 60s when we changed from sterling to decimal currency. I used to convert it back to the old money, but after 40+ years we're so used to it now. It's so much easier to deal with.
ReplyDeleteBritain and Switzerland will take a long time to change. Euros are handy when travelling through european countries, you don't have to keep changing money.
ReplyDeleteNow that would by confusing. I have trouble enough figuring out the price of items when they have percentage markdowns.
ReplyDeleteMama Bear
That must have been very hard to get used too!
ReplyDelete~Kelli
Yes, I still have Euro's from Anneliese's trip to meet Isegrim. I'll be keeping those until th enext time I go over, probably in one year.
ReplyDeleteI'm used to it now. The only problem I have is that since we started using Euro's prices have gone up, slowly but very steadily. I know I better not count too much, but if you see what every day stuff costs sometimes, it makes your hair rise!
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how you would have to calculate the new cost of things. What a pain. Glad you are used to it now.
ReplyDeleteI can understand how difficult it would be to change to new currancy. My younger daughter has been to Europe a couple of times, and brought back Euros for us to see. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYou know... it HURT me when this happened -- and I've never been out of the states! But it BOTHERS me deeply that things like this happen! That each country's individuality and uniqueness is taken even in this small way! Of course, it all makes PERFECT sense - since you are so many countries in a small space -- and hop around in each other and back and forth through each other just like WE (Americans) go through the states! It would be ludicrous for each STATE to have it's own currency - and I guess that's the point behind the Euro -- but it is still SAD that the unique currencies are obsolete...
ReplyDeleteWe briefly saw the Euros whilst in Europe....they disappeared so quickly....lol. However, it was handy not having to change currency between countries, although it was back to Pounds in Britain.
ReplyDeleteWe changed to decimal currency back in the 1960s, but I don't think my MIL ever quite got the hang of it, consequently one never knew to which currency she was referring.
Imagine what it was like in Greece: 330 drachmas became 1 euro - the change was really drastic. Everyone seems to be used to it now, though.
ReplyDeleteI like the euro because it's so convenient when you travel between countries - also it appears to be more robust than the pound :-(